Practice practice practice

Critically define practice against concepts of Communities of Practice

To define my practice, it is important to me to understand what Communities of Practise entails. Community of Practice are 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 interacting on an ongoing basis (Wegner et al.,2002, p.4.)  My first thought about my community of practice is my syndicate within my school.  In such a group, we work collaboratively to solve problems, share ideas, and develop relationships.  After reading Cultivating Communities of Practice (Knox, 2009) I realise that it goes beyond just that. 

As teachers, we are involved with so many different people and we have such a significant impact on their lives.  Students, colleagues, parents, and the wider community are all intertwined as a community.  I also have the The Mindlab community is a rich source of information and is extremely helpful to me for sharing resources and to be able to communicate with like- minded people. 

Reflective Practice

Reflective practice is an active deed in contemplating past, present, and future decisions.  Many times, I have guided my students through the process of reflecting on their learning?  So why do I find this so challenging?  After all, reflection affords teachers conscious, deliberate insight to bring about learning and encourages us to become lifelong learners.

In my syndicate, we discuss ideas and we are self-aware of our own practice.  We understand the importance of honesty and we have a high level of trust.  We encourage and support each other to reflect critically, analyse and evaluate past practices so we can grow professionally and improve future actions. We have a strong focus on teaching as inquiry with a collaborative learning approach using the spiral of inquiry.

One thing that I am going introduce to my syndicate is the 5 Levels of Reflection; Rapid Reflection, Repair, Review, Research, and Retheorizing.  It is important to have a systematic method for thinking through any situation and by using the 5 levels will assist with deep and purposeful thinking.

Critical reflection is vital towards gaining new insights of self and practice (Bould et al.,1985).  According to this statement we should be more adept and ask ourselves questions like: What worked? How do I know? What would I do differently?  Within Communities of Practice effective teaching requires analysing students’ needs and striving to meet those needs. 

This is why we do this… Right?

References

Danielson, L. (2008). Making Reflective Practice More Concrete Through Reflective Decision Making. The Educational Forum, 72(2), 129–137.

Finlay-(2008)-Reflecting-on-reflective-practice-PBPL-paper-52.pdf. (n.d

Harding-DeKam, J. L. (2014). Defining culturally responsive teaching: The case of mathematics. Cogent Education, 1

Kezar, A., & Gehrke, S. (2017). Sustaining Communities of Practice Focused on STEM Reform. The Journal of Higher Education.

Zay, D. (1999). Thinking the Interactive Interplay between Reflection/Practice/Partnership: questions and points of tension. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 7(2), 195–219.