Discussions

Your Name and Title:  Justine Hughes, Teacher, Education Consultant

School or Organization Name:  The Innovative E / Te@chThought  

Co-Presenter Name(s):  Beth Leidolf, NBCT, Educatori 9-12 World Languages

Area of the World from Which You Will Present:  New Zealand / United States

Language in Which You Will Present:  English

Target Audience(s):  Teachers, School Leaders and Administrators, Academics

Short Session Description:  Communities of Practice - are they the way of the future to motivate and engage our teachers and create, sustain and develop professional learning?

Full Session Description:

We’ve all known the frustrations of one- and two-day courses or short-term professional learning/development.  It is often difficult to sustain, changes can be rushed and then thrown out when the next ‘new’ idea comes along. When this happens,teachers can lose enthusiasm for their own learning as there is little time to implement change or reflect on what’s working and what’s not and how to improve their learning and teaching - both for themselves and their students.

So what is the answer?

During our research into communities of practice, we believe we have found a way forward that can engage, motivate and build excitement for learning for all involved in the community. Communities of practice provide motivation, ownership and excitement for all members when  they’re well-developed and all members share in the belief that they are ‘all learners and all teachers’ in the community.  Through sharing learning, knowledge and experiences, no matter what stage you are at in your career, new knowledge is shared and created and sustainable change is possible.

Developing a collaborative/self-sustaining community that works as it should, can be tricky.  Through  her involvement with TeachThought, Justine was given the task of developing an online community of practice that would serve as a professional learning group for the community, It was designed as a place for sharing and creating resources, knowledge and practice and, most importantly, it needed to be a place where reflective practice was emphasised. We started with a wiki as our platform and that is growing by the day.

Through one of the many community building initiatives of the wiki, the TeachThought Twitter chat, Justine teamed up with Beth to further develop the community of practice. Beth is in the United States, Justine is in New Zealand!  Collaborating across very different time zones,  together they developed a blogging challenge for Reflective Teacher Month for September. Each day they provided a blog prompt as well as support and encouragement for all the participants through feedback on the blogs, promotion and discussion through Twitter and sharing pages on the TeachThought Facebook page and Justine’s Innovative E Facebook page. The month-long reflective activity was a huge success!  We thought we would have perhaps ten participants but had over 100!

Together, Justine and Beth continue to develop the online community of learners through the following initiatives:

• Thoughtful Thursday blog post prompts,  

• a weekly Twitter chat, found at #reflectiveteacher on Tuesdays nights,

• a robust wiki

• other valuable initiatives requested by our community members:

  • a second blog challenge for November with a beginning of the year one in January.  

  • Book Reviews for professional learning / development discussions

  • Google Hangouts - coming soon

  • Guest moderators for the #reflectiveteacher chat

• ...and much more as we receive suggestions from our community!  

Our main aim is that the community is owned and developed by its members. Our mission is to create a space where all members are creators and participators in developing the content and feel welcome to share, grow and learn from and with others.

It has been incredibly exciting and rewarding to see the development of the community of practice as it grows and as connections are made.  The positive connections that have been made within it have been invaluable.  Beth and Justine are a perfect example of what globally connected educators can achieve together!

This has been one of the most rewarding parts of the whole experience.  We’re still new and growing slowly.  There are many Google Docs, Twitter messages, emails… that fly between us at all hours of the day and night across time zones!

Websites / URLs Associated with Your Session:

Teach Thought Community wiki

TeachThought Facebook Page

The Innovative E - Everything eLearning in Education Facebook Page

Justine’s blog

Beth’s blog