Professional Connection Map

Connection 1 - Students
The first connection I have on my map is that between myself and my students. As a teacher I have always been aware of this connection as they are the one connection throughout my day/week/month that are never changing.

They are always my first and last thought o

f the professional day and are the reason I am ever changing my practice. They keep me on my toes, reflecting and changing lessons sometimes in the middle of it! If it was not for them a lot of the practice I started with would be the same now. They have taught me about individualising my teaching, meeting the needs of them and really just how different each child I have taught really is! Not one child has been the same and I think that this is a very important lesson to learn.

They continually are surprising me with what they know and how they what they think. What I have also learnt from them is that every day can be a fresh day. They are much less likely to start the next day in the same mindframe as yesterday and are much more forgiving then myself of a lesson that was supposed to be amazing but went terribly, or not getting through the entire plan for the day. To them it is what I put into the day is what they get out of it, and they are much less focused on the failed attempts. This has impacted my practice quite significantly as I am less worried about the structure of my day and more aware of the question are my students learning? How are they learning? and also are we all enjoying the learning that is taking place.

Connection 2 - Colleagues. 
I have a range of colleagues all of which influence my practice and community sometimes in the same way and others differently.

My first set of colleagues I have chosen to identify is that of my Senior team at my school. We have 8 teachers and 1 'walking' team leader who does not have a class. At the moment we are moving planning to move into an ILE which is new and exciting for all of us, with only one person having any experience in this area. They influence my practice through the idea of learning together and the importance of collegiality and support.

This set up also allows me to work in an environment where people have a wide variety of different strengths and weaknesses. It enables us to be the best we can be and leads my community into a very supportive place where we can share our experiences with the same age group and learn from each other. An ILE will also provide this even further as we work in a flexible learning environment where we will see each others practice daily.

The other colleague community which I have been apart of recently is the MindLab community. I have split this community also into sub communities. The first is the wider community that I have been apart of. This was more face to face originally working with others at the Newmarket campus. Here we were able to share our knowledge, talk to other people and learn from what others had tried/were trying. This was amazingly influential on what I was then doing in my class - if one teacher had tried it why shouldn't I? It gave me confidence to know attempting something was okay, and if it failed that was okay too! As long as we continued to share knowledge I was encouraged to keep pushing the boundaries of digital and collaborative practice.

Once leaving the community I was then much more connected to the google community. It was great to see others still pushing what they were doing but over the holidays it seemed that without students I was less encouraged to participate. However being at school I have now been a lot more encouraged to get back on and read what others have been doing, and it has refreshed my sense of wanting to continue to push what I am doing in my class in order to better my own practice.

The other part of the MindLab community is the five colleagues I have been working with that have been attending from my own school. It has been amazing the conversations and reflecting that has happened when we get together! Do we always agree? Definitely not! But wow those conversations are powerful!I am really someone who likes to be challenged on my thoughts and find this an important way in which I am encouraged to learn. It has also been influential to hear others thoughts and opinions a little after the learning has happened as I am able to process my thoughts and then share them. I really hope that when this course has been completed in March this community still encourage me to think critically and evaluate my thoughts and really keep changing my practice to suit the needs of the 21st century learners I have and will continue to teach.

Professional Contexts of Practice

I believe that as a teacher I have not just one community but many that at times sit alone and others times where they can be interlocking and connected. Throughout these communities I take on different roles and positions. I have my classroom community, my professional colleagues community, I am a tutor and associate teacher which all lead my practice in many different ways. I have also since joining Mindlab added a new community to my context including many teachers from many different schools, but more specifically the 5 other teachers at my school on the same postgraduate journey.

Meeting these people has also come in many different forms for example, the Google Plus community (which I had no idea about before this course), the Virtual Learning Network, face to face meetings with team members, PCT's, other associate teachers etc, and through email and research. The internet is an amazing thing and I think now is such a great time to be a teacher with all the support, resources and experiences of others at the tips of our fingers. Our ability to set up communities with other teachers of similar interests or on the same journey as a support system I think is a great asset to our profession!

As a primary school teacher we are often known as a 'Jack (or Jill) of all trades. We are expected to teach all curriculum areas in the 5 weekdays we have with the students. However if I were to think about my specialist areas - I can't get it down to just one. It would be literacy (with particular strengths/interests in writing) and The Arts. Through the Arts I participate in our school's Arts programme - which this year is the production Annie. This will lead to a to be made community which will involve like minded teachers, parents, students and hopefully give us access to our schools wider community. In a broader teaching context this links to strong teaching through the Key Competencies and is not only for our students but also ourselves. My role here is choreographer and assistant director which will have me interacting with my community here on a regular basis.

At this point is time our entire profession are facing big changes in the way we are teaching. Innovative Learning Environments are coming whether we are ready for them or not. Ministry of Education policy are leading all the way with this charge and are investing a large amount of money into the concept of flexible learning spaces which will prepare our students for their future. It is a great question - how would you or your community of practice address them? It seems to me that a lot of teaching professionals are doing it in a myriad of different ways. My community that are working with me through this journey are still trying to work out ways to address the changes that we find ourselves being faced with. We have taken the be prepared approach, which will mean that as soon as our ILE is built we will (hopefully) be ready for it. I am optimistic that we will be but how will we know until we get there! The nerve racking part for me is that we will have 240 students ready to learn who will need us to be ready! So far we have set up online sharing systems such as teacher dashboard, google sites, student blogs, blendspaces, shared pedagogys and expectations which seem to be taking us in the right direction, and I believe that if we keep an open mind and always find ourselves taking risks and trying new things we leave ourselves in pretty good stand to make the most of our ever changing profession!

I am quite happy to be the optimist.