Defining my professional community...ummm
After viewing Eitenne Wengers "concept of community practice" a number of times, it is a very simplified concept. We think of our community as a landscape of hills we go up and down, we choose our landscapes and become accountable to these. It is our everyday actions that derive what communities we enter and those that we stay within. For the professional community some of these 'landscapes' have already been predetermined due to the nature of our professionalism but as we navigate through our careers we 'decide' which further communities we enter.
A community of practice as defined by wenger-trayner (2011) "is a group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do, and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. This reflects the fundamentally social nature of human learning"
When looking at my own professional community I am a teacher of Physical Education and Health at Pakuranga College. A large school considered to be a community within its self. Most of my peer interactions come from the staffroom, faculty office and throughout the grounds of the school. The staffroom is where I form many of my cross curricular conversations and comparing to Wengers concept I choose which colleague (hill) I want to integrate into my community. Within our faculty office we collaborate with ideas and form communities to enhance the learning of our students, at present we are forming further communities to enlist in the learning for our senior health students to engage in alternative health practices. From my beginnings at the school I have widened my community by becoming a dean of Totara House. This has meant that I maintain links between school, home and the wider community for the students within my community. To widen my professional community further I have taken on the role of one of three eLearning members to become strategic leaders within the school thus widening my community further to: other e-learning groups outside the school, further teachers within the school, the community that surrounds the school and students and their families. Further communities I am also a part of are, the school digital council, orienteering group and 1st XI girls football.
For all of these professional communities that I have 'chosen' to be part of I have the opportunity to further my community by engaging with more people, businesses and other like-minded communities. As discussed by Wenger these communities are part of my identity and is where I choose to be.
1. What is your specialist area of practice? How does your specialist area of practice relate to the broader professional context?
Within my specialist area of PE and Health we are often collaborating with other PE departments at other schools, from sharing ideas to sharing of equipment/resources. For the faculty to be aligned with other faculties within the school the need for ICT in our faculty especially with the inclusion of year 11 students from this year was necessary. My engagement with the Mindlab course was to gain knowledge and understanding into the different areas that we could ensure our students were gaining the same standard of teaching when they enter our faculty. As e-mentor for the faculty I assist with its members to enable quality induction of digital interfaces into their courses. As a team of ten e-mentors at the college across faculties we meet regularly to ensure the consistency of delivery to our students.
2. What are the current issues in your community of practice? How would you or your community of practice address them?
Some of the issues that are being faced within my community are:
a) due to financial constraints not all junior students can obtain a device to engage in the digital classes we have at the college.
b) teachers that are not comfortable with adapting their courses to include the digital tools that we have integrated into the college
c) bullying through social media and parents concerns over the use of devices within a school context
d) due to the practical contexts of PE integrating digital lessons especially into junior classes can come at the expense of students physical activity
As a college we try to work with families that struggle to provide a digital device for their child and whilst the students with financial issues can be helped there are still some students that do not have a device due to parental concerns over safety of the device and safety of their child on digital interfaces. This is an ongoing issue that we need to give information to parents on the importance of having a device with them, the safety of the school in regards to devices not being stolen or broken and how they can assist the community by keeping their child cyber safe.
Teachers that are not engaging in digital tools within their lesson planning is not overly a concern of the community but is part of the problems that are faced. Giving time in lunchtimes/before school or after school is offered to assist with problems but then the problem of time constraints takes over. By giving e-mentors time within faculty meetings is closing the gap between digital uptake and not and this will be an on-going trial throughout the year.
The 21st century learner unfortunately has the issue of bullying through social media and not being able to get away from this but by educating students and their parents on the varying ways to keep cyber safe has become a task taken on my professional community. Electronic newsletters, parental meetings, assemblies and teaching within health classes are just a few of the ways that we are addressing these issues.
Due to the nature of our students and the increase in technology advancements many of our students do not receive adequate physical activity in their daily lives. By reducing our PE periods so that we can include technology has to be a worthwhile attempt and not just a tick the box activity. For this reason we have a team of PE teachers that are researching how we can do this effectively and will also take this year to complete.
3. What are the challenges that you face in your practice? How would you or your community of practice address them?
One of the challenges I face at the moment is with regard to my senior PE and Health classes that are not digital cohorts and many do not have sufficient devices for my lessons to be complete device classes. As a student on the MindLab course my pedagogy reflects that of utilizing digital platforms to enhance the learning of my students but my daily struggle is to teach my senior students what they need to learn and doing this without devices. As a faculty we have a handful of ipads but struggle when there are more than a couple of classes needing to use them. In the coming years this will not be as such a problem as our founding digital classes become seniors but for now this is a problem my community faces. Many would argue that all teenagers have access to devices whether it is a phone, tablet or laptop but in reality not all students do. Having a phone is fine but for the research or activities within our lessons these are not adequate to prevent eye strain for the students. As discussed earlier we as a school community assist families with financial constraints to gain access to devices but unfortunately this is only available to junior students and not seniors. I would extend this to seniors as they just as much as stake with their learning, with the increase in online tools, being able to access these in the classroom could mean the difference in their grades and ultimately their credits.
References:
wenger-trayner.com/resources/what-is-a-community-of-practice/
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