Mind Lab Post Grad: Week 19 - Community of Practice

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Using Jay and Johnson's Reflective Model

Step 1 (Descriptive): 



The two inquiry topics that I have identified are:

·         What impact does agency and engagement have on collaborative student learning for boys in a primary school setting?
·         How do leadership styles impact on staff morale?

There are several different Communities of Practice to utilise for the two inquiry topics.  All staff within the school environment, each classroom of students, the Mind Lab Post Grad community and the schools Senior Leadership Team would reflect aspects of domain, community and practice (Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner, 2015).  

The first topic relates to the Communities of Practice relates to each classroom of students with a focus on boys as it is about the effect of agency and engagement for students.  The Mind Lab community and Senior Leadership Team will relate to topic one, as there has been a school wide focus on student agency and being able to communicate with other teachers outside of the school on this topic will give a different perspective.

The second topic relates to the Communities of Practise with the school staff as it is focusing on how they feel being a follower to leadership styles.  This topic will utilise The Mind Lab to find similarities and differences with other teachers experiences.  The Senior Leadership Team will also have input as the different leadership styles that each member portrays can be used as evidence to support the inquiry.

Step 2 (Comparative): 

The Mind Lab will reflect on their own experiences within their own schools and give feedback on what has worked and what has not.  They will give a different perspective of what is happening in other schools throughout the country.
The classroom of students enjoys working together and are learning to be able to make decisions.  Students contributions to the first topic is essential to understand the impact on learning.
The Senior Leadership Team will be thinking of the big picture of accelerating student achievement.  I believe that outcome from both inquiry topics will acknowledge this.  The Senior Leadership team will need to honestly identify leadership theories and styles that they portray, be open to feedback on their style and dig deeper into how they would like to improve.
All staff at school might be hesitant to give critical feedback on how different leadership styles impact on their morale?  However, their honest contributions will be valuable during the inquiry to understand what leadership style each staff member prefers and why.  The could be looking at their own leadership within the classroom and in the school for deeper reflection.
The learning theories and styles will be useful for topic one for all staff to identify and understand where they are currently and what they would like to adapt.  For students to be able to work collaboratively they need to understand the difference between collaboration and cooperation.  Cooperation is where the work load is shared but completed independently and collaboration involves working together (Dillenbourg, 1999).

Step 3 (Critical reflection):

Using Jay and Johnson’s (2002) reflective model, it has been helpful to think about other CoP perspectives before deciding on an inquiry topic. 
The implications of topic one includes digging deeper from what we are already doing into engaging boys in learning.  I will need to consider how to gain student feedback as well as reflecting on school wide data.
The implications of topic two include encouraging teachers to give honest feedback about different leadership theories and styles and looking into their own leadership approach.  Teachers will need to understand the different between critique and criticise to ensure a valuable outcome.

Reference List

Dillenbourg, P. (1999). What do you mean by collaborative learning? In P. Dillenbourg (Ed.). Collaborative-learning: Cognitive and Computational Approaches. Oxford: Elsevier

Jay, J. K., & Johnson, K. L. (2002). Capturing complexity: A typology of reflective practice for teacher education. Teaching and teacher education, 18(1), 73-85.


Wenger-Trayner, E., & Wenger-Trayner, B. (2015). Introduction to communities of practice: A brief overview of the concept and its uses. Retrieved from http://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/

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