Professional Context

APC Week 26 - Activity 2

What is the organisational culture (collective values/principles) that underpins your practice? How would you contribute to fostering a positive professional environment in your community of practice?

"We are respectful, responsible lifelong learners that live our faith everyday." These are the values of our school - a catholic school established in 1951. These values sit at the heart of our school, staff and students alike. We are a Year 1-8 co-educational primary school that focuses not only the academic achievement of our students but also their physical, spiritual, emotional and social development. We provide education in a sound Catholic environment. Stoll (1988) talks about a school's culture being a representative of the community around them -  both dynamic and static and how vitally important it is to keep the traditional values that make up a school. Alongside this, it is important to establish the idea of lifelong learners (which is already part of our vision).

Our students are very aware of our values, they are present in every classroom. Staff uphold these values everyday. It is evident in the interactions that staff have with students and the way students behave when on EOTC activities - respectfully and responsibly. As students progress through our school they are on a journey of lifelong learning - a journey that is guided by the curriculum and the key competencies.  As educators, we are endeavouring to future proof our students learning by installing 21st Century skills.

What changes are occurring in the context of your profession? How would your community of practices address them?

There is a major shift happening in the educational world from students having education 'done' to or 'delivered' to them to 'how can we or you solve this issue/problem' type scenario. It is about handing learning back to the students to make their own sense of what being a lifelong learner might look and feel like. As as early adopter, this is happening way too slow, not just across our profession but within my own school CoP. 

So what am I doing about this change in my own CoP. When I speak of this I am specifically talking about my own team of which I am the team leader. Here we have already started on this journey of collaborative teaching (in a single cell environment) to shift the learning of students from being 'delivered to' to an environment where students are taking ownership of their learning. There are three educators in our team who work hard to ensure that learning is meaningful and relevant to all students. Is it perfect? - no it is not but we are on a journey ourselves along with our students to make a difference to the way their education received. On Jackie Gerstein, Ed.D. blog she talks about the difference between pedagogy (teacher led learning), andragogy (self directed learning) and heutagogy (self determined learning). Our team is definitely moving out of the pedagogical practice of learning to andragogy of learning - ultimate goal: heutagogy. She has a great graphic on her blog showing these 3 areas.

Also, 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)

The above 10 influencers are evident in our team. Some are stronger than others but all form an important part of who we are as a team. 

In my wider CoP, i.e. my school, not everybody has started this journey of change towards collaborative teaching and student ownership of their learning. Everyone is at a different starting point.  As part of the leadership team, a colleague and I are leading a culture of change through professional development to develop a shared vision of what collaboration might look like for us as a school. The one thing I have learned so far on this journey is said quite succinctly by George Couros...

Effective leadership in education is not about moving everyone 

from one standardized point to the next but moving individuals 

from their point “A” to their point ”B.”

I am leaning that every small step ahead is still a small step forward in the right direction and that this journey is a process, not a destination. We need to ensure staff feel safe to take risks and to understand the 'why' of this change in their practice. 

Couros, G. (2015). Strength based leadership. In The innovator's mindset: Empower learning, unleash talent, and lead a culture of creativity. 

 Gerstein, J. (2016, June 14). Maker Education: Pedagogy, Andragogy, Heutagogy [Web log post]. Retrieved June 26, 2016, from https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2016/06/14/maker-education-pedagogy-andragogy-heutagogy/?blogsub=subscribed#blog_subscription-3 

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

Communities of Practice

APC Week 25 - Activity One

What is a community of practice?

Reflecting on the term 'communities of practice' it is amazing how many communities you are actually part of as as an educator. I personally see my communities that I am part of as an integral part of who I am as an educator. These communities are loosely intertwined with me moving in and out of these communities at various times, depending on what is happening within my practice. These communities are: 

My immediate teaching community at Our Lady of the Assumption School (OLA); part of the Leadership Team and Team Leader at OLA; my Professional Learning Network - Twitter, Virtual Learning Network (VLN); Mindlab face to face community as well as our Google+ community; part of the wider Catholic schools community as well as a Community of Learning which is currently being established. 

Wenger defines community of practice "as groups of people who share a concern or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by an interaction on an ongoing basis" (Wenger, McDermott & Snyder, 2002, p.4). 

What is the purpose and function of your practice? In what ways do you contribute to the community of your practice?
As an educator, I belong to a very large community of practice. There are many communities within communities in this large group. Collectively they have a purpose to not only educate and meet the learning needs of students but also to ensure their own continuous development of professional learning.

In my community of practice, I am a Year 5/6 Team Leader at Our Lady of the Assumption School. I am committed to leading this team on a journey of making learning better for our students. As part of this journey, we are working hard as a team to fully develop a collaborative teaching practice. As we have grown in this role, so has our reflective practice. This involves professional reflective blogs, we regularly meet, either formally or informally. Discussions are held across teams and of course, as a staff. The best reflective time though are those little snatches of conversations you have in passing as they are usually 'in the moment' conversations. Dawson (2012) identifies that reflective practice leads to better learning and when reflection is shared, it is most effective. I personally also find online forums, especially Twitter a great place to engage with my wider community of practice.

As part of the leadership team community of practice, we are working together with the staff to see how this collaborative journey might look for us. We are working towards building not only a collaborative teaching staff but also a collaborative student learning community. This takes time to plan, ensuring that discussions are held, support is offered, professional learning is given to help understand the 'why' of this change and of course, reflecting on their journey in this process.

What are the core values that underpin your profession? Evaluate your practice with regard to these values.
I believe the core values that underpin my profession is relationships. A whole community of relationships:  relationships between colleagues,  relationships between teacher and student and relationship between teacher and parents. In order for my team to be successful, I need to build lasting meaningful relationships based on trust. With my students, also trust. Trust that I will be there for them. Trust that I will support and encourage them even when things go wrong. Engaging with parents, building a professional caring relationship - them entrusting me to do the right thing by their child. 

As a profession, we belong to many communities of practice. Actively engaging in these communities is the basis of continued growth in professional learning, both deliberate and incidental.
Let's get engaged!



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