Excerpt Contemporary Teacher Leadership Assessment 2: Reflection

As an individual, I will be required as a profession to undertake changes towards

continuous development both for myself and the education community. Though without the

depth of experience as other educators, throughout this course, the idea pertained would be to

become part of this community of practice immediately. For this matter, self evaluation of my

own professional development is required, as Short, Hennessy & Campbell (1996) pertain

‘evaluation as the systematic application of scientific methods to assess the design,

implementation, improvement or outcomes of a program.” For my own reflection in

retrospect to this, I find that throughout my coursework and employment I have had the

responsibility to lead and guide students to learning goals and outcomes, but have not had the

experience to participate in a community of practice. Relying on personal agency would bring

forth a role to become a leader, one that I have shown in different lines of work leading up to

my role as an educator. Fullan (2014) encourages myself to pride to become an expander

rather than a blocker. Being open minded to change, encouraging change will become the

responsibility of myself as I will find myself in diverse communities of practice. Heuristic

tool creation is an element that a community of practice can develop on the flow to

communicate immediate issues faced. This element will be important as at times, other

members of staff can ask for advice and answers for issues they will be having, or for

creating balance and communication in a dynamic workplace. Chamizo (2011) uses heuristic

tools in an education context to surmise that at times, rather than utilise the same conclusions

and methods, there will be times as a community of practice to assist in reasoning and

understanding through teams and the self evaluation of the individual.

As a change agent within a community of practice, as an individual I can view where

at times one needs to stand up, collaborate and dictate what needs to be changed or aligned

with. This has been more prevalent within the Assessment 2 Presentation. At times, through

the undertaking of the video presentation, we found ourselves with a large mix of ideas, plans
Excerpt Contemporary Teacher Leadership Assessment 2: Reflection

and objectives which at times wasn’t working due to the lack of in person transparent

communication. Rooney (2013) advocates the engagement of employee cultural assets and

what they bring to the workplace. The engagement sought within this presentation informally

assessed our way of personal agency, roles and personal attributes to finalise and ultimately

present the task. This comes from a belief of enabling change as a teacher from below rather

than above. Underpinning this engagement is the sense attributed by Lytle (2012) to pursue a

positive working and learning environment with the end goal of creating formal and informal

development opportunities for staff. This shifts back to the assessment and my own

professional identity as we have had to step up, assist and collaborate with each other in ways

that have caused discourse and changes to the task. The strength we upheld throughout this

presentation and unit of work has been down to the openness and transparency of our

thoughts on our submission of works to the group. This inherent feedback to our group

members wasn’t a critique of work, but the allowance for our group as an individual to grow

in a welcoming environment.