My Practice within the Community

Critically define practice.

Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.

Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayner (2015)

Step 1. My community of practice are a group of colleagues at my school where I teach. We share a similar passion for continuous improvement in teaching and learning and are committed to growing the community we interact with daily. 

The group consists of our Head of Campus, whose responsibility to his staff is to provide the conditions for them to transform their students. In this regard he has promoted a culture of collaborative expertise with his staff, to ensure they interact regularly and aspire to become members that contribute to a learning organisation.  

At our core we have a strong relationship between key staff that has developed over the past two decades, yet we also have an attachment to colleagues who have more recently joined the staff and bring new and innovative ideas from previous schools.

Step 2. Our main mode of learning is to go from practice to theory, and then back and forth to obtain more specific insights about how to lead and participate in transformative change in our school. Over the past couple of years we have trialled one to one devices with the students. This was an initiative the Head of Campus, Trust Board, staff and parents collectively agreed to. The Trust Board provided the financial means for all boys (190) to have a digital device, a mixture of Ipads, Mac Book Airs and Mac Book Pros. Over the past two years teachers have trialled programmes to engage the students in digital learning. We have reflected on the best practice and incorporated theory, including having many discussions, inservice training sessions and sending two members on this Mindlab course. The driving force or “community of practice” for continued change, now comes from the Head of Campus, the Head of IT and three staff who have been involved in the Mindlab. This group meets twice a term as two of the members are on different campuses, however, there are often less formal, reflective conversations that occur on a daily basis on google documents and face to face with those on this campus. On a formal level, as leaders we spend a lot of time listening, learning and asking questions to evaluate what is working and not working with digital learning in our school.

Step 3. My contribution to the group is significant, as I have attended the Postgraduate Certificate in Applied Practice (Digital & Collaborative Learning) and spent time alongside many different like-minded, practitioners gleaning amazing ideas and insights from them. As a result, I have trialled a number of new digital initiatives to foster improvement in digital learning with my class. This has enabled me to lead innovations, facilitate change and actively contribute within this group both in theory and practice.

Fullan, M., & Scott, G. (2016). Practice change‐savvy leadership to guide your institution into the future. The Successful Registrar, 16(6), 9-9.

Wenger-Trayner, E., & Wenger-Trayner, B. (2015). Learning in a landscape of practice. Learning in landscapes of practice. Boundaries, identity, and knowledgeability in practice-based learning, 13-30.