After reading about learning communities I think it is the most beneficial way to successfully conduct project based learning. The focus of learning communities does not only benefit the students but the teachers as well. By surrounding yourself with other colleagues who may have the same goal or maybe a different goal will better yourself as a teacher.
The learning community will ultimately make the "business better" as Peter Senge says. By creating the community everyone will "expand their capacity to create the results they desire".
This is just one of the benefits for learning communities. The teachers are not the only ones benefiting. The main ideas of the communities is to "ensure that the students learn, create a culture of collaboration for school improvement, and focus on results.". So students, the school, and teachers gain all the benefits of the collaborative community.
Teachers will learn that maybe what they thought was an effective way of teaching a certain subject in math was better to do it a different way. Taking all the constructive criticism will be the best way for teachers to better instruct their students. Also as a teacher you are not alone. You won't have such a high burden of making sure the students learn what they are supposed to. This is that shared responsibility.
Students will gain the advantage of collaborating with other students whether it be within their grade, school, or internationally. By using project based learning the possibilities are endless in the student sense that they can gain a lot of information in ways they haven't before.
The components for a shared vision in learning communities are all things that will make the student succeed and the teachers as well. All the components have some sort of aspect of sharing. They "share a vision, hold shared values, collaborate with each other, work together in collaborative teams" all of the components require team work and sharing ideas and achieving the shared vision.
Concepts in this chapter relate to our project in many ways. Not only the obvious that we are sharing a blog together to bounce ideas off of each other. But also as a class we can view each others blogs and see maybe a different approach to a similar idea we might have for our project. Also in this chapter I like how it gave places to use online collaboration. I think this might be an aspect for our project that we want to incorporate.
I like what you said about colleagues. They can have the same goal as you or can have a different goal. I agree that these goals will allow you to see teaching in different ways and allow the group to determine what is most effective. I agree that learning communities will definitely benefit you as a teacher.
ReplyDeleteI liked what you said about Learning Communities being the most beneficial way to successfully conduct Project Based Learning. Such a group will help you focus on student success. In terms of PBL, being involved in an LC will also help you with planning, reflection along the way, and the evaluation of its success at the end. PBL activities seem a little overwhelming to me, and I can see being able to handle it better with others. Their help, input and support would be great!
ReplyDeleteI really like how you mentioned the way the students will benefit from their own learning communities. I think it's a really good idea to have the students have their own learning communities so that they have the same benefits that teachers have too. I also really enjoyed reading about what you are going to do with your group to make your own learning communities.
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