Communities of Practice, Communities of Learning?

Communities of Practice
Acoording to Wenger-Travner (2015), the definition of Communities of Practices 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:.  As professionals we a duty to be a part of Communities of Learning (CoLs) or Communities of Practices (CoPs) in one form or another. 

For my own understand CoLs are a group of lie-minded professionals and community members, whom ever this may be or as the MOE (2016) states "can involve organisations outside the compulsory education sector" coming together to access the best quality resources, be it human or educational, for the better of our children. 

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As part of my Mindlab journey I have already made new connections with practices I am involved in, and am learning new concepts to use in my classroom, daily.   A CoP I am currently involved with at present, are the teachers in our syndicate level, to the whole teaching staff (small school), through to members of a Primary Teachers Facebook page.  As a professional community we are constantly striving to figure out what the needs of our community are and how we can best meet those needs.

In our school, we came together as a CoP, and were given the task of undertaking a collective teacher inquiry to design a spiral curriculum for our school, to implement over the next three years, that would have more meaning for our whanau and be more applicable for them.  The key to this inquiry was the collaboration of all teachers and the principal.  Sweeney (2015) stated “Collaboration involves teachers committing to a common goal or focus using inquiry practices, challenging and critiquing each other respectfully, focusing on evidence-based needs, and having clarity about their roles in the work/process. Building trust is important”.   This inquiry was the utmost epitome of what Sweeney (2015) stated above:  we came together as a staff with the common goal of designing our three year spiral curriculum, using inquiry practices of sound, classroom and pedagogical based knowledge, and best classroom practice, and as Galileo (n.d.) states are “solid knowledge of practice, knowledge in practice and knowledge for practice”: respectfully challenging and critiquing each other’s knowledge and professional experiences to get the job done, using evidence-based knowledge of past inquiry content and contexts,  and having the clarity around their roles and processes to meet our community’s needs.   

Focus On Inquiry. (n.d.). Retrieved November 03, 2017, from http://inquiry.galileo.org/

Introduction to communities of practice. (n.d.). Retrieved November 24, 2017, from http://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/

Ministry of Education - Community of Learning: Guide for Schools and Kura. (2016). Retrieved November 24, 2017, from http://www.bing.com/cr?IG=292EAB34EDA74A609D47B43834A9F316&CID=331701E910106407023A0AA41116657A&rd=1&h=lqZoIo4cpGZrpmtIRk8f5Z004imzSmaiK1TLucZ8qhg&v=1&r=http%3a%2f%2fwww.education.govt.nz%2fassets%2fDocuments%2fMinistry%2fInvesting-in-Educational-Success%2fCommunities-of-Schools%2fCommunities-of-Learning-Guide-for-Schools-and-Kura-web-enabled.pdf&p=DevEx,5067.1

Sweeney, R. (2015). Building collaborative Teaching as Inquiry teams using spiral of Inquiry. Retrieved November 24, 2017, from http://blog.core-ed.org/blog/2015/06/building-collaborative-teaching-as-inquiry-teams-using-spirals-of-inquiry.html