My community of Practice.

Communities of Practice:  "A community of practice 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 definition reflects the fundamentally social nature of human learning."

 http://wenger-trayner.com/resources/what-is-a-community-of-practice/

A Community of Practice connects groups of people who share your passion and are prepared to offer help or advice to make great things happen. They are willing participant ready to share in the success and anguish of developing their shared knowledge. They interact collaboratively for the mutual benefit of all group members, to share and grow their expertise in an area of competence. Bruce Knox in his video ‘Cultivating Communities of Practice: Making Them Grow’ defines a Community of Practice as “a group of people who share a passion for something they know how to do and who interact regularly to learn how to do it better.” Their purpose to “create, expand and exchange knowledge and to develop individual capabilities.”

My role as a classroom teacher at a high school leads me to interact with many members of staff, often on a social / perfunctory level and usually within the boundaries of the staff room or on the way to/ from our learning areas. Occasionally a staff meeting will bring us all together but more often than not we operate in departments/learning areas/year groups.I also foster strong relationships with employers and parents/whanau/caregivers to give my students opportunity to gain work experience and employment opportunities through our gateway course. However these cannot be seen as communities of practice as even though we often engage we rarely do things together 

My community of practice I identify with is a group of people who share a passion for the development of 3d printing in our high school.This group involves the participation of students, staff, parents / whanau and local employers in the community. We interact and participate to evolve the use of 3d printing and regularly" learn how to do things better." while looking to make improvements in the manufacture and performance of engineered products. Often, this is in the form of project based learning and problem solving. The role of the employers is to present actual problems in their own fields and offer a different experience and knowledge to the group.

Areas of Competence.

Joint enterprise:

What :Our community has a developed understanding of what we are about so that everyone can contribute. We regularly meet to ensure that everyone is held accountable and has a shared awareness of recent developments Students explore their ideas through prototyping and use feedback from peer and self review. I acknowledge the mana that the employers and parents have as critical friends, however it is interesting to observe the change in ako (when the teacher student roles are reversed) especially when new ideas are presented and breakthroughs occur. The competence I bring is that I ensure that everyone can contribute as my own knowledge and experience is limited. 

So what: Once the group started to take its own direction I felt I had less of a leadership role as the student/parent/employer relationship became embedded. I facilitate now rather than lead and as the community develops it is becoming more aware of its gaps in its knowledge

Now what: As the group is growing, splinter groups have appeared and are deciding on their own agenda/direction and look for new members to join their community. Other aspects to this are going outside of the local area and gaining further knowledge and competencies with national and global online communities to fill the gaps of knowledge that the communities are slowly recognising. Individuals need to be encouraged to join and need to have clear guidelines to keep learning at the center.

Mutality

What: the community has been operating for over 9 months and after a slow start the relationships are building. The local employers in particular were slow to reciprocate the ideas flowing through and a sense of pointlessness pervaded the community. Certain individuals did not feel they were able to contribute effectively as they considered their knowledge to be irrelevant.

So what; Students were encouraged to visit the employers workplace and see for themselves the opportunities for employment. Also employers were encouraged to give positive feedback on a regular basis despite on occasion very little progress. Trust was also established by giving certain ideas a go. Even if failure occurred the employer and student accepted that this was a positive learning experience.

Now what:The main objective is further establishment of trust within my community of practice so that I can let the student to student and student to employer relationship blossom with my overarching supervision is e. There are further gains in the student /parent area and the necessity for everyone to speak truthfully.

Repertoire

What: the concept of 3 d printing is not new, the potential for new applications and solving problems is growing. With the new perspectives of combining different properties in the plastic filament there are ample opportunities to reconsider assumptions and patterns. 

So what:The difficulty of the degree of self awareness within the community is that the progress made in this area is exponential. I rely on others to bring new knowledge viewpoint and experience to the community and have to activelty participate to understand its own state of development.

Now what; The ability to keep gaining momentum and embrace the hidden possibilities will be essential. Also the ability to reflect on current employment trends.

In critically defining my community of practice I acknowledge and need to engage with the wider range of communities that exist across a school wide. The mind lab course has provided me with insight experience and knowledge that can contribute to these communities, however it is sharing the passion that will determine membership of that community.

Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

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