So, Why is a CoP so Important and Valuable?

 

I've written a previous post on Reflective Practice and Communities of Practice - a warning: it's a long one! It goes into detail about the power of reflection in a CoP and includes thoughts on how important the Key Competencies are. You can read it here. 

As I looked back at that post from 2016, I made many connections to what we are working to achieve at Te Kura. I know how powerful CoPs can be when they are designed well and work well. As part of this - and underpinning it - at Te Kura we have our Ngā Mātāpono/values, which I've also reflected on in a prior post: Looking Back to Look Forward.  In Akoako@TeKura we are focused on creating sessions that are underpinned by these values so that our people can see Ngā Mātāpono in action and explore them in the context of the discussions.

Our community continues to grow and it has been exciting to see the level of confidence growing in our participants. 

A question came up about why we wanted to share the invitation to the sessions with ALL staff. The reason behind this is that it shouldn't only be about our teachers if we are going to be a true CoP - all voices need to be heard and have much to offer. As an example of this, I remember many years ago when I first became interested in CoPs and we made sure that all of the staff at our school, from our caretaker through to the Principal was involved and invited to sessions. Some of the most powerful changes we made to our teaching practice came from discussions with our people who weren't teachers. I'm pretty passionate about including everyone, particularly if we are to live our values - our Ngā Mātāpono. 

Ngā Mātāpono are our principles that guide our practice but they are also how we want to be. 

Discussions in the second part of the year have included the following:

Term 2

What's Your Why? Simon Sinek

Everyone is a Change Agent

Be a Change Agent - Teachers as Change Agents

Where to Next?

We still get requests to record the sessions, but are sticking to our guns on this one. We have made sure that everyone knows that they can still access the rauemi/resources, Jamboards, extra within our learning platform and that is helping a little bit. It's still a challenge for us and I'm not sure we have the answer yet. The power of being live -and not recorded - is the interaction, comments in the chat and the connections that are formed during each sessions between people. I still think we would lose that if we recorded and I definitely believe we would lose some of the trust and openness. 

We have, however, listened to people who have really struggled to get to the 8.00am session. If we want to be a truly inclusive community, we needed to address this so, from Term 3 we are moving to twice-daily sessions, three times a term. The second session will be a lunchtime one from 1.30pm - 2.15pm. 

It will be interesting to see the impact the second session has. This is such an important aspect of creating a strong and effective CoP - listen to voices. Your people own this community, find ways to make it theirs.