Week 19 - Communities of Practice
A 'Community of Practice' (CoP) is defined as “groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic,
and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interaction on an ongoing basis” (Wenger et al 2000).
The two areas of practice I inquiring into are:
Key Competencies in Leadership - How can a deeper understanding of the key competencies develop my own leadership skills?
Blended Learning - How can I use a range of digital tools to support the design of flipped learning tasks?
Description:
One Community of Practice I belong to is with my two teaching partners - this meets the criteria of a Community of Practice (CoP).
We have a shared domain of interest with the 85 year 5 & 6 students we are responsible for teaching and learning with in our ILE.
We are a community as we work at building relationships that enable us all to learn and grow from each other.
We are practitioners as we regularly meet, converse and share information to improve our teaching practice and outcomes
for our students.
I belong to a Community of Practice through my within school position in our Community of Learning. (CoL)
- this meets the criteria of a CoP.
We have a shared domain of interest that encompasses a range of schools throughout our community to improve
learning outcomes for our students.
We are a community that meets both formally and informally to interact and learn from each other. As Nick Leffer (2015) wrote
it is the "Discussions and the group have to form organically and discussions have to happen naturally. "
We are practitioners as we discuss problems, share resources, share experiences that can have an impact on our own
teaching practice.
Comparative:
Jane Bozarth (2017) identified the following points about being a part of a CoP.
"Community members help make meaning and transfer it to their practice."
"it’s a shared interest and passion for work, and a desire to improve."
"Over time members learn who knows what, who is good at what, who has expertise or connections."
This is my second year in a CoL and as we evolve I can identify all the above points as a part of a successful CoP.
Critical Reflection:
By participating and contributing in CoP's provide a forum to articulate and unpack my thinking around my two inquiry topics.
By belonging to a CoP that is outside of my immediate school environment can offer differing perspectives on the topic being discussed.
I can contribute through my own experiences and offer research that may support our thinking through my Mindlab study.
Having unpacked what a CoP actually is has renewed to me the importance of belonging, participating and contributing
as I move through my teaching as inquiry.
References
Bozarth, Jane. (2017) Nuts and Bolts: Communities of Practice.
Retrived from:
Leffler, Nick. (2015) Communities of Practice need some Practice.
Retrieved from:
Wenger, E.(2000). Communities of practice and social learning systems. Organization,7(2), 225-246.
Wenger-Trayner, E., & Wenger-Trayner, B. (2015). Introduction to communities of practice: A brief overview of the concept and its uses.
Retrieved from
Hi Kathy... just interested in your two topics especially about how a deeper understanding of the key competencies can support your leadership and those of your CoP. My research topic was about that topic. The thing for me is that the KC's need to be assessed enough to have the community ie parents take them seriously but not so much they lose the holistic approach in seeing th whole child. We are increasingly using Seesaw to show our students work to parents but even within that tool I feel comfortable to collaborate with our teachers on something like rubrics to ensure criteria is placed around what is posted online.
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