The Road to Our School Community of Learning

We are on our way...and it’s a great feeling.

We’ve had a full on year so far, but the difference is that the tiredness is bearable because we are building something positive.

After six years in this school, the difference is palpable.  Why does it feel so different?

Staffroom talk

A lot of discussions in our breaks are now centred on learning.  We are sharing the excitement of a fab learning experience.  Teachers get together informally to plan or to moderate a piece of writing.  Staff get to the staffroom on time and the room doesn’t empty out when the meeting is over.  A two minute catch up turns into a two hour strategic discussion and we smile because we’ve solved an issue or come up with a great idea while “chewing the cud.”

Sustained PLD

Our professional development doesn’t consist of one off disconnected staff meetings led by the senior leadership team.  Last year our ALL initiative didn’t take off because it wasn’t given priority or time allowances in the school calendar.  This year, after a well facilitated meeting on accelerating literacy, the literacy leader and I came back to a school with an action plan to discuss and made sure that our fifteen week initiative was given the time allowances needed to meet its goals of building a literacy learning culture and community engagement. Teachers were grouped into PLGs of four teachers and given in school release for peer discussion of their inquiries.  The message was made clear that their development was important enough to give it in school time.

Distributed Leadership

The literacy lead teacher is a staff member who isn’t an expert in her field, but has a number of qualities that make her a great leader.  She shares these with the maths lead teacher.

• Love of learning and a desire to keep learning and keep looking at how others learn and what they might learn
• Listening to the needs of others 
• Learning to deflect and filter negativity
• Creativity
• Ability to keep up with the paperwork
• Understanding of the need for data to drive an initiative and to help filter particular needs

Middle leadership development

It’s important that middle leaders understand their importance in ensuring that syndicates of teachers are improving their teaching and learning and not just that their role is about administration and behaviour management.  This year has seen more input into the role, including targeted professional development opportunities.

We’re on our way...but there are still pot holes to navigate and a few learning pits to climb out of.

Teaching As Inquiry

The ALL and Maths development this year have both focused on learning through teaching as inquiry.  This hasn’t been an automatic success.  Teaching as inquiry requires a desire to trying something new in order to improve teaching and learning; it means dedication to being a data gatherer, a researcher, a risk taker and reflective practice.  No more nor less than we are required to do to meet the Practising Teacher Criteria, no more nor less than we expect from our students. No more or less than the values and attributes embodied in the Key Competencies, themselves an evolution of the future thinking of groups like the OECD, who last century began to discuss the need to change education to meet the aptly called wicked problems of our present and future.

It’s new for some.  They might not like “one size fits all” professional development, but they find it very hard to operate when given the freedom to follow their own learning path.  It means disruption to “doing it as we’ve always done it”. It means leaving our comfort zones.

Listening to Student Voice

In our inquiries we are getting better at gathering student voice and sharing what we hear.  We’re discovering that it’s not what they say, but rather what they don’t say that is most indicative of learning.  What we aim to hear is ownership of the learning process; we’re not there yet.

Self Regulated Learning

What we aim for is self regulation, where akonga are engaged in what they need to learn and how they want to learn.  To do this, they need to understand how best they learn and the reason for that learning.  We need to all realise that these learning dispositions need to be taught.

What we need to come to terms with is that akonga, the term used for learners in the Practising Teacher Criteria, is not just about meeting the needs of our child charges.  Teachers are akonga too.  When we as teachers - and teacher leaders - understand that we must keep growing our pedagogy, we will be better equipped to role model self regulated learning to our students.


OECD. (2005). The definition and selection of key competencies: Executive summary. Retrieved from​   www.pisa.oecd.org/dataoecd.org/dataoecd/47/61/35070367.pdf

Reflective Practice: So here we are...

Week 32 - Applied Practice in Context: Reflective Practice - Putting it all together

So here we are, at the end of the Mind Lab certificate course in applied technologies and collaborative learning and I’m a wee bit sad.

I think about how I shut myself into a bedroom for a weekend to complete the very first assignment for Digital and Collaborative Learning in Practice and the disappointment when my mark was not indicative of the work I felt I’d put into the submission.  Part of the problem was not having a routine to study, one that I now feel I’ve managed and mastered.

There was surprise that we had to write essays and frustration on two accounts: the word limit and the lack of feed forward.  While I agree that being succinct is a necessary skill (let’s face it, we all ended up skimming and settling on the summary in our literature review research, right?) I’ve been reflecting on an assessment system that has to fit in with the requirements of a traditional tertiary qualification system.

There was total brain preoccupation with the topic of my literature review for weeks, maybe months. And the pile of books that stayed on the dining room table like a semi-permanent monument to the pain of having it hang over me.  

But, there was the satisfaction of actually getting into those tomes and finding out about an area of pedagogy that had worried me for ages: how can we make students self regulating learners as they need to be if we are going to engage them in a new iteration of school? How will we ensure they are making the best of their interests and skills to cope in the world of wicked problems they are going to move into?

I loved the collaborative learning in our workshops and that we weren’t given the solutions.  “He who does the work does the learning,” kept popping into my head (a quote attributed to Doyle, but I think, much older). Yes, clever.  No one rescued us.  

I love the online community; I’ve embraced online discussion for a number of years.  As I said in a comment on Stephanie Thompson’s blog,

- comment, June 24, 2016.

This Applied Practice in Context paper has been my favourite. I’ve relished the bites of different topics I’ve digested each week: reading the class notes at the start, reading the set and other references, and finally writing when I’m sure I can do it in one sitting,  because my thoughts have been chewed over for long enough.

This blog has been the vessel of my reflection for a while.  I label each post against the Practising Teacher Criteria.  I can match my learning over this course to most of these criteria, but I will reflect here on two:

Criteria 9: Respond effectively to the diverse and cultural experiences and the varied strengths, interests, and needs of individuals and groups of ākonga.  This has been my drive since I first became aware of the term modern learning environments, which have morphed into innovative learning environments.  How has learning practice innovated? Do we need to scaffold self regulated learning? Can we and should we if we are still in a tradition single cell classroom? Is this the answer to engagement and student achievement? Will greater awareness of individual learning needs ensure that schools are culturally responsive?  I plan to follow through with my inquiry plan on this topic and it preoccupies my thoughts about our own school’s pedagogy.

Criteria 5: Show leadership that contributes to effective teaching and learning.  We have two main professional development foci at my school in literacy and numeracy.  Interestingly it’s difficult getting some teachers to embrace reflective practice. Dawson (2012) reminds me that reflective practice and self regulated learning is the same thing.  Here’s a quandary: the senior leadership team have recognised through our data that writing and mathematics have a large number of under achievers.  So have the teachers.  We need to look at and change what we do.  We recognise that teaching as inquiry is the most effective method of changing our practice, and for teachers to own the change.  But the big issue is workload.  We need to look at how we support our teachers to ensure they can complete rigorous, evidence based change.  The Professional Learning and Development Advisory Group’s 2014 report acknowledges this lack of time as one of the issues (p.11).  

We tried an “in school” approach: groups of teachers released and allowed to determine their own discussion topic for this time; we predetermined that that was how it should be run. Feedback was that it was worthwhile, but also that some did not think they had time to be out of the classroom.

Self regulated learning and teacher development are my ongoing goals.  I’ve completed one paper towards my Masters in Educational Leadership and now this Post Graduate Certificate in Applied Learning.  I want to keep studying and my next decision is which pathway will I follow.  I am a self regulated learner and love that digital technologies and collaborative learning have enabled that to happen.

References

Davis, M. (2003). Barriers to reflective practice: the changing nature of higher education. Active Learning in Higher Education, 4(3), 243-255. doi: 10.1177/14697874030043004

Dawson, P. (2012) Reflective practice. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1aYWbLj0U8

Doyle, T. (2008). Helping students learn in a learner centered environment: A guide to  teaching in higher education. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

Hobbs, V. (2007). Faking it or hating it: can reflective practice be forced? Reflective Practice, 8(3), 405-417. doi: 10.1080/14623940701425063

Ministry of Education (nd). Practising teacher criteria and e-learning . Retrieved from http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/Registered-Teacher-Criteria-and-e-learning

Ministry of Education. (August,2014). Report of the professional Learning and development advisory group. Retrieved from http://www.education.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Ministry/Initiatives/PLDAdvisoryGroupReport.pdf

Osterman, K. & Kottkamp, R.(1993). Reflective Practice for Educators.California.Cornwin Press, Inc. Retrieved on 7th May, 2015 from http://www.itslifejimbutnotasweknowit.org.uk/files/RefPract/Osterman_Kottkamp_extract.pdf

Crossing Boundaries*

Week 31 - My seventh post for Applied Practice in Context:  My interdisciplinary connection map

I believe in the NZ Curriculum. It is a forward thinking document that encompasses future thinking, local context, and learners not only as individuals but as citizens of the world.

Which connections will I address first?

My literature review was about self regulated learning (SRL) because we are now trying to develop innovative learning practices to meet these aims. It’s time for a shift from passive learning (or lack of learning) of reluctant school goers, to active, owned learning. While I see all the connections on my diagram as intrinsic to the whole, I need to talk about two that are near future goals. Embracing digital technologies is one of the connections from the map. Enhancing what we do in positive behaviour for learning, is another.

I listened to a webinar this morning: a chat with Grant Lichtman, author of “#Edjourney: A Roadmap to the Future of Education”. He talked about the need to reinvent the current school model and that many schools are behind the times in thinking about the world their students are growing up in.

Our students have been born this century, when the world wide web and computers were already very much in use.  They don’t know a time without computers and don’t understand teacher hesitation in using available technologies.  I use my smartphone, ipad and laptop for research, collaboration, connection, and publication; and I want instant results because I can have instant results.  My students have similar expectations.

Besides teacher reluctance,the other issue is available funding.  I do my best to advocate, educate, assist and innovate wherever I can.  I’ve got our executive officer applying to trusts and our technician installing Chromixium into some old laptops that have passed their use by date.

Positive Behaviour for Learning is a values programme that our school has been involved with for seven years.  Like all programmes, there comes a point where you inject more time and energy - and even funds - into it, or you start over. At the start we gathered community, teacher and student voice on what our key values should be and developed the statement: “Mokoia is a community which values respect, relationships and honesty for learning.”  Reading Hipkins et al’s “Key Competencies for the Future” has made me think more deeply about how we view these values and what attitudes our students really hold.  I am acutely aware of what we call cultural responsiveness and whether we can embrace what Hipkins et al call the range of “discourses” we encounter and need to be comfortable with; can we adapt and appreciate cultural values that differ from those we are born into? Are we good digital citizens? Are we respecting our environment?

Working in an interdisciplinary environment

We now understand that we learn when two conditions are met:

Firstly, we want to learn. We have an authentic reason for taking on board new knowledge or skills.

Secondly, we can make connections with our previous knowledge. We make better sense of the new learning. We get that “aha!” moment.

It makes sense then that learning does not happen readily when knowledge and skills are taught in isolation.  It’s why we realise that we need to look at the authentic use of literacy and numeracy across the curriculum when we decide how literate or numeric a learner is. Can they select from their knowledge and skills to solve problems? Real life problems usually involve a range of disciplines or learning areas, and we need to be able to select appropriately.  Life events do not occur in siloed subject areas, and we are realising that we need to give learners authentic situations to practice with.

However, as our class reading emphasises, each discipline has its particular literacy.  We depend on expert knowledge for some problems and situations. We depend on the development of that expertise too, so it’s important that our learners are exposed to the full range of disciplines. You never know when your class harbours the next Einstein. Take a look at this:

The education model that most of us are familiar needs to change to ensure we have engaged learners prepared to solve today’s issues with today’s tools, and able to adapt and learn for the issues of tomorrow.  It seems clear that we need to engage our learners in authentic situations and an interdisciplinary model is the one that fits best.

* "creating something new by crossing boundaries" - definition of "interdisciplinary" from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdisciplinarity

References

Hipkins, R., Bolstad, R., Boyd, S., & McDowall, S. (2014). Key competencies for the future. New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) Press.

Jones, C.(2009). Interdisciplinary approach - Advantages, disadvantages, and the future benefits of interdisciplinary studies. ESSAI, 7(26), 76-81. Retrieved from http://dc.cod.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1121&context=essai

Lacoe Edu (2014, Oct 24) Interdisciplinary Learning [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA564RIlhME

Lichtman, G. (2014). # EdJourney: A roadmap to the future of education. John Wiley & Sons.

Mathison,S.. & Freeman, M.(1997). The logic of interdisciplinary studies. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, 1997. Retrieved from http://www.albany.edu/cela/reports/mathisonlogic12004.pdf

TEDx Talks (2001, April 6). TEDxBYU - David Wiley - An interdisciplinary path to innovation. [video file].Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ytjMDongp4

TEDx Talks (2015, March). TED2015 - Neri Oxman - Design at the intersection of technology and biology. [video file].Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/neri_oxman_design_at_the_intersection_of_technology_and_biology?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=tedspread

Teaching the Teachers About Online Ethics

Week 29 and the fifth post for Applied Practice in Context:

cc public domain attribution

Everyone has a right to privacy, right? Even teachers. So what I put on Facebook is my business. Wrong.

I hear more about Facebook abuse than any other social networking tool, and as my community of practice is an intermediate, our method of controlling its use - or rather, abuse - is by blocking it.  Yes, I know  - education is better than control, and hopefully we will get there.  But right now, it’s easier to stop our students accessing it at school, especially as half of them are underage according to Facebook guidelines.

The issue is partly that adults don’t get it either.  Some parents are blissfully unaware that Samantha is posting posed shots of herself with pouty lips; or that she has collected friends like Weetbix cards, people she less than barely knows who can read about her every move. They come to us when Samantha receives insulting putdowns from Jessica and Alana.  You see, it’s easy to be a big brave bully online, not having to look your victim in the eye and waiting for adulation from other kids in the peer group. (NB I realise that the person is bullying, not the tool, so we work on that too, with programmes like PB4L and Kia Kaha.)

We counsel parents and their children about security settings and making sure that the former are aware of their offspring’s online life.  I hold regular assemblies where I gather student photos from nonsecure accounts and display them across the screen (nothing risque of course).  I let the student body know about the ease of access, lack of control and right that I have to view their images, just as any stranger might.  It’s a strong message with desired results, based on a Learning@School conference keynote, from Australian cyber cop, Brent Lee.

Remember I said that adults don’t get it either? Well, teachers are adult.  They forget how networked we are.  I suggest that they don’t need to be friends with me as deputy principal, but we have mutual friends so a comment on a photo could turn up on my feed.  And they sometimes forget that some of their “friends” are parents or people who have friends who are parents. A comment can be misconstrued or turn into gossip very quickly.

With this in mind, the Board of Trustees decided to put together a social media policy, gathering documentation from Netsafe, from the Code of Ethics and from the Teachers and Social Media site.  We held a staff meeting on social media and the staff looked at the Code of Ethics and the draft social media policy more closely.  There was a lot of learning.  Many of them had no idea that they could not ethically post photos of their students working without specific permission or that there were dangers in publishing named student images.

We now have our Mokoia Matrix which is our digital citizenship and cybersafety hub, for all members of our community.  All teachers need to teach digital literacy.  That way they learn too.

References

Education Council. (nd). Code of Ethics for Certificated Teachers. Retrieved from https://educationcouncil.org.nz/content/code-of-ethics-certificated-teachers-0

Current issues in my professional context

My second post for the Mind Lab paper: "Applied Practice in Context":

"Stoll (1998) defines school culture as three dimensions, the relationship among its members; the organisational structure including the physical environment and management system; and the learning nature." - Mind Lab Class Notes, Week 26.

"Culture describes how things are and acts as a screen or lens through which the world is viewed." - Stoll, 1998

 “the way we do things around here” - Deal & Kennedy, 1983

“a real school is what I attended when I was a child” - Metz, 1991

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Yoda 

“The force is strong in this one…”

Our school is typical of many schools in New Zealand and probably the Western world.  Built in the 1970’s, it was open plan, with four classrooms, sans doors, which opened out onto a central space with a work area, art supplies, benches, storage and sinks - an early “maker space”.  

When I got there at the start of the millennium as a trainee primary teacher, it was still like this, but teachers stayed in their cells and there was a lot of self consciousness and irritation when the neighbour’s noise and activity intruded on others. Once a gimme that all contributing schools contributed to the annual intake, this decade was one when a lot of students headed into town to the Catholic College; a “grass is greener” syndrome, which I have to say, I was part of.

Roll on August 2010 and I returned to the school, this time as Deputy Principal Curriculum. There was a different principal, and an interesting dichotomy: staff who had been with the school for a while, several since its inception, and another group which had been there for only six months. They, like me, were still trying to find out “how we do things around here.” And change was difficult to bring about. There was one change that stood out: doors on the classrooms and transformation of the central space away from the shared work station to an open common room.

I’d already learned in my first assistant principal position, that the folk who populate a community of practice don’t necessarily appreciate the breath of fresh air you bring when you open the door to new ideas. Stoll (1998) talks about the importance of understanding the school’s culture, and the important roles of history, socioeconomic status, location and national education policies. “The way we do things here,” is a very strong force.  I pinned a poster to the notice board above my desk:

“God gives you the people you want, not the people you need, to make you into the person you need to be.” (Unknown)

There were some divisions on the staff. National Standards had not been taken on board (some would say that was a good thing). The assessment system lacked robustness. Teaching was more about the teachers than the learners. Too many students were driving into town to school away from one of our local schools.  

There were some strong and noble traditions: a belief that intermediate education is an important area; that sport and fitness is intrinsic to the well being, physical and academic, of the emerging adolescent. That students need to be exposed to a range of subjects before they get to high school. That independence, fortitude, leadership a teamwork are important qualities and are to the fore in the week long camp in Term 4, where students are under canvas, and in Term 4 when the students opted for an alternative education activity. The school was also renowned for its kapa haka success.

I saw my place as strengthening the academic side of things; well, it was what my title said I did. We have made a lot of progress on improving teacher knowledge and pedagogy; we still have a way to go. I learned that even a small step is still a small step forward. 

This year has seen another large turn over of staff; some have retired, some moved on to their own greener pastures. A principal who takes over a school inherits teachers and “the way things are done around here.” It takes time to build a shared set of values in incumbent staff; it’s easier when you get to choose the staff who will carry forward the vision you have for your community of practice. 

The local community has returned to the school as has regard for the quality of our education.

A shared vision is the key: it becomes the internal driver from “the way we’ve always done it,” or “this is how we do it here,” to “this is what we want and need for deep learning to take place” and that strong force for change. 

Innovative learning environments and practices are the topic du jour in the educational world. Digital technology is no longer a novelty. These are our next challenges. There is an old saying now, that while the world has changed technologically, should Rumplestiltskin awake after a hundred years, he’d still feel at home in a school.

As an early adopter, I’ve had to learn patience. And it’s not just with my colleagues’ rate of uptake of new technologies. It’s about how difficult it is to ensure there is equity for all students, especially when our catchment includes each end of the decile system.

Our new teachers have made an interesting change to the scales. They’ve come from communities of practice where cloud based learning is the norm. Suddenly, it’s “how we do it around here,” and the force for change has swapped directions.

The next step will be to see what happens to those classroom doors as teachers begin to collaborate more. One of our electives is a makerspace. It’s time to return to looking at that vision and deciding how we want to write the next chapters in the reflective journal of our community of practice. 

- Stoll and Fink (cited in Stoll, 1998) identified 10 influencing cultural norms of school improvement including:

“1. Shared goals - “we know where we’re going”

2. Responsibility for success - “we must succeed”

3. Collegiality - “we’re working on this together”

4. Continuous improvement - “we can get better”

5. Lifelong learning - “learning is for everyone”

6. Risk taking - “we learn by trying something new”

7. Support - “there’s always someone there to help”

8. Mutual respect - “everyone has something to offer”

9. Openness - “we can discuss our differences”

10. Celebration and humour - “we feel good about ourselves”” (p.10)

References

Hongboontri, C., & Keawkhong, N. (2014). School Culture: Teachers' Beliefs, Behaviors, and Instructional Practices. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 39(5), 66-88. Retrieved from http://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2332&context=ajte

Lave, J. (1991). Situating learning in communities of practice. In L. Resnick, J. Levine, and S. Teasley (Eds.). Perspectives on socially shared cognition. [E-reader version](pp. 63-82). Retrieved from http://www.ecologyofdesigninhumansystems.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Lave-Situating-learning-in-communities-of-practice.pdf

Stoll (1998). School Culture. School Improvement Network’s Bulletin 9. Institute of Education, University of London. Retrieved from http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Culture/Understanding-school-cultures/School-Culture

Something Wicked This Way Comes

My third post for the Mind Lab paper: "Applied Practice in Context":

Week 27: Contemporary issues or trends in New Zealand or internationally

“Shut the door please...we’re not trying to heat the world!” I call, as yet another student rushes from the hall without making sure that the door closes.  The heaters are on; the first day of winter has hit with a vengeance. “Global warming,” another teacher jokes.

And I think about how teaching has changed.  We’re not just sweating the small stuff like teaching kids to shut doors, we've now got to think about them as the lifesavers that we are throwing out to our future selves. Global warming is now one of the wicked problems that our children are facing.
Wicked problems are shaping education in New Zealand and internationally.  Documents like Future State 2030 highlight issues that will change the world of work and mean that our children will need to create solutions to issues that we have not experienced ourselves: demographics, the rise of the individual, the rise of technology, economic interconnectedness, public debt, economic power shift, climate change, resource stress and urbanisation.

The educational model, often referred to as the factory model, which we and our parents “survived” can not prepare our youth for a future career that no longer conforms to a narrow classification of job descriptions; we can’t promise them that effort and a university degree will lead to a secure future. Ken Robinson elaborates on this paradigm shift in his Ted talk.

I'm tasked, in this blog post, to identify and evaluate two contemporary issues or trends that are shaping education nationally and globally, but I'm finding that tricky; they all blend into the cauldron of wicked problems that require the current model of school to change: what teachers are and what they do and what learning and the student’s role in the learning process needs to look like.

I remember when all I was tasked to do as a teacher was make sure the content of the end of year exam was presented and absorbed. I remember debating with my HOD in 1990 about knowledge versus skill.  She firmly believed her role was to teach them material as their heads were empty. Over the last three decades professional development on the science of teaching has transformed to the art of learning. Digital technologies and the world wide web started to transform the possibilities open to us in the last two decades of the twentieth century.

In the nineteen nineties, organisations like UNESCO and the OECD, started to look at how we needed to change education to deal with the issues that were predicted to feature in the twenty first century.

The result was to move from a content based curriculum to a competency based curriculum; our own key competencies are based on the four pillars of the UNESCO Delors Report of 1993: learning to be, learning to know, learning to do and learning to live together; and the four competencies of the OECD 2005 report, which look much like what we now have: thinking, relating to others, understanding language, symbols and text, managing self and participating and contributing.

In their highly readable text, Key Competencies for the Future, Hipkins et al show how important these are for a future beset with wicked problems and show how “good” teachers scaffold learning opportunities where students are encouraged to involve themselves more deeply in critical and creative problem solving.

And therein lies the rub.  Our international and national education system is slow to change from that old factory model to one which embraces a desiloed curriculum, available technologies, authentic problems and design thinking. Political decision makers are at odds with educationalists about what our students need.  Parents view a good education as the one which they understand and which worked in past decades.

The teaching profession itself needs a shake up. Teacher training institutions are accepting students with literacy and numeracy levels below what they need. Digital technology use and inquiry thinking need to be much better developed. Our children deserve the best and the brightest teachers with growth mindsets who see the importance of creating different models of education.

We need learners who are engaged, motivated and self regulating.  How we create self regulated
 learners is the core pedagogical process needed in innovative learning environments, the current “bright and shiny thing”.  It’s important that we get students engaging in the learning processes they need to work out how to attack those wicked problems.  Research suggests that different contexts need different solutions.  It’s the subject of my literacy review and my inquiry.

What we need to do is keep engaging the naysayers at all levels.  As educators we need to keep asking, how can we do this better? We need to keep our eyes focussed on the future, fuzzy though it may appear.  We need to develop in ourselves those learning dispositions we need in our students.

References

Delors, J. ed. (1993). Learning: the treasure within. Report to UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century (Highlights). UNESCO Publishing.
Retrieved from http://lllp.iugaza.edu.ps/Files_Uploads/635087182222401677.pdf

Dumont, H., Istance, D., Benavides, F. (ed.) (2010). The nature of learning: using research to inspire practice. Educational Research and Innovation. OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264086487-4-en.

Education Review Office. (2012). Evaluation at a Glance: Priority Learners in New Zealand Schools. Retrieved 18 May 2016, from http://www.ero.govt.nz/About-Us/News-Media-Releases2/The-three-most-pressing-issues-for-N

Hipkins, R., Bolstad, R., Boyd, S., & McDowall, S. (2014). Key competencies for the future. New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) Press.

KPMG International. (2014). Future state 2030: the global megatrends shaping governments”. KPMG International Cooperative: USA. Retrieved from http://www.kpmg.com/Global/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/future-state-government/Documents/future-state-2030-v3.pdf

Ministry of Education (2007). The New Zealand Curriculum. Wellington: Learning Media.
Retrieved 10 August 2009 from http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/the_new_zealand_
curriculum/the_school_curriculum_design_and_review

Ministry of Education (2016). Enabling E-Learning: Teaching: Innovative Learning Environments. Retrieved from http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Teaching/Innovative-learning-environments

National intelligence council.(2012). Global trends: Alternative Worlds. National Intelligence Council: US. Retrieved from https://globaltrends2030.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/global-trends-2030-november2012.pdf

Toffler, A. (1981). The third wave (pp. 32-33). New York: Bantam books.

My community of practice

I've been absent from my blog since February, instead posting in Google + in the Mind Lab Ed community, as part of a postgraduate qualification.  From tonight I'm returning to my blog with a series of posts aligned to the paper:“Applied Practice in Context.” 

Creative Commons Image

Etienne Wenger first coined the concept of “communities of practice”, which are defined as “groups of people who share a concern or a passion or about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interaction on an ongoing basis” 

(Wenger, McDermott et al; Snyder, 2002, p.4 cited in Mind Lab class notes, Applied Practice in Context: Week 25).

I'm Annemarie and for thirty three years I've been Mrs Hyde, by marriage and by professional choice in the schools where I have been employed.  Since 2004, I've chosen to be “mrshyde” or “@mrs_hyde” online, because that’s what my students know me by - as do the online community I affiliate to.

My professional community of practice is the community of teachers, but as Wenger says, we also belong to sub-communities, and I can think of a few: the learning community of my school, the local association of assistant and deputy principals, Connected Rotorua, the Twitterati of the #edchatnz community and since November, the cohort of educators who are working together in Mind Lab on the post graduate certificate course.

Schools are interesting places.  In fact, I've paused to ponder whether they fit Wenger’s definition. Yes, we meet on an ongoing basis, and yes we are getting better at interacting to improve pedagogy rather than just talking about who organised the buses for the field trip or whether the everyone is meeting their duty obligations.  And yes, I think we are moving towards having that shared concern or passion for the learning of our students.  But we can all think of individuals in our staff rooms who aren't in that conversation.  We discuss fixed and growth mindsets because we experience this duality in our associates all the time.

I have to say, it feels good to hear teachers talking about maths ideas that make a difference, or teachers meeting to help each other out on the first day of the holidays, or sharing Google doc ideas any time of day or night. (It wasn't always like that where I am.)

It’s that word passion that pings out of Wenger’s definition. And the interacting on an ongoing basis.  For me the community of practice that I primarily identify with are the folk I fondly call the Twitterati.  I've written a post about them before. Not located in a particular place or time zone, these are the educators who swim in the Twitter stream. What they have in common, besides an online presence, is a deep concern and passion about education, which they discuss together on an ongoing basis, in formally organised chats or casually and ubiquitously as issues arise. It surprises me how much in common we have. For the most part they are the early adopters, the enthusiasts and sadly, the lone nuts. Or were. I've seen change as schools embrace cloud learning an innovative learning practice. Ideas seen as crazy and too hard suddenly make sense.

Fascinated by the possibilities of new technologies and how they could change my learning, I jumped into the stream at a conference in 2010, attracted by the back channel discussion about the ideas in the keynote.  I never looked back. I've met and associate with a large number of these edutweeps  nationally and internationally, because the learning and collegiality continues to meet my needs.  I think I've learned more from these people and their retweets than in any other forum.  I am a very active participant in the discussions, enjoying the debate and making long lasting connections.

Leadership fascinates me.  As a deputy principal I experience the dichotomy of leading and managing people everyday, and I constantly reflect on how to lead more effectively.  I share the concerns and ideas with other leaders in the local association and with those leaders I associate with in online forums, like #ldrchatnz tonight.  Leadership is about sharing a vision, and in this profession, it should be about improving the lot for learners.  Wenger talks about the necessity for communities of practice to engage, and to be able to imagine the place they want to be, in this case at a point where students - and teachers - are self regulated learners. I believe that the point of leadership is to facilitate this shared vision and create a desire to align practice so that the shared goal of student motivation and personal achievement is reached. I think too, that actually we all want to belong and feel part of a group with a common goal.

Wenger talks about organisations needing to design themselves as social learning systems.  It’s about building that mutuality of vision and the sense of belonging. No more lone nuts? Hmm, but maybe we need them...

Finlay, L. (2009) Reflecting on reflective practice. PBPL. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/opencetl/files/opencetl/file/ecms/web-content/Finlay-%282008%29-Reflecting-on-reflective-practice-PBPL-paper-52.pdf

Wenger, E.(2000).Communities of practice and social learning systems.Organization,7(2), 225-246