Defining my professional community of practice:
I am teaching Mathematics and Statistics at Te Kura - The Correspondence School, Wellington, New Zealand - a distance education providing school. My primary professional community of practice is Te Kura teaching community. The identity of this community is defined by shared focus on:
• Well-being and learning of all ākonga,
• Effective professional relationships with ākonga and whanau,
• Professional learning and development,
• Leadership to effective teaching and learning
• Working effectively within the bicultural context of Aotearoa NZ
• Responding effectively to the diverse and cultural experiences, and varied strengths, interests, and needs of all ākonga
Te Kura Teaching community, akonga and their Whanau, being the major stake holders of the community, it also includes NZAMT – New Zealand Association of Mathematics Teachers and NZ Education Support Services (NZESS)
1 The current issues and community’s efforts to address those:
The current issues:
Te Kura is implementing Online learning delivery, which impacts:
• Technically supporting akonga and their Whanau with learning on line and digital devices
• Preparation of digital resources (learning and assessment) and uploading these on to Te Kura Online Teaching and Learning Environment – OTLE
• Professional Development of Te Kura teaching community for Te Kura OTLE and Internet tools
Te Kura teaching community’s efforts to address the issues:
Te Kura OTLE team facilitates Professional Development of Te Kura teaching community in the form of:
• Online PD courses in OTLE: OTLEHUB and ONLINEPD
• PD and Training sessions online through Adobe Connect
• Face to face PD and training sessions
• One to one assistance in small teams, in daily routine
For Te Kura learning community:
• Technical assistance with learning is provided through Te Kura OTLEHUB,
• Face to face assistance is also provided through Te Kura advisories running in many locations throughout the country.
• We - teachers also provide one to one assistance over the phone and through e-mail communications.
Te Kura teaching community is developing new, relevant, and interactive digital resources (learning and assessment) at junior secondary level, to be delivered through Te Kura OTLE. The resources for senior levels are prepared by external agencies. However the refinement and fine tuning of these resources will gradually be done by teaching community.
2 The purpose and functions of my practice and the ways I cater for the community of your practice:
The purpose of my practice is to support my professional community with its focus on akonga’s wellbeing and learning, professional relationship with akonga and their whanau, …as described in the first section of this activity. My professional practice involves two major components: pastoral care and leaning of akonga.
For pastoral care of my akonga, I set goals to contact my akonga at least once every week by phoning, e-mailing or by writing letters to them. I also make it a top priority to respond to my akonga in the best timely manner when they contact me in any of the ways above. I focus on developing and maintaining professional relationship with akonga and their whanau.
To cater for the needs of my professional community I utilise my time, knowledge, skills and experiences in supporting my akonga’s learning. I create learning and assessment resources and take pride in sharing with my teaching community. For my community’s ongoing collective tasks, assignments and projects, I willingly work collaboratively with my colleagues and contribute to the best of my ability. I also voluntarily take responsibility to develop learning and assessment resources, for example develop units of learning, internal assessments, end of year examinations.
3 The core values that underpin my profession, and evaluation of my practice with regard to those core values:
At Te Kura (2016) our vision is ‘students achieve their educational and personal goals, enabling them to participate effectively as members of their communities’.
The core values that underpin our profession are:
Put the success of our students at the forefront of everything we do:
Our professional practice (teaching learning) is focused on the success of our students. We develop students’ individual and authentic education plan based on students’ interest and passion, their strength and career goals. My goal is to support my students achieve their goals!
Respect each other, students, their whanau and our partner organisations:
Our practice involves a high level of mutual respect amongst colleagues, and we treat our students, their Whanau, and our partner organisations and agencies respectfully. Pastoral care of our students is a top priority at Te Kura.
See strength in diversity:
Te Kura caters for a huge range of students – from early childhood to adult students from New Zealand and from overseas. Our learning community is very diverse, consisting of many different cultures and ethnicity. We recognise and nurture the strength of our students’ from all different cultural backgrounds.
Celebrate innovation and success:
We encourage, promote and support students’ creativity, innovation and entrepreneurism. We recognise, acknowledge and take pride in celebrating students’ achievements and success.
Communicate openly and honestly:
Te Kura is a distance education provider school, where communication with our akonga, their whanau and local community, is a key factor in students’ education. Our communications around students’ strength, weakness, abilities, learning and progress, are honest and transparent.
References:
Wenger-trayner.com. (2015). Introduction to communities of practice
http://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/
Team BE. (2011 Dec 28, 2011). Communities versus networks? [ Web blog post].. Retrieved from
http://wenger-trayner.com/resources/communities-versus-networks/
OPENiPhotojournalism. (2009, Sep 15). Etienne Wenger talks about 'walking the landscape of practice'. Retrieved from:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjw0YoqpEq8&feature=youtu.be&list=PLb5Ty6fTaPkWE
Te Kura:
http://www.tekura.school.nz/about-us/vision-and-values/
Te Kete Ipurangi – TKI:
http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/Practising-Teacher-Criteria-and-e-learning
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