Week 19 - Community of Practice - Inquiry topics
We had learnt in the class about PLN/PLE -
personal learning network and environment. Taking it a step further is the
concept of CoP or community of practice. When I read about the three elements
of CoP –
1.
Joint enterprise
2.
Mutual engagement and
3.
Shared repertoire (Wenger, 2000),
I started to think of some of the professional
groups, of whom I am a member and how they could fit in the definition. Firstly,
of course is my school department of Social Science, which comprises of ten
teachers teaching both in senior classes and in Year 9 and 10. We have a robust
system in place which ensures that we meet once a fortnight and share ideas on
planning of future units in the common subject – Social studies for 9/10 and
also for our senior areas of learning. We upload all our resources on the Team
drive in Google drive. So, our department is definitely a CoP. Then, I am a
member of Google groups of teachers of Accounting and Economics and also CETA,
which share resources and best practices, solve problems and inform the members of any developments related to the subject. All these
groups have the elements of mutual engagement and shared repertoire in abundance,
however, they somewhat lack the element of Joint enterprise. It would seem to
me that we as educators are charged with imparting the skills of collaborative
learning to the learners, but seldom display it ourselves.
The two inquiry questions that could
contribute to my CoP are –
1.
How can we create a unit of
work that is truly collaborative, cross-curricular and reflects real-life
situation?
Most of my ex-students fondly remember how
they enjoyed and learnt more from working as teams on projects such as
organising school-production, ball or the business challenge rather than just
classroom lectures. Their professional lives have been enriched, by learning to
work together for a common objective.
My hunch is that if we could create a unit
of work that involves teachers planning together on the learning and assessment
of related topics such as business, accounting, marketing, production, technology,
language (writing) – it would engage the students and make it meaningful for
them. The flexibility in NCEA internal assessments do provide the platform for
such an experiment and on fruition of this project, it may lead to a welcome
change in professional practice of my other colleagues in CETA and their
schools as well.
2.
What effects will flipped
classroom have on junior and senior subject learning?
Flipped classroom is an educational
technique whereby interactive group learning activities take place inside the
classroom while computer-based instruction is accessed outside the classroom
mostly by videos and other web based applications(Guy & Marquis, 2016). Essentially it flips the traditional model where students come to
class to learn passively in a group and go home to reinforce their learning as
individuals – both activities denying them any collaborative experience or
getting one on one time with the teacher. In the flipped model, learning or
most of it, is done beforehand by students in their private space with the help
of videos, podcasts, websites and other tools. They come to class and are given
group tasks, while some, who need that support, get individualised help based
on their performance in the pre-class tasks.
I find this a very exciting prospect as in
each class there are a few who need no help but rather more challenges to
extend their learning and others who need support. I think that this strategy
will give me TIME for both ends of the bell-curve. My department has already
expressed interest in following this experiment and adopt it if the evidence is
that it works.
References -
Guy, R., & Marquis, G. (2016).
The flipped classroom: a comparison of student performance using
instructional videos and podcasts versus the lecture-based model of
instruction. Issues in Informing Science & Information Technology,
13, 1–14. Retrieved from
http://go.galegroup.com.libproxy.unitec.ac.nz/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CA498675905&v=2.1&u=per_unit&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&authCount=1
Wenger, E. (2000). Communities of
Practice and Social Learning Systems. Organization, 7(2),
225–246. https://doi.org/10.1177/135050840072002
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I am looking forward to hearing how you have implemented flipped learning in your classroom and department. I was lucky enough to go to Australia and spend time in schools which have implemented flipped learning. They worked with Jon Bergman who is a guru on flipped learning
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