I am currently attending a course at The Mind Lab (Postgraduate Certificate in Applied Practice - Digital And Collaborative Learning). I am thoroughly enjoying my new learning, it is definitely taking me outside of my comfort zone and helping me redefine and enhance my practice.
 
Week 25 My Community of Practice
 As defined by Wenger, Mcdermott and Snyder, (2002, p.3) "Communities of Practice are groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis."  My community of practice relates to the teachers in my school, the whānau of our students, our Board of Trustees and the wider Mid Canterbury primary teachers and online communities for example the primary school facebook page, VLNs and the Mindlab Google+ community. "Communities of practice is essential to our learning. It is the very core of what makes us human beings capable of learning...By participating in these communities, we define with each other what constitutes competence in a given context" (Wenger, 2002, p. 229).

The purpose and function of my practise and how I contribute to the community of practice
In line with the vision statement  in the New Zealand Curriculum (2007) which states that students will be "confident, connected, actively involved and life long learners", the purpose of my practice is to facilitate my students in their learning journey, to foster their love of learning, encourage them to be lifelong intrinsic learners, set realistic goals and scaffold them to achieve them.  The function of my practice is to equip the students with the skills they require to be 21st century learners. The purpose and function of my practice are guided by Vygotsky and his theory of Social Constructivism. I see myself as a facilitator empowering the students to be accountable for their own learning.
I contribute to my communities in the following ways:

• actively follow up with parents any pastoral care matters regarding my students.
• termly peer reviews on a particular area of practice that they are focussing on 
• being responsible for the social, academic, and emotional well being of all the students at our school. We start our weekly staff meetings with a discussion around any students we are concerned about and all take ownership of them
• lead school and Mid Canterbury schools cluster PD sessions in new learning that I have been involved with
• produce and share resources
• organise school events both academic, community and social
• read online forums and reflect on relevance to my practice and whether ideas can be incorporated 

The core values that underpin my profession and how I practice with regard to these values.

My school's mission statement "Growing the Future" and the 4 core values, that underpin our school curriculum and expectations for our students, are also the values that I embrace in my practice.

• Respect- respect is modelled, encouraged and explored. We all are expected to show respect to ourselves, to others and to human rights. 
• Responsibility- The students and I take on school responsibilities and perform them to the best of our abilities.
• Resilience - I model resilience to my students by taking on new challenges, talking about them with my students and expecting them to have a positive mindset and persevere, not giving up when things get tough.
• Excellence - I encourage the students to be accountable for their own learning, reflecting on what they are learning , where to next and how they are going to get there.

References

The New Zealand Curriculum - online. (2007, September 14). Retrieved from http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/The-New-Zealand-Curriculum

Wenger, E. (2000). Communities of practice and social learning systems.Organization, 7(2), 225-246.
Wenger, E., McDermott, R. A., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing knowledge. Harvard Business Press.