What is a Community of Practice?

What is a Community of practice?

Well the matter of fact is,

Not every community is one that is of a practice

Your neighbourhood community may be full of mystics

but that won’t fit this terms 3 characteristics,

Domain is the first, and no not the auckland park

but your subject field, your interest, your spark.

The people with which you collaborate

engage with, and help each other elaborate

this is your community, real-time, face to face,

or perhaps a little later up in cyberspace

Problem solve, share, are the ideas of the domain

to implement, enhance, and help you to stay sane

allow you in your practice, to gather a real stance

you must be practitioners trying to advance

Now you know the characteristics of this term

I hope this rap may have helped you to learn

- Matt & Stef

Today our challenge was to create a rap to explain a learning theory. 

+Matt Goodwin and I wrote this rap within our own Community of Practice.

The Pros and Cons of Summer School

This week I have been head down and back to study mode after a rather relaxing four week summer break. In saying that the first couple of days back at university in front of a computer screen were a rather difficult transition. 
The purpose of this university paper titled Digital Enhancement is to critically reflect and engage with pedagogy and practice to enhance the use of digital technology in education. 

Two days in and it has been a pleasure to share our practice and experience with each other. It's in immersing ourselves in these situations that we realise that we have in fact accomplished a lot over the past year and as a collective we have a wealth of knowledge to share with one another. 

One of the theories of learning which I can really relate to is that of Communities of Practice. As the MDTA cohort of 2014/15 we are a reliable supportive and helpful resource to one another. Through professional and informal discussions I am continually learning from these people that I am lucky enough to get to share my beginning teacher journey with them all. 

As part of our final assessment in this paper we are to critically reflect on our 2014 class site, compare and contrast to other effective sites and justify our 2015 class site for our learners. We then will present this analysis to one another to further learn and develop our practice. 

In regards to my experience with tertiary education, through my Bachelors in Social Sciences, my Graduate Diploma in Teaching and this Honours Degree, I have never been so engaged or included in the teaching and learning process. Sure this is a higher level course, so our competence and intrinsic motivation is assumed to be greater, but the course co-ordinators and lecturers have actually taken our needs into account and really tailored this programme to be relevant and immediately applicable to our practice. So even though I am mildly disgruntled that I am not out enjoying this week in the amazing weather New Zealand has been receiving, I am enjoying the insight and critical discussions which I am involved in within this community of practice. 

Thanks Team.