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

And So It Begins Again

2017 - the year that was...or wasn't in my case.  After a few health challenges which turned out to be opportunities to clarify my thinking around my study (never miss an opportunity to try and turn a negative into a positive, or so I keep telling myself), I have decided to change my study path from an EdD, (Doctor of Education), to a PhD, (Doctor of Philosophy, Education).


WHY?
I have decided that I won't go back into the classroom as a teacher.  I love a good challenge but being completely deaf in one ear is a little too much of one and I have a passion for research - always have - and this completely feeds that.  It's something I've thought of doing, and wanted to do full-time, for many years now so this is the opportunity to do that.

Researching in a Different Way

While figuring all of this out, I've been working with my long-suffering supervisor at Otago, (he also put up with me for two Masters' papers).  We started to talk about what form my research should take in terms of methods, theories and all the usual bits and pieces that go along with planning one of these journeys and we hit on something called Grounded Theory.  I must admit this was a new one for me - had never heard of it before so this was my first bit of research before the research.


What on Earth is Grounded Theory and Why I Think it is Going to be so Powerful in Teacher Research

Grounded Theory is based on a constructivist approach to research (as a constructivist teacher, this already had me hooked!) where data is analysed throughout the research process rather than after it and this can lead to a change in direction for where the research leads.  It also emphasises not making any assumptions and that the researcher tries very hard to leave their biases at the door, so to speak.  This is a fantastic challenge for any researcher if they're prepared to take it on.

Grounded theory also has a strong aspect of ako integrated into the process where they researcher and the participants in the research process are learning from and with each other.  If done well, it becomes a collaborative process.  This also fits in well with my other passion - Communities of Practice - which were the focus for my Masters.  (Note - Communities of Practice are not the same as Communities of Learning, but that is for another blog post...)

What is Classical Grounded Theory?

Biggest Opportunities and Challenges for My Research

• Keep an open mind 
• Avoid preconceived ideas 
• Always be open to new ideas and different opinions
• Try to avoid bias at any cost - the hardest part of Grounded Theory but the most important if we want to create new theories together with our participants in the research process
• Build a community of practice through trust, connections and collaboration
• Constantly interact with and question the data

Let the journey begin...again...

An Ear for Inspiration - Educational Podcasts and Podcast Apps

A wonderful friend and colleague has inspired this post - thanks Jazz!  I've been very lazy on the blogging front lately.  Blogging has always been a valuable way for me to reflect on my practice and the way I think about what I do as an educator so, as I really get cracking on this PhD journey, it's even more important for me to not be so lazy and to use blogging as the tool I have in the past to think more deeply about what I do.  It's metacognition at its finest!

Podcasts are a great tool to get a daily dose of inspiration from a huge range of educators around the globe.  There are now more apps than ever that you can download to listen on the go - in the car, on a walk or run, at the gym, wherever you want to. (Don't forget the importance of completely switching off at times too though!  Balance is key.)

Which App...

I'm a huge convert to Spotify and have a tonne of music and podcasts stored there but you might prefer others such as some of those listed below.  I've include a bit of information on them and links to the sites.

Spotify - You can either have a free or a premium account. The free account does come with ads but they're not too intrusive.

Podcast - This is a app from Apple and was the original one I used, and still do.

SoundCloud - For iOS and Android - more popular for streaming than downloading but is very popular.

For more information on these apps and other digital trends, check out Digital Trends.

Who To Listen To...

Now for the daily dose of inspiration... there's so much out there, where do you start??!!  I've included the following links to lists of recommendations for you to have a look at.  Many will be familiar to you already but there may be some new ones.  I'd love you to add any others in the comments so that I can get some new inspiration too.

51 Education Podcasts for the 21st Century Teacher
A great list and range of podcasts curated by TeachThought.  Pretty much everything you could want is on here from Digital Technology in the classroom through to the future of education, flipped learning and general education topics.

The Cornerstone for Teachers - 12 of my Favourite Podcasts for Teachers
There are a few different and really inspirational ones in here - definitely worth checking out.

Student-Centred Learning
This is a valuable collection of podcasts all dedicated to student-centred learning.

Some of my current favourites are: 

TED Talks - always inspirational and they don't always have to be education-based.
Steve Hargadon - always has something interesting and thought-provoking to share on education. He will challenge your thinking.
Simon Sinek - from the first time I heard him speak about knowing your 'why' I've been inspired.

There are so many amazing ones out there. Please share some of your favourites so that others can tap into them too.

I Still Don't Give Homework Anymore...

As we head into a new year many teachers are thinking about how to keep everyone happy around the issue of homework, and it's never an easy task.  We know from all the research that it doesn't really work and yet we still give it, either to keep the school happy or, more often than not, to keep the community happy.  It is seen as something that is expected and that if it's not given then the world may just come to an end!

I have also travelled this well-worn path, giving homework which I thought was engaging and spending hour after hour writing very specific feedback to each of my students about their completed homework.  Most of my class completed the work because they liked the messages I wrote - or so they told me, but was the homework really engaging and targeted to meet their individual needs? No, not really.  It was to a certain extent in terms of maths and reading but, overall, it wasn't. It was just given to meet expectations. To mark it thoroughly used to take me all weekend! Completely crazy!!

In about 2007 I started to really think deeply about what I was doing and started to have conversations with the students about what I could be doing better. I started to make small changes but it wasn't really until 2010 that the changes became big ones after listening to speakers such as James Nottingham talk about being prepared for learning prior to showing up in class I started to have a few 'lightbulb moments'.  The presentation below is the end result and explains what it's all about...

I Don't Give Homework Anymore - changing thinking to motivate and engage students, teachers and parents. from Justine Hughes / Deputy Principal/ Teacher

I first presented this at an online global conference - RSCON5 - in 2014.  I had at that stage been trialling this strategy in different formats with different age groups for around 3 years with success at all levels.  Engagement was much higher in class and parent/caregiver/whanau involvement was also much higher and far more enthusiastic. The learning became more relevant and students were achieving at higher levels.  It's all about being prepared for your learning and being actively engaged in that learning at all times.  There's no opt out.

One of the main questions I am asked about it is around the use of technology for families who don't have access to the internet or computers. I worked in a school where this was a concern but this didn't stop the learners.  They were coming to school earlier, (some had had issues with truancy up until then) and many were using the computers before school, at break times, staying after school while I supervised and I also gave them extra time in class.  All of this was so worth it as they became so passionate and enthusiastic about their learning.

This is just one way of changing things up and making a difference to the engagement of our learners. It's a way of making the issue of homework more relevant and meaningful and connected to real world learning.

What Will We Do Without National Standards?

The author, third from right, following certification two years after graduation.

I began teaching in 1999.  It was a later career choice in my early 30s and I was beyond excited to be able to make a career change to something I was so passionate about.  At that stage we had a series of curriculum documents which guided our practice and a wide range of assessment tools which we used to ascertain exactly where our students were achieving in relation to the curriculum levels and what their next learning steps needed to be.  I planned alongside my students and they, and I, could tell you exactly where they were in their learning and what their next steps were.  We did this for each child and reported accordingly to their parents.  Sounds a lot like what the National Government said we weren't doing and why they brought in National Standards...  Yes, there needed to be changes in some areas of reporting, particularly in the way we reported to parents.  It needed to be clearer but there were many schools who were already doing a fantastic job of this and could have been sharing their practice with others.

The New Zealand Curriculum Online

2007 saw the Revised National Curriculum introduced.  This was incredibly exciting and heralded a new era in learning and teaching in this country.  It was a curriculum that was held up as a world leader and there was so much promise around it.  This one document replaced the 8 other separate documents and allowed schools greater flexibility in catering for diverse learning needs within their schools and for tailoring their curriculum to meet the learning needs and interests of their own communities.  It provided relevancy.  There were also clear indicators of what a student was expected to be achieving at each level before progressing to the next.  From this it was easy to create the Learning Intentions and Success Criteria alongside the students to meet their individual learning needs and to show progress.

Southland Principals and Senior Leaders were particularly vocal in our opposition to National Standards and were often accused of therefore being a range of things from being opposed to assessment, (completely bonkers and I'll address this shortly) through to lefty unionists who were going to be opposed to this 'great initiative' just because it came from the National Government.  Please, give us more credit than that as professionals.  Our biggest concerns were around the speed of the introduction of the standards, the lack of an effective trial period and the fact that they were actually neither national, nor standard in the first place.  They were too open to individual judgment and the amount of professional learning and support needed to develop consistency to achieve any 'standardisation' was just not there no matter how many hundreds of hours went into trying to achieve this.

Of course, this was a really serious situation that the media ran with and, unfortunately had the ultimate impact on the public that teachers weren't interested in knowing where their students were academically and weren't interested in using these 'amazing new tools' to help them do so.  Hmmm, just what were we doing before National Standards then, when New Zealand was seen to be  a world leader in education?

Since their introduction in 2010, National Standards have given parents a false sense of security.  Parents / caregivers and whanau are under the belief that the standards provided an accurate and consistent picture of achievement across the country when this is not the case and has been backed up by research by the previous government itself.  The standards never focused on progress of the individual student.  This was one of the biggest mistakes in my opinion.  They could have been more successful had they done this.  Parents, caregivers and whanau can be reassured that you will know where your child is achieving in relation to the National Curriculum levels and what they need to do to keep progressing.

The stress and anxiety placed on students from an incredibly young age to achieve to a certain level rather than on progress is of huge concern.  I can remember when we used to have to work really hard because our Intermediate-aged students would start to become stressed and switch off school due to the number of assessments.  We were now starting to see this at a much younger age because of all the constant testing.   Do we really want this for our children?  Does it make them more successful learners?  Recent data around National Standards suggested it didn't and helped to speed up their demise.  National Standards have not improved learning and achievement.  

Another interesting area for me in particular, as my PhD is around Gifted and Talented Education, is that we were required to report our National Standards results to the Government each year in the following areas:  Students who were Well Below, Below, At and Above.  Notice anything missing?  Where are those who are 'Well Above'?  Do we not worry about them?  I've always been curious about that. 

Now that National Standards have been removed, we can now hopefully get back to putting the passion back into learning and teaching for all involved - students, teachers, Principals and caregivers and whanau.  We can now get back to utilising a curriculum which gives scope for schools to really engage with their students and communities and get learning and teaching back on track.  As for assessment?  We have such a huge range of amazing tools with which to gauge progress and identify the next learning steps for each student.  Just as we did before National Standards were put in place and put unnecessary stress and pressure on all involved.

We've had to battle for a long time against the irony from the 'powers that be' that we must be personalising the learning for our students but then assess with tests which were very much standardised, or tried to be.  The data that was recorded wasn't designed to show progress, just a score.  It was demoralising for all concerned.  Finally, we can get on with what we do best...learning and teaching, rather than constant testing and formal assessment.

My Learning Space...well, one of them...

(A blog post as part of the EdublogsClub Challenge #2 post)

This year brings some new challenges for me.  Last year I thought I had everything organised - ducks in a row and all that.  I was a Deputy Principal but ended up as Acting Principal for the best part of Term 1 - we have a 4 Term year in New Zealand.  The plan was that I would then go back into the classroom and carry on developing the Makerspace that my students and I had begun to create in the later stages of 2015.  This was an amazing learning journey where the students were completely in charge using the Design Thinking platform as their guide.  I've included some photos of this space and links to the planning the students did - their learning journey and the philosophy behind all the decisions we made. They were in charge of the whole process. I was their guide and facilitator only. 

Then, as often happens, everything changed.  In 2013 I had an 8 hour operation for an Acoustic Neuroma, a benign brain tumour that, if left untreated can be life-threatening. I recovered really well and was up and running, literally, within a month and returned to teaching within 18 months albeit deaf in one ear from the surgery.  Interesting bit of useless information - it's the exact same tumour and location as the actor Mark Ruffalo had.  Unfortunately, it decided to grow back at the start of last year.  Apparently they hardly ever do - less than a 5% chance. Go figure! 

Decisions needed to be made.  I'd just completed my Master of Teaching and was thinking about starting my Doctor of Education.  I knew I needed more treatment so this 'sealed the deal' I guess and I decided to leave my position and begin yet another stage of my career and yet more study, which I love. So, my current workspace is my office.  I'm a terrible procrastinator, can get incredibly messy while I'm studying and these are the two things they are warning us about!  If we want to succeed in our studies we need to sort these out.  Uh oh, I'm in for a challenge!!!

My Current Work / Study Space

 This is where I am going to be spending an awful lot of time over the next three years! It's very peaceful and looks out onto the garden.  I live in a country area so it's pretty quiet which is a bonus. At the moment it's pretty organised but this is something I know I really need to work on.  I've always been a digital learner and have had semi-digital and digital classes since 1999 when I first started teaching but the last area I needed to be fully digital in was my studying.  I still tended to print everything off and highlight / note-take in hard copy.  I've just moved everything to Mendely and it really has been a lifesaver so far.  A good learning curve but I knew I had to do it simply for the volume of reading I had to do and to keep track of all the paper!

And on the theme of procrastination...look what I found while I was about to start reading more research for my Literature Review...

Edublogs Club 1: My Blog Story

Hi everyone! I'm based in Auckland, New Zealand and it's supposed to be coming into our beautiful summertime.  Currently, it's grey, drizzling and anything but summertime!  I've been teaching for 18 years and last year left my position as a Deputy (Assistant) Principal to study full time for my Doctor of Education.  I'm still teaching part-time too though - relieving / substituting. I have a couple of regular schools which is great as I get to know the students really well.

Auckland City - from the harbour

One of our beaches

I've been blogging for a long time - since the beginning of 2010 - but I'm not all that consistent! One of my goals this year is to blog at least once a week as part of my reflection on my new learning journey.  In July last year I started my Doctor of Education through the University of Otago.  So far so good - absolutely loving it.  My research focus is on gifted and talented students and how we identify them and meet their learning needs and also support our already stretched classroom teachers who are trying to meet the needs of all learners.

University of Otago

I love reading and commenting on other blogs because it gives me a insight into the thoughts of others and challenges my thinking on a wide range of issues.  I try to make sure that I don't just read education blogs.  The wider the range the better - keeps your mind open to new ideas and possibilities.  I keep up with them by following via email, generally.  Some of my favourite education ones, however are:

Learning with 'e's - Steve Wheeler

Dangerously Irrelevant - Scott McLeod

Cool Cat Teacher - Vicki Davis

The Principal of Change - George Couros

Claire Amos - Learning Leading Change

Four Seasons in One Kiwi - Stephanie Thompson

These are just a few - there are a huge number more from all over the world.  The more the merrier to challenge my thinking!

My goals for the #EdublogsClub are to continue to connect with other educators, both locally and globally and to share ideas and conversations around learning and teaching.  I'd also love to connect with others who are interested in the same area of research that I am.

As far as advice for newbies... just jump in and enjoy.  Don't be afraid to share your ideas. You'll find that everyone is really supportive and encouraging, particularly if they've joined a challenge such as this one.  You'll be surprised by the feedback and conversations and connections that develop.  Don't feel that it has to be an 'academic standard' essay-type exercise.  Think of it more as a conversation with other like minds. :-)

Looking forward to this initiative and encouragement / prod to blog! 

#Edublogs Club 1: My Blog Story