Contribution of Teacher Enquiry topics to my Communities of Practice

Contribution of Teacher Enquiry topics to my Communities of Practice

Descriptive

When I think about Communities of Practice I realise that doing the Mindlab course for the past 19 weeks Is like being in a COP. For me getting to know the 2 other staff members from our school doing the course and all the other Primary and High school teachers on the course has been the best part. Wenger (1998)

Defines a Community of Practice as 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. 

Comparative

The 3 of us from our school worked in different subject areas Maths,Social Studies and Technology, however,we all were working on using Digital for learning in the classroom and trying to use Collaboration to increase achievement in our subject areas. We came together once a week and shared our experiences in our subject areas with what we were trying each week. We also encouraged one another with the Digital Apps we were trying and I personally improved my Digital app use in the classroom purely from the stories and experiences of the other 2 in our COP. I can safely say I am now sold on Padlet as digital tool in the classroom for collecting student voice based on Aron's success stories.

Critical Reflection

In teaching we are always making plans to get together to talk about stuff but life gets in the way and Department meetings come up and all sorts of things hinder us so it was great having that set time once a week for Mindlab where a group of like minded people (COP)got together and shared their journey sometimes it was nice and gentle storytelling and sometimes it was thought provoking but it always made me think about my teaching practice and what does that mean for for my students. (Wenger, McDermott & Snyder, 2002, COP is a groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interaction on an ongoing basis. Our group from my school shared our Digital and Collaboration journey by doing the last assignment together which was really enlightening and showed that you do not have to be in the same subject area to be in a Community of Practice. Moving forward I now am more confident in using and trying new Digital apps like Peardeck and Padlet and also have created more lessons where the students have to collaborate in different groups rather than with just their friends.

References

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wenger,Mcdermott&Snyder (2002)Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing knowledge. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Reflection on Future orientated Learning and Teaching

Reflection on Future orientated Learning and Teaching.

Description:

I tried to incorporate the things I have learned in Mindlab in my classroom teaching coupled with thinking how do I stack up as a teacher in the 21st Century. In my Graphics class I did a lesson to try and get the students to collaborate. I gave them a strange looking design idea off a Pinterest  site and asked them to tell me what they thought it was. They shared their thoughts through a Padlet thus giving the whole class an opportunity to engage anonymously which the kids really love. They then had to work in groups to design something from my idea and sell it to the class by presenting in front of the class as a group and then vote for the best solution with the winner group getting a pizza.

My Feelings

I was not sure if it would work because a large number of the class was ESOL students and they did not mix easily because of the language barrier. But I was hopeful because everybody appeared to have given an answer in the Padlet but It was still anonymous so I did not really know. The class had a good vibe as they worked in teams and there was good buzz in most of the teams and I had to hold myself from intervening where I thought a team had gone quiet as I wanted the students to collaborate without prompts from me.

Evaluation and analysis.

The students blew me away with their design ideas and how different each group was. What surprised me was their teamwork in the presentation of their ideas. Making it a competition really spurred the students and having a food prize also helped but seeing the ESOL students  collaborating was the cherry on top. Voting also surprised me as thee students picked an idea I would not necessarily say was the best on the day but their choice so I had to respect their opinion. Padlet was also good for collecting student voice about working together. Most found it more helpful than working on an idea by themselves. Something to think about when doing project work is What people are calling a lot of things project-based learning is not necessarily high quality learning experiences for kids. Katrina Schwartz 2018. Negatives I found in my lesson were that group-work is never an equal contribution even though the group grade is the same for everyone. Using Padlet for the first time did lead to some fun comments coming up on the screen but nothing too outrageous.

Conclusion and Action Plan.

I think collaboration is a valuable thing in the classroom and I need to create tasks that will help students to engage with one another in a meaningful way and for it to be part of their daily practice. The challenge of moving from the old classroom style of teaching students where they sit in front of you and listen and then do something by themselves is upon us and My action plan is to do more activities that get them engaging with more people be it in the classroom or in the real world or in online communities.

References

Finlay, L. (2009). Reflecting on reflective practice. Practice-based Professional Learning Centre, Open University. Retrieved from  http://www.open.ac.uk/opencetl/sites/www.open.ac.uk.opencetl/files/files/ecms/web-content/Finlay-(2008)-Reflecting-on-reflective-practice-PBPL-paper-52.pdf

Katrina Schwartz (2018) The six must have elements of high quality project based learning.

Reflective Practice blog

Week 17- My Reflective Practice.

1^St April 2018

Descriptive Stage.

For years’ reflective practice in my learning area consisted of the three of us in our department “chewing the fat” each day at lunchtime talking about our lessons, what went wrong, what was good and how we could use one another’s good ideas and not make the same mistakes and also come back and share how it went if we were trying something for the first time. Nowadays reflective practice seems more formal and very constructed and there needs to be a paper trail proving that you are doing it in your classes and you are taking the students feedback as part of the reflective process by gathering student voice.I think as teachers we should always be prepared to learn from our mistakes and successes thus Reflecting should be ongoing and a daily or weekly activity that we should be doing. The only problem is making time to actually do it properly.

Comparative

I have never been afraid to voice my opinion or share my thoughts about how things went in a lesson with my Colleagues in our department but I shudder when I think about sharing with people that I do not know or know well. I am amazed at how brave and honest people are that blog and use all the technology of today to talk to the world their thoughts and ideas. Funny enough I do find it helpful to read peoples sharings and I nod to myself in agreement when they talk about similar things that I have experienced in a classroom. I thus tend to agree with Boud when he talks about reflective practice. In general reflective practice is understood as the process of learning through and from experiences towards gaining new insights of self and or practice ( Boud et al 1985;Boyd and Fales 1983; Mezirow,1981,Jarvis, 1992) Reflecting can also give me an opportunity to examine what is not working in the classroom and lead me to make improvements to rectify the situation and also to get student voice to make sure I have solved or improved it.

Critical Reflection

After reading Linda Finlays article on reflective practice (2009)and working with my Community of Learning Colleagues at our school I have come to the realisation that reflective practice is not bound to your subject area and the teachers in your department but is more of a teaching collaboration and putting our heads together and nutting out solutions that teachers could use in their classrooms and blogging though personally uncomfortable for me is just another change process that I have to adapt to in my teaching practice and I should use it as my students are adapting and changing all the time so why should I remain the same.

REFERENCES

Findlay (2009) Reflecting on reflective practices,

Boud (1985) Reflection .Turning experience into learning.