Week 19 - Community of Practice and the implications for successful teacher inquiry

This week’s reflection has really made me think about my journey as a learner and a teacher. I believe that I have been fortunate enough to have always been involved in active community of practices. As a beginning Science teacher my first community of Practice was the Northamptonshire Association for Science Educators. This CoP actively promoted and supported teachers who wanted to develop their practice and to collaborate with other teachers who had similar goals but a variety of skills, through a variety of face to face professional development days and meetings.

Today, the advent of technology and social media means that our community of practice is no longer restricted by where you are and therefore you are no longer restricted to belonging to just one. To help improve my practice and share with others I contribute and participate in several communities of practice.

Within my school:

• Junior science curriculum group with my school, as TIC Junior Science
• Physics teachers within my school
• Active member of the Science department
• Secondary School Employment partnership program teachers
• Professional learning group (PLG) for our spiral of inquiry
• Whole staff at various times and opportunities

Outside of school:

• Waikato Secondary Science teachers association
• NZ Science teachers Facebook closed group
• NZ Physics teachers Facebook closed group
• NZ Chemistry teachers Facebook closed group
• Aukland Science teachers Association
• NZIP teacher’s google drive
• MindLab Cambridge Facebook page closed group
• G+ community

All these groups allow knowledge and expertise to be shared and in many cases collaboration to occur. This fits with Wegner’s (2000) three elements of CoP of Joint enterprise, mutual engagement and shared repertoire.

To understand how these CoP’s could be used to further teacher inquiry Jay and Johnson’s (2002) 3 Step reflective model needs to be used and Wegner’s (2000) three elements of a community of practice.

Inquiry question 1 to consider:

What impact does a flipped or blended classroom have on student engagement or achievement?

Joint enterprise: Due to NCEA senior science subject being time poor to allow for deeper understanding to occur, employ the flipped model and guided practice hour to allow student agency and deeper thinking to occur.

Mutual Engagement: Find 2-3 other teachers (preferably science) who want to use current research to embed the flipped model to enhance student engagement and achievement.

Shared repertoire: Teachers to work collaboratively to develop screen cast videos to support the model and to create resources to support students and other teachers using the model.

Inquiry question 2 to consider:

How could the 21^st Century learning rubrics from ITL Research be used to better develop the NZC capabilities for living and lifelong learning?

Joint enterprise: Today’s students do not just need academic qualifications but transferrable skills that will allow them to be successful in many situations during school and life after school. 

Mutual Engagement: Using my schools pilot Navigator Stream classes and teachers apply these rubrics to the cross curricular teaching to further develop the capabilities for living and lifelong learning.

Shared repertoire: If successful this could expand to more than the two pilot classes and even lessons learned can be applied to the senior school.

Step 2 Comparative:

For Inquiry 1 to be successful you need likeminded individuals who have a similar understand of what the flipped model actually is. Whether, this be from the enabling e-learning site on TKI or from any of the flipped learning series books by Bergman and Sams. Many have the misconception that students write all the notes at home or complete traditional homework or watch loads of videos. So the teachers in this inquiry will need to complete professional reading together and collaborate on task design.

For inquiry 2 the 8 staff selected to run the pilot program would need to be selected carefully just like teachers in a modern learning environment. All staff would have to actively use the rubrics to enhance these skills.

Step 3 Critical reflection:

When teachers collaborate on an inquiry project they need to work collaboratively to achieve those objectives. They also must have the buy in for the research in question – no laggards allowed. If they are passionate about the inquiry they will have ownership and in the end the student will benefit.

References:

Bergmann, J. and Sams, A. (2015). Flipped Learning – For Science instruction; ‘The flipped Learning Series’. International Society for Technology in Education publication.

ITL research group, 2012. 21^st Century learning design. Learning Activity rubrics. Microsoft partners in learning and SRI International. Accessed on 4.4.18, from; https://education.microsoft.com/GetTrained/ITL-Research

Jay, J.K. and Johnson, K.L. (2002) Capturing complexity: a typology of reflective practice for teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18, 73-85.

Ministry of Education, New Zealand Curriculum online. The Capabilities for Living and lifelong learning, Accessed on 10.8.18, from; http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/The-New-Zealand-Curriculum#collapsible7

Wenger, E.(2000). Communities of practice and social learning systems.

http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Teaching/Future-focused-learning/Flipped-learningOrganization,7(2), 225-246.