Reflecting on my practice is something I do often, mostly in private, and that it has probably been more reactive than proactive. But as I delve deeper into readings and my Mindlab journey, I feel that I have not had the depth that I should in my reflection. It is one thing to reflect at face value but a completely different thing to reflect critically. My research and new learning has led me to look deeper at the 'why' of my teaching practice. It has shown me the importance of relational trust with trust with my teaching colleagues, both accepting their ideas and also being able to be honest and open about my own practice.
Writing this blog is really the first step in this process as it asks us to be open and honest. This is not an easy thing to do, but I'm willing to give it a try and put myself on that wobbly bridge of learning!
Community of Practice
Wenger-Trayner (2015) talk about a Community of Practice (CoP) as a group that is "formed by people who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human behaviour". Within a school environment then, it is easy to see how a multitude of CoP's can exist. On reflection, I belong to a variety of CoP's. First and foremost is my school community. This is then also broken down into smaller communities of our Junior team and, my most recent CoP, my co-teaching Pod. Last year I began teaching in a new teaching space with a new teaching partner. We teach year 2/3 children in a collaborative learning environment.
It is this CoP where I have really been challenged professionally and had real engagement with a true community of practice. My teaching partner and I came into this with our own experiences and knowledge. For it to be successful, and to achieve the best outcomes for our students, it was crucial for us to outline some common goals and to begin to be on the same page.
Domain
In our domain, we have the shared interest of positive outcomes for all our students at the core of all that we do. Wenger-Trayner (2015) highlight that within a CoP, members must have a "commitment to the domain" and also "value their collective competence and learn from each other". I believe that a willingness to learn from each other is a crucial component in our practice. This has required us to show an element of vulnerability at times and to acknowledge that maybe we aren't sure about something and to ask each other for help. When I was in a single cell classroom this was not often something I did but is now becoming a natural process. I think one of the bonuses has been allowing each other to play to our strengths and support the other teacher in their weaker areas, thus resulting in us both improving our practice as a whole. Our roles have become more fluent and adaptable in our space as we react to the student's needs and complement our strengths. At times we lead and at other times we follow but we are always both actively involved in our CoP.
Community
Relationships are at the core of all of this being successful. For us, we were lucky that we struck a connection early on and that we had many shared philosophies, as teaching in a shared environment is just not something you can do in isolation. Even though we are responsible for a class of children each within our Pod, we look at all the students in our Pod as 'ours'. This has resulted in us having constant conversations about all our students, both formal and informal and sharing ideas about ways to support our learners and improve our classroom practice. This is ongoing and daily. Even though we are in our second year together, we now have a completely new set of students with completely different needs this year and this has resulted in us having to change many of the processes and systems that we had set up last year.
Practice
We have regular meetings before and after school to plan, discuss students needs and ways we can support them, share ideas and reflect on our practice. We now both plan together and all our planning is on Google Docs. This year we are delving deeper into Teacher as Inquiry and using Spirals of Inquiry. This will help to support us in focusing more of the "why" of what we doing and not so much on the 'what".
Professional development has become more powerful as we are trying new things together and having those immediate and purposeful professional conversations about their effectiveness. Reflection is a constant process for us, as what works for us one day might not work the next and so we are forever adapting what we do. This also means that we have to be open to challenging ourselves and trying new things in our ILE.
References
Wenger-Trayner, B. & E. (2015). Introduction to communities of practice: A brief overview of the concept and its uses. Retrieved from http://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/
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