Cacey Britten

Activity 2 (Week 26) Critically analyse issues of socio-economic factors, school culture and professional environments in relation to practice; Our school’s 2016 ERO report showed 50% of our students identify as Pākehā, 37% Māori, 4% European, 3% Asian and 6% other. This shows a great variance in how we are made up ethnically, therefore bringing many different characteristics to our community in terms of socio-economic status ; the socioeconomic status of a family is “a combination of education, income and occupation” (APA, 2016). This has brought about issues relating to the engagement and academic success for all students across the school. In our 2016 analysis of variance, 48/117 students identified as targets across reading, writing or numeracy. These 48 students had medical or behavioural needs, were ESL or had a referral made. To help these students succeed, target groups were made and monitored regularly by the team leaders. Teacher aides were trained through RTLB and SENC...

Activity 1; Week 25 Critically Define Practice; Over the course of my lifetime I have belonged to many communities of practice with various family and community members eg. learning to cook, book club, yoga, university, teacher training, work etc. When learning about a community of practice and what it essentially is, I am humbled to realise that mindlab itself is a really great example of Wenger’s (2000) three distinct elements of; joint enterprise, mutual engagement and shared repertoire. These can also be referred to as the domain, the community and the practice (Wenger & Wenger-Trayner, 2015). Mindlab has naturally permitted these three pathways and it has been interesting reflecting on how it has achieved this. Cambridge, Kaplan, and Suter (2005) suggest that communities of practice provide an environment for people to connect, interact, build and extend the shared resources within shared learning goals. Mindlab has been a platform for this to occur and on reflec...