Activity 1: My Community of Practice

What is a Community of Practice?

As described by Wenger-Trayner (2015) “communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.” Communities of practice (COP) define competence as we develop a shared understanding of what the community is about, and our colleagues hold us accountable for what is considered good practice. Wenger (2000) refers to this as joint enterprise. Two other elements help define a COP: mutual engagement, which refers to the interactions between the community that establishes norms and builds relationships; and shared repertoire, which are the “communal resources” or shared practice that the community develop (Wenger, 2000, p.229).

 My Communities of Practice

As a teacher, I belong to a number of COP, starting with the school I teach at. We have a school-wide vision with a focus on the emotional and academic well-being of our students. As a community, the teachers not only develop resources that we share amongst ourselves, we develop a shared language too. Ours is underpinned by our school Values, and the latest whole school initiative or professional development we have.

Within the framework of the school I am part of smaller communities too. I am a member of the Year 2/3 teaching team, and I also work in a two-teacher pod, and my colleague and I make up our own COP. We work very closely together, sharing our passions, enthusiasm and resources; and we are also accountable to each other.

Something that is interesting about COP in our school is just how fluid membership can be. Members come and go as teachers move between different teaching areas in the school, or pick up different curriculum units.  As dynamics change with membership, it highlights why it is important that the community’s focus and interest aligns with that of the schools.

Sometimes completely new COP emerge. This year our school applied for, and was granted the Teacher Lead Innovation Fund (TLIF), and I am a member of the Project Team for this. Our proposal was to investigate if  teaching growth mindset to our students would increase their resilience, impacting on their  academic achievement and well-being. The three dimensions of communities of practice (Wenger, 2000, p. 230) are all present in our initiative:

• Enterprise: Being part of a small focus group with the responsibility of spearheading the research for this, and being answerable to school management and the Ministry of Education, we are all dedicated to leading the development of this project and inquiring to define best practice.

• Mutuality: We meet regularly as a group to give and receive feedback for each other on our lesson plans and activities. We openly and honestly discuss the successes and failures of our innovations. Because of this we have a high level of trust in the group established through addressing problems and planning together.

• Repertoire: We are very aware that in order to innovate, and then implement this school wide, we need to build a bank of our own resources and our own language.

Due to the nature of this COP, every member of the group is a leader - we bring our own innovations, stories and opinions, and it is important we voice them. We are all also brokers, brokering knowledge between communities (Wenger, 2000, p. 235). Our roles are to share our practice with our teaching teams throughout the school teaching community, and in the parent community.

The communities I belong to shape my beliefs and actions as a teacher. They help me hone my skills as a professional and keep me accountable to always be striving to be the best educator I can be for my students.

References:

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

Wenger-Trayner. 2015. Introduction to communities of practice. Retrieved from http://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/