REFLECTION 1: MY PRACTICE WITHIN A COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

A Community of Practice (COP) is a social learning system. Wenger (2000) defines COP specifically as “groups of people who share a concern or a passion or about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interaction on an ongoing basis”. Wenger describes three distinct elements through which people participate in the COP – joint enterprise, mutual engagement, and shared repertoire.

I belong to a number of COPs, which fall into two main categories - 

·        Curriculum-based (Humanities Department, Careers Department, Curriculum Team Leaders Committee, ICT Committee) and Pastoral-based (House System).  

The COP I am going to focus on here is the Humanities Department. We are a small collective made up of myself, the HOD, and two beginning teachers (PCTs). My role within this COP is multi-faceted as I am a leader, a manager, a professional development tutor, an advisor, a mentor, and an administrator. To look at how these various roles manifest themselves and how the COP operates, I am going to refer to Wenger’s three elements:

Joint-enterprise (or the shared domain)

According to Wenger (2000) this is the “collectively developed understanding of what the community is about”. The members of our COP are all committed to promoting and supporting student learning, presenting diverse and vibrant programmes, experiences and opportunities, and challenging students to achieve personal standards of excellence and reach their full potential. For the Humanities Department, we share a purpose to deliver the Humanities Department philosophy and vision as best we can:

Through the teaching of the Social Sciences, we aim to advance students’ sociological understanding of the world and promote social empathy, within the framework of Buller High School’s:

·       targets (student achievement, student, and staff wellbeing)

·       mission (ready for the challenges of tomorrow)

·       vision (meeting future challenges by raising expectations through quality education and experiences in an environment that allows everyone to be their best)

·       goal (striving for excellence through high expectations)

Although the purpose is shared, this understanding of our COP has not been collectively developed. For the past two years our department has experienced frequent staff changes. As of the middle of this year, our COP is now fully staffed with subject specialists. This will hopefully give us more scope in the future for shared development. The two beginning teachers are new to teaching but not to the workforce; they both have diverse experiences in the working world and this will be positive for the evolution of our COP.

What Knox (2009) refers to as a collective sense of belonging will hopefully grow through our mutual engagement.  

Mutual engagement

The interactions within this COP are predominantly face-to-face. We meet formally as a department three times per term and I meet individually with each PCT once a week, as a mentor. With our classrooms being in close proximity, our most important interactions are the daily, informal contacts we have with each other. We have also established an “open door” policy where “walk-throughs” are encouraged amongst the COP participants so we can observe and learn from each other. The aim is get the balance just right between respecting teachers’ personal autonomy and encouraging their agency, while promoting positive and collaborative relationships within a department. Our interactions are not yet consistently equal in contribution, given the two PCTs are ‘newbies’ with limited teaching experience, but regardless of their level of teaching experience, their voices and agency are no less important than mine. We engage online, through Google Docs and Office 365, for collaboration on the department’s administrative and data management responsibilities.  

Shared repertoire

Our COP communal resources have predominantly been created by me prior to the arrival of the PCTs. As these colleagues gain experience, expertise and confidence, I hope this aspect of our COP will become truly shared.  

With the now more stable membership of our Humanities Department, I am optimistic that we will develop and grow our Community of Practice together and pursue the vision of the distant horizon, by achieving the goals at hand -  whāia te pae tawhiti kia tata, whāia te pae tata whakamaua kia tina.

Reference List

Knox, B. (2009, December 4). Cultivating Communities of Practice: Making Them Grow. [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhMPRZnRFkk

Wenger, E. (2000). Communities of practice and social learning systems. Organization,7(2), 225-246.