Communities of Practice

Communities of practice

As I fly home from two MAGIC days with CORE whanau I am buzzing with ideas, blue sky thinking, community of practice potential.

I want to reflect on some of the highlights of the two days:

·      Cross pollination – sharing and growing of teams across CORE Education;

·      He tangata, he tangata, he tangata – time with CORE whanau is ALWAYS MAGIC;

·      UDL revisited and a challenge taken by me to really explore this concept and bring it more to the forefront of my practice and way of being;

·       Moving from comfort to challenge…. Moving beyond what we are currently doing well – moving into potential, and unexplored territory;

·      Exploring concepts and potential for mentoring;

·      Revisiting the ideas of Connected Educator month and seeing the potential for us to really grow our networked community;

·      Viewing the potential for CORE to move beyond current practice, the transformation agenda, exploring what we can be;

·      Flexibility within the programme to allow for time with our own team; cross team groupings, individual and group tasks;

·      Challenges!  The welcome discomfort that comes from a gentle nudge to be more than we currently are;

·      Revisiting Tatai Aho Rau; understanding it anew and its place at the forefront of what CORE is;

·      Variation of presentation/facilitation styles; a real opportunity for us to benefit from a range of styles;

·      Socialisation – breaks timed to allow for plenty of face to face; alongside opportunities to dine together;

·      Flexibility of the agenda – lived reality that an agenda that is set in stone possibly doesn’t necessarily reflect all the needs of all the participants.  An evolving agenda is powerful;

·      Valuing – there is an incredible feeling that we are valued for our ideas, our practice, our collaboration, and very way of being;

Challenges I take from here into my practice:

·      UDL at the forefront of my practice;

·      Development of CoP (Communities of Practice) within my LwDT school clusters; (explicit in our agreed way of working)

·      Growing the collaboration and feed into our mailing lists by enlisting the support of staff to share links and information with us;

·      Continuing networking and cross pollination between sites and mailing lists (literacy in Technology to be an area of focus early in Term 3.)

·      Further involvement in the evolution of thinking around CoP within CORE;

·      Acknowledge and thank those who made this event a reality;

·      Share CoP ideas with LwDT South at regular staff meetings;

·      Use my upcoming CORE breakfast/workshop to actively develop/extend CoPs.

·      Celebrate!