Reflection 2 (Allison Burt)

Allison Burt
Reflection 2

Discussion on the focus of Learning Communities.

Learning communities focus is collaboration among your colleagues. It is essential to connect with other teachers with various grade levels to generate ideas for projects/curriculum. Learning Communities requires meeting up with your team members and reflecting on what projects went well and which ones did not. Mueller states, “We pushed each other to take projects to the next level” (p. 28). This is important to always be thinking of ways to improve.

In text it states the benefits of learning communities on (3) student centered ideas (p. 32):
• Ensure that students learn
• Create a culture of collaboration for school improvement
• Focus on results

Discussion on the benefits of Learning Communities.

Learning communities eliminates teacher isolation by working with other teachers on the curriculum. When teachers are isolated they don’t get the opportunity to share ideas to make improvements. Also learning communities allows teachers to have shared responsibility. A teacher would not be expected to develop all the projects on their own, but all the team members get to weigh in their ideas. The learning for students is more powerful because of the well thought out project-based curriculum with new and exciting ideas.

Discussion on how Learning Communities affect teachers.

Teachers can be part of online communities to collaborate and give one another critical feedback on their teaching. One online source for professional development is called, Tapped In, which allows faculty, students, and researchers to support one another and exchange ideas. When teachers work together as a team to develop projects for their students they can give each other critical feedback. One teacher presented a digital media project to about 10 teachers before bringing it to the classroom. This allowed the teacher to receive feedback on his project and he could self-reflect on what went well and what didn’t.

Discussion on how Learning Communities affect students.

Students are able to support one another when working on projects by learning together. They will be able to develop communication skills with working with their peers. The students will learn to problem solve and reflect with their group members by doing peer-to-peer support. Project management is an import aspect to developing a successful project, because the team needs to each have their assigned tasks and collaborate.

Discussion on the components for shared vision in Learning Communities.

In learning communities you have to have a clear sense of mission. If who you collaborate or team with do not have the same goal as you, it will not work. Your partnership/team has to be able to collaborate and offer critical feedback when developing projects. Within your community you have to be fully committed and have that drive to continually improve to help students be successful in their learning. As your community communicates always make sure your focus is helping students learn.

Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.

Our topic is about staying healthy. Our team members have to agree on the same goal for our project to be successful. We collaborate with one another by creating a concept map and generating ideas. My team has exchanged phone numbers to keep in contact if there is any misunderstandings or if we should meet up outside of the classroom. If one of our team members disagrees with an idea for our project we will give each other critical feedback or suggestions. When we work together we will always be supporting one another and looking for ways to improve our project.