Abigail Harrop
EDT 3470
Lab 4:00
Reading Reflection #2
1. The focus of Learning Communities is to engage with
other colleagues, both in the same schools and further away to share ideas,
brainstorm together, and give suggestions to each other. The main focus is collaboration,
which ultimately will lead ways for people to enrich and improve their
teaching, ideas, and habits.
2. The
benefit to Learning Communities is that they can have people who they feel
comfortable with, can bounce ideas of, tell what worked, what didn’t work, ask
for ideas, and share ideas. It allows teachers to use their time wisely to find
lessons that are best for their classroom from others’ experiences and then
focus more on other things such as calling home to a parent, rather than
putting together hundreds of lesson plans that may not be the best for the
class anyway. There is decreased teacher isolation, shares responsibility,
create more powerful learning, among other things.
3. If a teacher were not in
one then they may not have as many good ideas than what they would have in they
were in a learning community. They would probably find that there was also a
lot more work with less of a positive outcome and perhaps not the best lesson
plans. Through the communities, teachers can use others ideas, ask for advice,
and use the best lessons for their class from what they have learned. A lot of
trust goes
into it to, so in a group people will be honest with one another so the truth
about ideas will be out there, so teachers will know that what they are saying
really is good or if it may need a little extra work to it.
4. In Learning Communities everything is research based
and so teachers always work for hours of professional development on topics
such as cooperative learning, differentiated instruction, project based
learning, and reading strategies. Because of all the research and time put in
by so many, the strategies being used typically will be the best, most up to
date, effective ways for students to learn as proved and tested by many so they
are in the best hands. They are likely to be learning in ways that have been
proven to work so their schoolwork should ultimately be more enjoyable and
better.
5. Some components for shared vision in Learning
Communities are to collaborate with each other, share a vision of conditions
with others in order to achieve their mission, focus on student learning, are
goal and result orientated, hold and share beliefs, commit themselves to
continuous improvement, and to see them as life-long learners.
6. These concepts relate to my topic/project with Sarah and Kent because we
have a clear sense of what our mission is and we are collaborating about it. We
are able to bounce ideas off of one another, we can also be honest with each
other in order to achieve the best way to create our project and topic of
staying healthy.
