1. The main focus of learning communities is collaboration among teachers and students. This is the type of environment where everyone grows and learns together so have an open mind and showing respect to others in the group is crucial for success. The idea of collaboration can extend outside of the school as well. For example, teachers around the world can collaborate together on a blog to share their ideas for new teaching methods and activities.
2. There are many benefits of learning communities both between teachers and students. Not only are they more productive and satisfying but they also promote three big student-centered ideas which include, ensuring that students learn, creating a culture of collaboration for school improvement, and focus on the end results (Dufour, 2004). All of which are important for success in both the educators and the students. Learning communities focus on what students learn rather than what the teacher is trying to teach. It's important to give students time to collaborate together and find their own answers rather than the teacher telling them what's right or wrong. The same goes for teachers, not every idea the faculty comes up with will work in the classroom but that's where new ideas can be formed.
3. Learning communities affect teachers in a variety of ways but the most important one I read about was the fact that they help teachers overcome traditional isolation of teaching. By working with co-workers teachers can work together and develop collaborative projects. Together teachers can weed out lesson plans that aren't working and discover new ones that may work in a several areas of their teaching. According to the text teacher collaboration will result in an increase in commitment to the mission, a share in responsibilities among the team, more powerful learning, and a higher likelihood of fundamental systemic change.
4. Just as learning communities affects teachers, it also affects students. Through collaboration students learn to communicate with one another, problem solve, and learn about project management which will help them in the real world. By engaging students in these learning communities they are learning to learn together and develop strategies of working together in a positive way.
5. According to the text, the components for shared vision in learning communities includes the following: have a clear sense of the mission at task, share a vision of the conditions they must create in order to achieve the mission, work together in collaborative teams to determine the best practice to achieve the mission, organize into groups headed by the teacher or leader, focus on student learning, ensure goals and results are oriented appropriately, collaborate with each other, hold shared values and beliefs, make sure everyone is committed to continuous improvement, and that they see themselves as life-long learners (Dufaur and Eaker, 2002).
6. The concepts in this chapter relate to my groups project because we are using collaboration by sharing our ideas and respecting one another opinions on our topic of eating healthy. By working together we are able to find the best ways to educate others on our topic.
I really like that learning communities benefit not only the teachers, but the students as well. Skills they use and practice through the learning communities are so important. Collaboration is such an important skill for students to be able to learn and do, especially as they grow up and eventually get a job. A lot of jobs require collaboration so if students are involved in learning communities they can practice collaboration and be equipped for their future careers. It is also important to be able to work together with people and the learning communities cause students to practice this. Nice blog post!
ReplyDeleteI like that we are covering this topic while we work on our group projects. We are in our own small learning communities.
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