MY COMMUNITY OF PRACTICES

Learning a teaching goes hand in hand with my practice. To me, teaching is learning as its context is the community.  Within this community, the learning organizations are constituted by and participate in social learning systems. According to Wenger and Synder (2000) “their success depends on their ability to design themselves as social learning systems and also to participate in broader learning systems such as an industry, a region, or a consortium.

As I teach Art and Design, on one hand, I am also practicing artist within the arts industry. This makes my teaching and learning boundaries wider and beyond the local communities. My reflection of my teaching practice allows me to improvise my art practice and vice versa.  

My community or practice includes my school, which comprises or fellow teachers, students, learning groups, online NZ visual arts group, international online artist groups, Mindlab, online learning/education communities, parents, wider whanau and my family at home. Wenger (1998) defines this as “Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.” This also brings in the local and national Art societies, Art Galleries, studios and established artist.

It is interesting to know how Wenger (1998) identifies the learning context as being derived from what has been established in history on one hand and our immediate experience of this world around us on the other hand. The understanding and the cognition in learning and practice involves our competency that is in turn defined by the amount of knowledge we retain. Learners bring their own experiences into the classroom to build a shared space. The perceptions and perspectives are both used in making a work of art. This also gives them an opportunity to realise their own identity and their place in this wider community. This awareness if exactly reciprocal to my interactions with them and how I position myself as a teacher, a learner and a practitioner of arts.

The learning is equally shared and celebrated with the whanau and the wider community through student’s art exhibitions and display of their work in the school and public places. My students also participate in various social awareness campaigns and community interest cultural events. My own exhibitions also contextualize into classroom pedagogy. This form of authentic learning allows me to design a convenient relational pedagogy.

The online discussions by NZ and international arts communities about the established practices, the NZQA assessments criteria and standards is an in-depth regular day to day interactions. This regular feedback and communication are applied into my classroom practice on regular basis. This is also shared with my department, Arts faculty and learning groups in my school. My other role as a classroom observation and shadow coach gives me a glimpse into other teacher’s practices. This is a huge learning curve for my own practice as I learn a lot from these professional visits.

What is challenging in my practice is how I moderate various views of my community to have a holistic understanding that could reflect in my pedagogy. Most of the time I face multiple opinions while assessing students work. As this is a matter of perception that relates more to a cultural background of an opinionated person, it gets more challenging to come to terms with what is expected in NCEA which is designed with a bi-culturally view. I practice art, which gives me an understanding of my subject and I teach within a collaborative space. This is what inspires me to be a learner. 

References: 

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press.

Wenger, E. C., & Snyder, W. M. (2000). Communities of practice: The organizational frontier. Harvard business review, 78(1), 139-146.