Thursday, September 27, 2012
Sara's reading reflection #2
I thought this chapter was really interesting because i learned so much about working together and collaborating ideas with other people.
I thought that the focus of learning communities was about getting people together not just in your community but all around the world to collaborate ideas. This chapter talked a lot about teachers getting a team together to brainstorm ideas for new ways to teach students that incorporated technology. When teachers worked together, they expected to produce something greater than what they had by themselves. A quote that i found interesting was "having somebody to brainstorm with about planning, having colleagues to reflect with about what was going on in the classroom" (Mueller 29). I absolutely agreed with what she said because having someone to talk to is better than being isolated and thinking of your own ideas. Some of the benefits to learning communities included decreased teacher isolation, increased commitment to the mission, shared responsibility, more powerful thinking and a higher likelihood of fundamental, systematic change. These points just show how beneficial it is to share ideas with other teachers and how they have such a passion for teaching. When teachers work together, not everything will turn out the way they want it too. If they made a mistake, they have to look at what they did and move on. Students aren't the only ones learning, teachers learn as much as the students do in order to teach them and pass on the knowledge.
Learning communities share the same vision and they are all goal and result oriented. Along with a clear sense of mission and working together to get the best results. Students are organized into groups by teachers/leaders. These learners share the same values and collaborate with each other to commit to continuous improvement.
This whole learning community really ties into our group project for education technology because we have a group of three people and we are working together to get the same goal at the end. We have an online blog to communicate with each other and to share ideas. If something doesn't work out, we just re-do it and think of a way to make it better. I'm glad that i am taking this class and reading about other people that share the same goal because it encourages me to try harder.
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Love the line "Students aren't the only one's learning, teachers learn as much as the students do in order to teach them and pass on the knowledge." I totally agree with this. If teachers aren't learning with their students and learning on their own then they aren't being a good teacher. We must learn everything we can to help the students gain the necessary knowledge for the real world. It is tough out there and teachers are in-part the ones who need to give them as much information as possible to get them started in that rough real world.
ReplyDeleteJanice Alff
Since we were all assigned the same chapter, we were in agreement about much of what we read and even about what we wrote in our responses. I like how you had really wet into depth about the nature of teacher communities. It all seems quite understandable, the idea of a solid community of educators working together to be better but the reality is that the model explained in the chapter varies greatly from what's present in schools today. I can remember multitudes of faculty meetings but what was really discussed or shared? How effective were they. Now schools have professional development days where students get a day off and teachers get a day to brainstorm and plan unlike ever before. This innovative techiques benefits both the student and teacher because the teachers will feel more confident knowing that they have the support and it will show in their teaching, it creates better students and better students make better teachers. Additionally, I love how you tied this in with our project because we'll be able to utilize our online blog as a means of communication to discuss, share ideas and work together. In a way, we're like a little teaching community of our own.
ReplyDeleteI love your response to this chapter. It is so important for teachers to work together, as well as the students to work together. Collaborative think definitely expands students thinking and allows them to create something amazing! I also agree that "students are not the only one's learning, teachers learn as much as the students do in order to teach them and pass on the knowledge." It is so important for teachers to continue learning with the students and from the students.
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