Week 19

Contribution of Teacher Inquiry Topics to my Communities of Practice

I have chosen to critically reflect on Developing a Growth Mindset and Computational Thinking within the context of creating digital formats for reluctant writers.

I’m still undecided if this will be for my Inquiry but I’m interested to critically reflect and decide how these topic could be part of my contribution to my Communities of Practice. I will be involved in two Communities of Practice.  I am our lead teacher for our Kāhui Ako Community of Learning for Writing which Wenger (2002) explains as a place where we have a collective understanding of our role, where we do things together, talking and producing artefacts.

As part of our Digital Technology Team at our school we are exploring the new Digital Technology Curriculum which is where we coordinate perspectives, actions and realise higher goals (Wenger, 2002) We also look at it and plan how it can be incorporated into our curriculum in a Real Life practical way. The CoP’s that I am engaged with will support and link in with my two areas of critical reflection - Developing a Growth Mindset and Computational Thinking within the context of writing for reluctant boys. Because our CoL is focussing on writing and our digital team on applying the new curriculum the two ‘dovetail’ nicely together.

My team at CoL are very supportive of this new initiative and are interested in the outcome.  They recognise it as an opportunity for across school joint activities. As Wenger (2002) states that for this to be successful we must trust in each others ability to contribute.  They are interested to see how using digital technology and computational thinking can work within the context of writing and are especially interested in how this might be beneficial in motivating boys to engage in writing. My in school digital technology team are supportive to see how computational thinking activities can work within the framework of writing. I realise for it to be successful I need to be mindful of identifying the factors that would increase the chances of success (Zhao, et al. 2002).  My CoP have established a healthy infrastructure with knowledgeable and communicative people who will help me understand my classroom needs. (Zhao, et al. 2002).

Using the Jay and Johnson (2002) model of reflection has given me a chance to critically reflect on how these inquiries could develop.  Discussion with my CoP groups have posed some important things to consider. Things such as time constraints setting it up, access to resources, target groups and other teacher buy in.  I’ve also been encouraged to think about the level of expertise of the students and most importantly how would I assess it’s success. These were all considerations that I hadn’t really thought about. To me, this encapsulates the purpose of a CoP in that “the spirit of learning, knowledge and collaboration” is valued (Cambridge et al, 2005, pg 1).

References

Cambridge, D., Kaplan, S. & Suter, V. (2005). Community of practice design guide: A Step-by-Step Guide for Designing & Cultivating. Retrieved from https://net.educa use.edu/ir/library/pdf/NLI0531.pd…

Jay, J. K., & Johnson, K. L. (2002). Capturing complexity: A typology of reflective practice for teacher education. Teaching and teacher education, 18(1), 73-85.

Wenger, E.(2000). Communities of practice and social learning systems. Organization,7(2), 225-246.

Zhao, Y., Pugh, K., Sheldon, S. & Byers, J. (2002). Conditions for classroom technology innovations. Teachers College Record, 104(3), 482-515. Retrieved from https://www.rtsd.org/cms/lib/PA01000218/Centricity/Domain/96/Conditions%20for%20Classroom%20Tech.pdf

W18/ Reflecting on Changes in Future

Orientated Teaching Practice

Create a reflective entry to critically reflect upon how you have positively
changed your practice during your postgraduate journey.

After reading Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching — a New Zealand perspective
(Bolstad, Gilbert, McDowall, Bull, Boyd & Hipkins, 2012) I was interested in reflecting more
closely on Personalising Learning mainly because the last 17 weeks of Mindlab has had me thinking
critically on how our children can best benefit from the transition from the idea that knowledge is
content or stuff to the emerging idea that knowledge does stuff (Bolstad, 2012) and how this paradigm
shift in education can benefit our tamariki in an authentic and meaningful way.

I’m not going to lie - transitioning into an environment where I was a ‘facilitator’ was at times a
challenge but I grew in confidence as I trusted the process of Inquiry and its supporting principles.  
By implementing frameworks such as Kanban, Scrum and Swarm (within the context of Genius Hour
a self directed Inquiry into anything they chose) I observed my tamariki growing in confidence which
in turn gave me more confidence in the knowledge that I was on the right path. In retrospect, I could
have taken a more systematic approach to implementing these frameworks with more time spent on
active discussions on how using the framework would be beneficial to their learning journey.  
More discussions on the ‘how and why’ and less on the ‘what and when’.

When I reflect on the changes and improvements in my teaching practice, and implementing these
frameworks, I observed in the children that knowledge is best constructed when the learner has made
their own choices and taken action to determine the course of their learning (Lindgren & McDaniel, 2012).
My observations were the children were increasingly more proactive and decisive in their choices and
I noticed a shift to organic collaborative opportunities that were child directed. They were responsive
and engaged as their questions become less passive and more active which indicated a high level
of cognitive engagement confirming I was on the right track.

Over the last 16 weeks of Mindlab I became aware of different leadership styles.  
Agile Leadership struck a chord with me to be able to inspire and empower my tamariki
to figure out how to achieve their goals and personalise their learning and gain student
agency so they could feel in control of their learning, the pace of their learning and the
outcome of their learning as it would allow the students to evaluate as they went through
the process and change the framework accordingly (Breakspear, n.d.). The benefit of this
was the impact of the learning was in the process rather than the end result and that
the children
themselves adapted and were pliable to doing things differently as they worked through the
problems as they arose.

Upon reflection I realise that I needed to give more feedback throughout the process not just
at the end. I felt that if I gave too much feedback I’d be over regulating the process and
taking away their student agency, interfering with the pace of their learning and manipulating
their learning.  I realise now that some feedback during the process is necessary to help keep
some structure in their learning. Regular feedback and workshops would be beneficial and
supportive to achieving their learning goals.

I will continue to use Agile leadership in my teaching and employ frameworks such as
Kanban and Scrum as tools to assist my students to self regulate and self manage themselves
during their personalised learning (Genius Hour) and explore more ways to express this.  
I will continue to seek and give feedback and feedforward and monitor their cognitive
engagement
through the increased level of question asking by my students.

Word count 602

References

Breakspear, S. (n.d.). Embracing Agile Leadership for Learning - how leaders canncreate
impact despite growing complexity. Retrieved from,
http://simonbreakspear.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/AEL-
Article-Embracing-Agile-Leadership.pdf

Bolstad, R., Gilbert, J., McDowall, S., Bull, A., Boyd, S., & Hipkins, R. (2012).
Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching — a New Zealand perspective.
Report prepared for the Ministry of Education. Retrieved from
https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/schooling/109306

Lindgren, R., & McDaniel, R. (2012). Transforming Online Learning through Narrative
and Student Agency.  Educational Technology & Society, 15(4), 344–355.