Week 25 - APC - Reflective Practice

Introduction:

I am a technology teacher at Kaiapoi Borough School. I teach Creative Textiles 4 days a week and 1 day a week in Robotics.

Defining my ‘Community of Practice’

This is hard to define because of the context I teach and the eight contributing schools, the many students, colleagues and support staff. They all form part of the COP as we ‘engage’ with them all to create the best learning outcomes for students and the sense of ‘joint enterprise’ (Wenger, 2000). Students are at the forefront of our COP from the feedback we receive from them and the fact we actually ‘learn’ from the students! They provide valuable information that helps shape the learning programmes and to provide a more purposeful learning experience.  The contributing schools’ practices provide us with insights how we can improve and differentiate our programmes to best suit the needs of their students. Our home school provides opportunities for flexibility and professional development in other curriculum areas.  As a Technology team we are very strong on collaboration and share our ideas that we receive from students, peers and schools.

Contributions to my community of practice

I am constantly reflecting on my practice, which has its ups and downs. However, both are shared with my team to provide a new perspective. Often the positive experiences are taken up and used by another team member – it may be just another way of teaching a concept or a simple ‘circle time’ topic. The not so positive experiences actually end up being a positive because the team learns from these too. If I have had a session that has not gone to plan with a particular group some strategies may be suggested and these may be adopted by another team member when they have a similar experience. 

I share my planning and programme to my team which allows feedback to improve on the development of this and also as a team we borrow each other’s ideas.

One of the most important contributions to my community of practice is the students. I give the students the opportunity to give me feedback at the end of the session: “How did I do?” “What do I need to change?” The students are very forthcoming and provide honest feedback, and sometimes it hurts. Alternatively, I might ask: “How was the session today?” and do a PMI  (positive, minus and interesting). The feedback sometimes surprises me and is vital in how I can forward plan (Findlay, 2008) and teach the next sessions. The students appreciate the fact that I ask them for feedback and value their ideas.

Core values and principles that underpin my profession
The Teaching standards:
 https://educationcouncil.org.nz/sites/default/files/gts-poster.pdf in particular standard 3: understanding contextual factors; students cultural needs and the influences. 

The 'values'  that are developed by each school that have connections to the NZC by embedding these during technology sessions. Students understand their school's values and relationships with students are developed by using their own values.

The principles from the curriculum document (MOE, 2007) – they are all important I have just highlighted these:

Coherence- we gather as much information about students to provide a ‘big picture’ to support their individual learning needs. Sessions are differentiated to provide extra supports or independent learning depending on the students learning needs. Individual learning plans are also developed to provide student success and information is provided to the contributing schools, so they can have an input. The student learning information is passed between the technology teachers to ensure that students are provided with easy transition between the technology areas and to also encourage progression.

Inclusiveness – Each of our students’ groups is a ‘team’. Every team member has the right to be respected and have opportunities to learn. We have ‘circle time’ at the start of the session to encourage this and at the end as a reflection. Students are encouraged to support each other (tuakana/teina). We collaborate as a team using a ‘rights and responsibility’ agreement at the start of the term to build positive relationships and for the students to understand their responsibilities.

Learning to learn – I encourage students to be independent and think for themselves. The key is for them to problem solve and discover solutions by trial and collaboration with peers. The learning experience is much more valuable and they feel proud of their achievements. It is awkward as a teacher to step back sometimes and allow for this to happen, it is so easy to ‘fix’ the problem. They often explain that they actually enjoyed the experience and learnt more. It is essential for students in their journey of ‘lifelong learning’ (Findlay, 2008).

High expectations – I have high expectations of students and sometimes this is challenging. Some students are often nervous and anxious when they initially use the equipment. I know that they can overcome their feelings, but this does take some encouragement. It is often knowing when to let go of the training wheels and walk away, so they can go solo and feel that they are in control and gain the confidence they need. Some students need extra scaffolding to complete learning outcomes, but the expectation is that they will need to ‘give it a go’. Students that can achieve greater levels are encouraged to self-assess their learning and asked: What could they do differently?

References

Finlay, L. (2009) Reflecting on reflective practice. PBPL. Retrieved fromhttp://www.open.ac.uk/opencetl/files/opencetl/file/ecms/web-content/Finlay-%282008%29-Reflecting-on-reflective-practice-PBPL-paper-52.pdf

Ministry of Education (2009) Principles. Retrieved from http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/Principles

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