Week 25 Activity 1: Defining My Practice

Community of Practice

Wenger defines communities of practice as “groups of people informally bound together by shared expertise or passion for a joint enterprise” (Wenger & Snyder, 2000 p139).

For me, my community of practice is a small group of Maths teachers that I work with and interact with daily.

Our shared domain of interest is mathematics and teaching. We discuss key issues (and not so key issues) about teaching and learning Mathematics.

Within our community we engage in discussions, share information and encourage each other. There is mutual trust and support for one another. I think we are there for each other and we look after one another.

There are events that we are responsible for such as a yearly Inter-house Mathex competition for the whole school and weekly after school tutorials that we run together. We meet weekly as a department and also moderate student work as a team about once a month.

We develop a shared collection of Mathematics learning programs and assessments.  We also gather stories and experiences of things in our classrooms, we talk about struggles that are unique to teaching Mathematics, and frustrations that we have with recurring problems.

There are a variety of communities that I learn from and contribute to, such as our school Professional Development team, or our Whangarei Mindlab group, but my practice is secondary Mathematics teaching and so my CoP would be my colleagues who share a passion for Mathematics teaching.

Belonging and Contributing

Etienne Wenger describes CoPs as a social learning system where competence interplays with experience (Wenger 1988) About five years ago I was a newbie to teaching with very little competence and I clung onto the competence of my colleagues around me. Now I feel like I can discuss new ideas and experiences and contribute to the competence of our community.

Following Wenger’s three modes of belonging I feel part of my CoP because of

engagement in daily doing, talking and producing, imagination in exploring possibilities. This has increased as I have been learning more through the Mindlab and bringing ideas back to colleagues (from Brainwave devices to teaching inquiry plans). I feel a more active member as I have been able to contribute in this way.

Alignment also gives a feeling of belonging by abiding by a moral code (professional standards) and making judgements (marking and moderating assessments with integrity)

Cultivating our Community of Practice

My role in the community is often to bring new ideas. I am the leader in using technology in my classroom and support the other teachers in that area. I am the least experienced in teaching so I look to others for pedagogical advice.

It is challenging to think about expansiveness and ways that we could be open to more experiences. An example would be organizing a visit to a school with a successful BYOD policy and dynamic Maths department. Shall I suggest that we spend 2 days in Auckland at the Maths and Stats Days so that we can actually relax in the evening and talk about our aspirations?

We also need to be open about areas we are not doing well in. What about the attainment gap between low and moderate income, between Maori and non-Maori, the equity issues for those students without graphic calculators and decent devices? All of us in the CoP are non-Maori- how can we be more accountable to our Maori students?

Bruce Knox (Unitec class video) describes cultivating our CoP is like tending a garden. When we talk about what matters to the community then we will generate excitement and relevance. By using events we can enrich the connections and by inviting participation and thinking the community will generate energy and value.

Wenger, Etienne C., & Snyder, William M. (2000). Communities of Practice: The Organizational Frontier.Harvard Business Review, 78(1), 139-45.

Knox, B.  Cultivating Communities of Practice, Unitec Video