Contribution of Teacher Inquiry Topics to my Communities of Practice

It was with some trepidation this week I approached the topic of Communities of Learning (CoL) I realised that it wasn’t as foreign topic as what I had originally though.

I realised that when I stopped and thought about the definition given by Wenger et al. (2002), and recorded in our class notes – a CoL is a ‘group of individuals participating in communal activity, and experiencing/continuously creating their shared identity through engaging in and contributing to the practices of their communities’. That I had in fact been involved in a number of Teacher Inquiries that involved contribution as Teacher Inquiry Topics.

I reflected on a couple of Teacher Inquiry topics I have been involved in and thought about how they tie in with Wenger’s three distinct elements:

-        - joint enterprise,

-       - mutual engagement  

-        - shared repertoire

(Wenger, 2000).

The following teacher inquiries I have been involved in do have Wenger’s three elements.

 After watching the video by Knox I actually realised that in fact I had been doing a lot of work around this topic and in fact a major Inquiry topic I had been involved in was the work we have been doing through the Mindlab, through our blog, through the G+ Community, through our facebook page, the Mindlab Twitter Feeds etc all of which means that we, the participants of The Postgraduate Certificate in Applied Practice (Digital and Collaborative Learning) are a Community of Learning and the topic that we are working through is very much one of Teacher Inquiry.

The impact this has had on me as a teacher has been significant and very much a teacher led inquiry into my own teaching practice, the teaching practice of my colleagues and the impact I have had on student development.

This also closely tied into an Internal Evaluation I started at school this year as team leader for E-Learning, around digital technologies, the new digital curriculum and the changing direction for teachers and their students.

The way digital technologies are going, we must inquire into our own teaching practice and those teachers around us. It is only through reflection, open dialogue and a mutual desire to embrace what is happening in the world around us are we going to make an impact. I have found the strategies and guidance from the Rubrics ITL Research. (2012). Such a useful and helpful part of my learning journey and other teachers can see the benefits, as well as opening opportunities for open dialogue and critiquing of current practice.

Two other Teacher Inquiries I have been involved in are

A personal inquiry of mine has been around leadership and I have had the privilege of working in a stimulating and challenging way with teachers from my own school as well as teachers from 5 other local schools.

An area team teacher inquiry into supporting our identified priority learners in reading, writing and mathematics which looked at depth into teacher practice and how we can raise student achievement levels of our struggling students – this was within in my own team, but also had moments where we were able to work with teachers from across our school

One thing I don't think we do enough of is develop Communities of Learning across the sector - MindLab is the first opportunity I've had to work with 3 different sectors within the Education System - would be nice to do more of this.

ITL Research. (2012). 21CLD Learning Activity Rubrics. Retrieved from https://education.microsoft.com/GetTrained/ITL-Research

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., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Man

Wenger, E.(2000). Communities of practice and social learning systems. Organization,7(2), 225-246.aging Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.