Communities of practice
As I fly home from two MAGIC days with CORE whanau I am
buzzing with ideas, blue sky thinking, community of practice potential.
I want to reflect on some of the highlights of the two days:
·
Cross pollination – sharing and growing of teams
across CORE Education;
·
He tangata, he tangata, he tangata – time with
CORE whanau is ALWAYS MAGIC;
·
UDL revisited and a challenge taken by me to
really explore this concept and bring it more to the forefront of my practice
and way of being;
· Moving from comfort to challenge…. Moving beyond
what we are currently doing well – moving into potential, and unexplored
territory;
·
Exploring concepts and potential for mentoring;
·
Revisiting the ideas of Connected Educator month
and seeing the potential for us to really grow our networked community;
·
Viewing the potential for CORE to move beyond
current practice, the transformation agenda, exploring what we can be;
·
Flexibility within the programme to allow for
time with our own team; cross team groupings, individual and group tasks;
·
Challenges!
The welcome discomfort that comes from a gentle nudge to be more than we
currently are;
·
Revisiting Tatai Aho Rau; understanding it anew
and its place at the forefront of what CORE is;
·
Variation of presentation/facilitation styles; a
real opportunity for us to benefit from a range of styles;
·
Socialisation – breaks timed to allow for plenty
of face to face; alongside opportunities to dine together;
·
Flexibility of the agenda – lived reality that
an agenda that is set in stone possibly doesn’t necessarily reflect all the
needs of all the participants. An
evolving agenda is powerful;
·
Valuing – there is an incredible feeling that we
are valued for our ideas, our practice, our collaboration, and very way of
being;
Challenges I take from here into my practice:
·
UDL at the forefront of my practice;
·
Development of CoP (Communities of Practice)
within my LwDT school clusters; (explicit in our agreed way of working)
·
Growing the collaboration and feed into our
mailing lists by enlisting the support of staff to share links and information
with us;
·
Continuing networking and cross pollination
between sites and mailing lists (literacy in Technology to be an area of focus
early in Term 3.)
·
Further involvement in the evolution of thinking
around CoP within CORE;
·
Acknowledge and thank those who made this event
a reality;
·
Share CoP ideas with LwDT South at regular staff
meetings;
·
Use my upcoming CORE breakfast/workshop to
actively develop/extend CoPs.
·
Celebrate!
