Akoako@TeKura - Our Online Community of Practice - More than halfway!

 We have had a term of two sessions twice a day in Weeks 3, 6, and 9 and have been reflecting on the impact of Akoako@TeKura in general and specifically the extra sessions. What has the impact been on the Community of Practice at Te Kura. Is it becoming a way to create a sense of community and connection? 

Sessions in Term 3

Our sessions this term have focused on creating a sense of belonging at Te Kura and the part that each and everyone of us has to play in that. We can say we don't feel a part of something, but what can we do to change that - to be solutions-focused, rather than only seeing the problem? What are the opportunities that have popped up as the result of something we've noticed?

The focus questions for the Term have really challenged us to go deeper - to think more critically about how we can continue to be part of the change we want to see...and be.  You can see an example of some of the questions below with the related Mātāpono in brackets:

• What does belonging look like at Te Kura?  
• What does it feel like, sound like, taste like, smell like? (Whakamana, Whaitake) 
• How do we create a sense of belonging for our ākonga and their whānau at Te Kura? What are all the rauemi/resources we have available to do this? (Kotahitanga, Whakamana, Māramatonutanga) 
• How do we create a sense of belonging for kaimahi at Te Kura? What do we do now and what are the possibilities for the future? What are the possibilities? (Māramatonutanga, Kotahitanga, Whaitake)
• How can individually do something to create a sense of belonging at Te Kura? (Whakawhanaungatanga, Māramatonutanga)  

Here is what we've explored in Term 3

Every time we create a session, our focus is always to connect to who we are at Te Kura. 

Belonging at Te Kura

The Danger of a Single Story

Moving Beyond a Single Story

We've picked up a few new leaders, which is fantastic and have more people interested in running sessions in the future - lots of ideas for future sessions are added to the Jamboard. The beauty of using this tool is that once it's opened, it stays in your Google Drive and can be accessed anytime, anywhere. It is really exciting to see when people in our CoP add ideas at times outside of the main session.

We have deepened our focus and connection to our Ngā Mātāpono as discussed in a previous post. This has had an impact on the level of discussion. This is mostly in the chat and on the Jamboards. I think our next - and most important - focus for the community, is to find ways to encourage people to have the confidence to share with cameras and microphones on - this is the challenge of having a solely online Community of Practice...but we are up to the challenge! 

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. 

Creating a Community of Practice in a Special Space

 I've written before about Communities of Practice and how powerful they are in all spaces, whether the community is one involving ākonga(students), or adults - or even better, ALL ages and stages.  See here, here, and here for a few previous posts. 

The power of a well-designed CoP means that it is a space for all voices to be heard, they have a place and space to contribute and it is not reliant on a certain level of experience. Everyone has something important to offer.

Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu

At Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu - The Correspondence School, we are spread across the whole of Aotearoa New Zealand and beyond, so it can be challenging to find ways to create a sense of community. From the time I began teaching at Te Kura, I quickly became focused on how I could help create this sense of community through something like a Community of Practice as I had in many previous spaces I had worked in as well as during my Masters' study.

The perfect opportunity arose this year when I took on a new role as a Kaiarahi-a-motu - National Leader of Learning in the Curriculum Wāhanga (team). Another kaiako (teacher) was also interested in creating an online group of some type - a book group or club - to focus on professional learning and development as well as personal growth and development, and so the plan began.

We are a term into the group now. Akoako@TeKura has become our online community of practice where we can share and collaborate in a safe space. Currently, there is one session in Weeks 3, 6, and 9 of the Term. The sessions are a 'Breakfast Club' and run from 8.00am - 8.45am.

Our format is the same each time:

• Pre-reading or viewing - never longer than 15-20 minutes at the most (often a TEDTalk or TEDxTalk)
• Focus questions to prompt thought and discussion for our sessions

We also have other rauemi/resources available if our people want to delve deeper into the topics. These are released on the day of the sessions so that we don't overwhelm people beforehand.

The sessions are never recorded - even though we've been asked many times to do this. We have been firm in our thinking on this as we wanted to create a safe and open space where people don't feel constrained in what they can share by the fact of it being recorded. This has meant that we have had some incredibly personal stories shared and we've been really humbled by this. A well-designed CoP relies on being underpinned by a sense of respect and trust and I think we have worked hard to develop this.

During the sessions, the focus is on discussion and creating new learning together - another important aspect of a CoP. We start with an icebreaker - often just a quick thought-provoking or funny video. We then open a Jamboard - we have one for each session and they are consistent in format so that people know what to expect:

3 Important Points (from what we've read, watched, etc)

Something that Squares with Your Beliefs or Practice

Something Still Circling Around Your Head (thoughts, wonderings)

A Call to Action

Moving Forward - Ideas for Future Sessions (to give a voice and choice/agency in what we share and learn about)

One of our other main goals was to create opportunities for leadership in the CoP - another important part of a well-designed CoP. We are gradually widening the group of leaders in the space and this is something that we will always have as a goal and focus. 

Everyone has something to offer and contribute in a CoP

Some of the topics for discussion in Terms 1 have included:

Two-eyed Seeing

From Two-eyed Seeing to Two-eyed Being

My Identity: Mana: The Power in Knowing Who You Are - Tame Iti

Where to Next?

Heading into Term 2, we are focusing on leadership and knowing our 'why' or purpose in what we do at Te Kura. One of our main goals is to increase participation and ownership of the community. It is already strong but we know we can do so much more to create this sense of belonging and ownership. We've already increased the number of people who are keen to develop sessions and lead with us supporting. Our goal is still to create a CoP where people know they belong and are keen to take leadership of discussions with us in support roles. 

Stay tuned! 

What's A Community of Practice?

Recently I've been having a lot of discussion about Communities of Practice, (CoPs) in connection with my studies.  There's been an assumption that they're the same as the Communities of Learning set up by the previous government in this country but they're not.  While they do have some similarities, they have some very fundamental - and very important differences, both philosophically and pedagogically.  This post is about reflecting on these and trying to break them down into bullet points.

CoPs are a bit of a passion of mine and were a focus for my thesis for my Masters thesis back in 2015.  I developed an online community of practice for TeachThought and, Along with Beth Leidolf in the US, we created a weekly Twitter chat.  Beth then became a big part of running the online community as part of the leadership. CoPs are all about sharing the learning with everyone having an equal say as you'll see in the bullet point summaries below.

The summaries - these won't be perfect and are just my summaries as I see them at this point, (and I'm always willing to be challenged).  These points come from my research in the case of the CoPs and from research and discussion with many teachers involved in the CoLs in the case of the CoLs.


Communities of Learning

• New Zealand government initiative
• Top-down model
• Large groups of schools, small numbers of facilitators and 'expert teachers'
• Lead teachers and professional development providers with expertise lead the learning
• Other teachers learn from the 'experts'
• Knowledge is grown
• Data-driven
• Goal is to improve success for students and raise achievement
• Ownership of the process is largely by the leadership of the CoLs

Communities of Practice

• Groups are created through a common interest/need
• Distributed leadership and ownership model
• All members are seen to have expertise no matter what their 'level', e.g. a beginning teacher's knowledge is as valuable as someone with a PhD.  
• The value is in creating knowledge together
• Knowledge is grown, created 
• Data is valued and guides the community but doesn't become the overall focus
• Goal is to raise success for ALL INVOLVED - students AND teachers
• Everyone involved owns the process and has opportunities to lead

I've blogged about CoPs before and through the years, (see links below), my thinking hasn't changed.  I still believe that they are a way for teachers to be in charge of their own professional learning and for them to create excitement about that learning.  It becomes ongoing, real and relevant - just like we want for our students.  It's not a top-down model controlled by a small group of people and it's always relevant to the individual teacher's own learning needs.  This is how it should be for ALL learners.


Links to Previous Posts on CoPs

Communities of Practice
PLN - aka Powerful Learning Network
Developing a Community of Practice - Improvements and Feedback



Wanting to Develop Your Own Online CoP? 

This presentation may be useful...

Pathways to collaboration from Justine Hughes / PhD Student/ Teacher

Connecting to Your PLN for Powerful Reflective Practice

CONNECT FOR POWERFUL REFLECTIVE PRACTICE

I have been interested for many years in the power of connecting with others to improve your practice and this was a strong theme that ran through many of our blog challenges during various Reflective Teacher @TeachThought blog challenges. Reflecting on our connections and the insight they can provide was part of a Thoughtful Thursdays challenge in 2014.  Connecting with others enables you to explore your practice from many different angles and viewpoints.

The following acrostic poem was written in 2011 as we pulled apart what it meant for us to be connected educators.

On Being A Connected Educator and Why I'm Grateful for the Connections

Day 16 of the Attitude of Gratitude Reflective Teacher @TeachThought Blog Challenge...


Why I'm So Very Grateful To Be A...

Connected locally and globally to inspirational teachers and learners
One way to challenge and push your own learning through different viewpoints
New ideas and learning are created through connection and collaboration
Never alone in this fabulous and challenging profession
Energised by conversation, support, humour and collaboration
Constantly supported to be the best you can be
There to support and encourage others
Energising personalities abound!
Developing new understandings about learning and teaching

Experimenting with new thinking and ideas to improve practice
Depending on your connected educators PLN for insight and discussion
Unending learning
Challenged to be reflective about your practice and clear in your thinking
Articulating practice through additional viewpoints and questions
Thankful and grateful for opportunities and connections
Original thinkers and learners inspire and challenge me
Reflective practice is at our core for the sake of our students

I reviewed what I had created as my connections in 2014 and added new ones.

 2014  What Does Connected Education Mean to Me?

2016  My Current Connected Education Connections

The Power of Professional Connections

Choosing only two professional connections to discuss is not easy as they are all so powerful.  The two I've chosen are discussed here because they have been a constant throughout most of my teaching career.

Twitter - PLN and EdChats

I first blogged about Twitter and the power it has a learning platform in 2011 and, on re-reading it, I felt the same excitement I had then.  I'd had an account for a year but never saw the purpose in using it as a learning tool until I was challenged by a colleague to give it a go.  It is honestly the best thing I've ever done.  I had started my Masters and it was a platform in which I could challenge my thinking, share my ideas and be challenged by others' thinking on the questions I was investigating in my research.

From the end of 2013 until the end of 2014 I was not in the classroom as I was recovering from an illness so I had a lot of time I could invest in developing my PLN on Twitter.  Upon returning to the classroom at the beginning of 2015, which was a huge challenge in itself, I found that I didn't seem to have the time I wanted in order to be able to participate in the weekly / monthly Edchats so I had to let that slide and I've really missed the discussions and debates.  Now that I am at home again and beginning my Doctor of Education, I will be fully utilising this platform to test my thinking and gain insight from others.  Twitter is a powerful tool to have as part of a community of practice as you learn from and with others, both locally and globally with a very wide range of experience.

University of Otago - EdD PLN

The majority of my university study has been completed through the University of Otago by distance. In my final year of undergraduate study I completed a paper "Computers in Education" and was completely hooked by the potential of online learning to change how we learn and teach.  Since that time I have been able to see the evolution of a communities of practice style of learning and teaching.

In 2011 I began my Masters where one of the assignments required us to collaborate on a communities of practice project where all the collaboration was online with some face-to-face for those who were in Dunedin.  Three of our group were in Dunedin and I was in Invercargill.  The project environment required us to be clear in our communications and to work in ways we hadn't before.  We weren't always successful and had to work hard on our communication, particularly as one of our group did not have English as his first language.    Our project can be viewed here. 

This year I will once again be learning in a community of practice.  What this will look like is yet to be determined and that is the beauty of a genuine CoP.  It evolves and develops as the community members evolve and develop.  It is about shared practice where all ideas and experiences are valued and help to develop our practice.  We will meet face-to-face for the first time in July so it will be exciting to see who else is in the community and how it will develop from there.


REFERENCES

Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W.M., (2002).  Cultivating communities of practice.  Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Communities of Practice

What is a Community of Practice?

The concept of Communities of Practice as defined by Etienne Wenger has long been an area of interest for me and I completed my final Masters thesis around these and the power they can have to improve our teaching practice.  The link below is to my final research report.

Communities of Practice and the Potential to Change Teacher Professional Learning Master of Teaching research, 2014/15




The following was a presentation created in 2014 to share what I had learned about how to develop an 'effective' community of practice, (see also Wenger, 1998).

Pathways to collaboration from Justine Hughes / Deputy Principal/ Teacher

MY COMMUNITY

Purpose and Function of my Practice and how it Meets the Needs of the Community

The purpose and function of my practice for the past year or so has been to meet the needs of my Year 6-8 students and the small rural community in which I learn and teach.  My class was mostly made up of an equal number of Intermediate-aged students who have particular needs as they move into adolescence and need to be supported as they prepare for the next stage of their learning journey - College or Secondary School.  There is also a need to support and reassure parents, particularly those for whom this is their first child at this level.  Many I've spoken to are like me and have not had the best experiences at Secondary so they already have a preconceived idea of what school is like in relation to their own experiences; positive or otherwise.

Reassuring parents - and students - is all about providing connections and working in a partnership for each individual child and his/her individual learning needs.  Connections are forged through class and individual blogs, communication with parents: face-to-face or via email, notes home etc or even a quick phone call.  This is not just when there are concerns.  It is important to connect when great things are happening too.  Maybe it's even more important.  It's all about relationships and connections.

The goal is always to help students become confident and connected learners who are not afraid to fail; who see this as a chance for deeper learning and also as an exciting personal challenge rather than as a stumbling block.  It's about finding out what makes each individual student 'tick', what their passions are and working from there - you need to know who they are as people, not just as 'one of the students' - if you are going to connect and engage with them and provide the best learning opportunities for them.

Now that I am no longer at school and moving into studying for my Doctor of Education, the community I serve will change.  My research, at this stage, is around improving writing for our students - finding ways to motivate and engage them and raise achievement levels at the same time. This will be another blog post.

Challenges Faced in my Practice and How a Community of Practice (CoP) can Help Address Them

As I've written extensively about how CoPs can address the needs of teachers in the current environment in my research I won't repeat this in this section but will summarise what I've learned to date (with still a lot of learning to come).

CoPs provide a way to connect with others on a level playing field where everyone can learn with and from each other.  Everyone's level / depth of knowledge is valued and appreciated.  In turn, this sharing of practice and knowledge has the benefit and goal, if you like, of creating new shared knowledge or practice.  It provides a platform for genuine reflection / reflective practice but only if it is set up and organised well from the beginning.  The criteria for an effective CoP is set out in the presentation (Slideshare) above).


Changes in our Profession and How a Community of Practice Can Address the Changes

Currently we are experiencing many changes in the profession with a lot of pressure placed on teachers to 'lift the tail' in terms of our students who are not meeting the National Standards in the core curriculum areas of Reading, Writing and Maths.   My thinking around these will be detailed in a later post.  For the current assignment I will focus on a new initiative which seems, at first glance, to be built around the concept of Communities of Practice (the Communities of Learning initiative).  Delving further into what these Communities of Learning are and the expectations for them possibly raises more questions than answers for me at this stage.


Investigating in Educational Success and Communities of Learning

My first reaction on hearing that these communities were being developed was a very positive one and I'm still keeping an open mind so I've organised my thinking, at this stage into a PMI which looks at the positives to date, any negatives I can see and the interesting questions that have popped up as I've researched and read.
I am looking forward to revisiting this post in the future as the communities develop and grow.  I would also love to read the views of others around the CoLs.


Communities of Learning PMI

References

Hughes, J. (2014) Pathways to collaboration: developing an online community of practice. Retrieved from  http://www.slideshare.net/Justine8/pathways-to-collaboration.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning as a social system, Systems Thinker, Retrieved April 2013 from www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/cop/lss.shtml

What Is Unique About My Teaching and Learning?

Day 2 of the Reflect and Renew Blog Challenge from Reflective Teacher @TeachThought 

A few years ago I had a wonderful student teacher who gave our class a picture for our wall that had this quote on it.  It really struck a chord with all of us, me included.  She said that she had loved being in our room as we were all so unique, crazy and slightly weird.  We saw possibilities and questions in everything!  For us, this was an enormous compliment as it meant we were relaxed enough to show our true selves and have fun with the serious business of learning.  

This had been a group of students who, generally, were not engaged, did not enjoy school and would not really engage in conversation let alone relax and have fun with what they were learning.  In some ways, I think they saw me as the 'enemy' - the person who would tell them what to do, what to learn and how to learn it.  It was a class I inherited during the year and their first teacher had done a fantastic job to get them to where they were but there was something missing.  I spent many hours reflecting on what it was.  Was I missing something?  Was it a cultural aspect I was missing as these were diverse learners from many different backgrounds; some of them were experiencing very difficult circumstances.  

The first thing I needed to do was to get to know them as individual human beings.  Not as 'the students', not as 'the class'.  I told them I did not expect them to respect me - I had to earn that right to be respected - but I did expect that they would be well-mannered and not just get up and walk out of class when they felt like it, etc.  The key for me was that they needed to know I had their backs - always and without question.  That can make you unpopular when you are backing a student whom you know is telling the truth against a teacher who is not.  They also needed to know that I respected and cared for them over and above all else, and no matter how challenging they were to me.  It didn't change anything.  I am and always will be their champion - just like Rita Pierson says we need to be.  She is my inspiration because she helped me understand that what I do and how I think is on the right track.  In many ways she validated what I do.  Is it unique?  I don't think so.  I think we all want to be our students' champions.

So what happened with this amazing group of young people?  I changed their programme, in consultation with them, to incorporate their passions and we became a largely digital class. Their achievement levels shot up dramatically, they came to school more often, (often incredibly early!!), they were passionate about learning and best of all...they were not afraid to be themselves, including being crazy, weird and showing all those great creative beahviours.  They had high expectations for themselves as learners.  They were so successful and such a tight-knit group that we kept them together for two years, something that had only been done once before and hadn't been altogether successful.  I was so proud and priviledged to teach and learn alongside them.

Is that what makes me unique?  I don't know.  I think it's a collection of 'things' but they are no more than what most teachers will do or want for their students.  I've started another list to organise my thinking on this.  (Creating a few lists lately - an age thing???).

1.  I expect to share the teaching and learning with my students.  No 'control freak' here.  I learn from and with them.  This is my foundation belief and has been with me since I started at University in 1996.

2.  Knowing my students as individual human beings - what their passions are, what their needs are - is crucial for me and comes before the academic side in the beginning.  I don't believe you can have truly outstandingly successful learners unless they know you know them, believe in them and expect them to achieve with your support.

3.  I am often wrong and will happily admit it.  It's how we learn, afterall.  It's the most powerful learning but we need to be risk-takers to be able to do this.

4.  I will always be there for my students, no matter what, no matter how busy I am.  I'm their chief cheerleader!

5.  I'm passionate about what I do and I'm constantly learning and striving to be better.  I have high expectations for my own learning too.  It's that growth mindset that Carol Dweck talks about.  I expect that for my students too.

On Being a Connected Educator and Why I'm Grateful for the Connections...

Day 16 of the Attitude of Gratitude Reflective Teacher @TeachThought Blog Challenge...


Why I'm So Very Grateful To Be A...

Connected locally and globally to inspirational teachers and learners
One way to challenge and push your own learning through different viewpoints
New ideas and learning are created through connection and collaboration
Never alone in this fabulous and challenging profession
Energised by conversation, support, humour and collaboration
Constantly supported to be the best you can be
There to support and encourage others
Energising personalities abound!
Developing new understandings about learning and teaching

Experimenting with new thinking and ideas to improve practice
Depending on your connected educators PLN for insight and discussion
Unending learning
Challenged to be reflective about your practice and clear in your thinking
Articulating practice through additional viewpoints and questions
Thankful and grateful for opportunities and connections
Original thinkers and learners inspire and challenge me
Reflective practice is at our core for the sake of our students

What's Stopping You? On taking risks, leaping in and not being afraid...

Day 30 of the +TeachThought 30D Reflective Teacher Blog Challenge.

Where has the time gone??  I can't believe it's the end of this challenge - there are more to come though!

I've just finished listening to a powerful hour which focused on Connected Professional Learning which was part of the first day of Connected Educator Month.  (I will post a link to the recording as soon as it is available - very worth listening to).

There was a great deal of discussion around Online Communities of Practice which was music to my ears as it's also my research area and something I've become quite hooked on over the past few years, not only in terms of what it can do for teachers' learning and connections but also how it can be adapted for our students.  The ultimate for me would be to develop my classroom into an online community of practice which was something I was beginning in 2013.

Pathways to collaboration from Justine Hughes / Education Consultant / Teacher

This lead me to suddenly have an 'aha' moment around my research and MTchg which I will finish this year. What is my next learning step??  I expect my students to be able to articulate what their next learning is, so why shouldn't I.

If I'm not afraid, I would begin my Doctoral studies and research all the amazing initiatives that are happening in New Zealand / Aotearoa to showcase our model of learning and teaching which is so powerful.  I expect my students and colleagues to take responsible risks and challenge themselves so what am I afraid of?  What an awesome (in the true meaning of the word) opportunity and privilege it would be to explore the practices of our current online communities and then showcase that to the world.

#reflectiveteacher

PLN - aka Powerful Learning Network

Day 22 of our TeachThought Reflective Teacher Blogging Challenge!

What does your PLN look like? What does it do for you teaching?

My research for my final part of my Masters is all around changing teacher professional learning to make it more relevant, connected and sustainable through Communities of Practice.  The journey to this research focus started when I began to develop my PLN online through Twitter and Facebook and face-to-face through my colleagues back in 2007.  I was frustrated with the way we seemed, as teachers, to be moving very quickly from one professional learning initiative to another with little chance to embed changes, examine our practice or sustain the learning and changes.

PLN's "Friends Educating Each Other": Using Twitter for Informal PD from Debbie Fucoloro

Many of the long-term projects we were involved in were incredibly valuable but difficult to sustain once they were finished and we moved on to the next one.  There had to be a better way to sustain the excitement we'd built up and the changes we'd made.  We also needed to be able to have a way that supported new staff into these changes or they would be easily lost.

My PLN had been the source of sustainability for me.  New Zealand educators are fantastic at creating and sustaining online PLNs so I've taken this idea along with my learning about Communities of Practice and turned it into my research.  Ownership of the learning is key and leads to motivation, excitement and engagement about learning.  These ideas are adaptable for all ages, especially our students but that's a whole other story, and research focus!

So what does my PLN look like?    
It is everything to my learning and teaching.  Some people might be surprised by the inclusion of my students but they are an incredibly important part and a conversation a few years ago when we were setting up their individual blogs taught me a valuable lesson.

We were adding their individual blogs to the sidebar of the class blog and they asked why mine wasn't on there.  I said to them that I didn't think they'd need mine on there and that they may not understand what I was writing about.  Not my smartest assumption.  Their reply, (they were 9 and 10 year-olds):

"We might not understand it all the time but you're a learner too and it should be on there."

This was so true so it is on there and quite a few of the students are still followers of the blog and I receive comments / questions from them.  The power of Student Voice can never be underestimated.


My initial research on Communities of Practice for teacher professional learning has lead to the following presentation.  It's just initial research at this stage but I want to change what we do and how we learn and our PLNs are a powerful way to do it.

Pathways to collaboration from Justine Hughes / Education Consultant / Teacher

#reflectiveteacher