Reflection 1

Reflection 1: My practice within the community

A community of practice is only effective when three essential elements are combined together to support a collective group; ‘joint enterprise, mutual engagement and shared repertoire’ (Wenger, 2000).

I belong to a few community of practices;

• Professional Learning Group; Mindlab Unitec and Seesaw Ambassador Programme
• School staff
• Junior Syndicate
• School Cluster, working alongside three other schools

For the purpose of this journal reflection, I will be focusing on our school’s cluster group, where we work alongside three other schools.

Domain:

Through the MOA Kluster that I am a part of, our four schools work alongside each other to upskill our own professional knowledge and experiences. For the past 2 years, we have gone away for three days to different regions in New Zealand to visit other schools. This has been an incredible learning opportunity to engage with members from different schools and to see what learning looks like in different contexts.

Activities and Events:

We meet every term at one of our four cluster schools. Each school shares information and experiences that would be relevant to everyone. In between the times that we meet, our school staff are engaging with the same overall learning goals that the other schools are also doing, but in our own school context. We are collaboratively upskilling our own learning by learning in a collective environment, not individually. What is important is that through this cluster, individuals are able to share their professional strengths to support each other.

Although each of our four cluster schools are conducting their own professional learning journey through a curriculum area in their own space, we all come together to produce a community event where each classroom is able to share that knowledge of the key curriculum area, in one shared space. For example, this year each of the four schools is focusing on science, so in Term 3 the four schools will come together for a science fair.

What does our community look like?

Our community defines what collaborative learning entails. I am an active member and I have been fortunate to have been able to share different aspects at these meetings. Last year I talked about Seesaw. What is important through this community of practice is that everyone is able to learn something new, or solidify something that previously thought, through a respectful and forward-thinking environment.

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