RSA #2- Learning
As Our Fundamental Purpose
The focus of
module three discusses that each school’s purpose is to ensure students are
learning at high levels. This week’s module suggests that common assessments
are created to measure, and guide students’ instruction. The module also
focuses on building the capacity of the staff to effectively work
collaboratively to accomplish a specific goal.
The biggest factor in the
ineffectiveness of formal strategic planning rests on its faulty underlying
assumption: some people in organizations (the leaders) are responsible for
thinking and planning, while others (the workers) are responsible for carrying
out those plans. This separation of thought and action is the antithesis of a
learning community, which requires widely dispersed leadership and strategic
thinkers throughout the organization. (DuFour,
DuFour, Eaker, & Many, 2010).
This passage
supports this week’s focus. It presents the idea that in order for a school and
its students to achieve at high levels all members in the school community need
to work together.
The article Teachers
Making Connections: Online communities as a source of professional learning focuses on the impact that the internet has on our
lives and how people are constantly turning to the internet for personal and
professional needs. Teachers are under constant pressure to learn new skills,
update their knowledge and change classroom practices (Richardson, 1990). The
article discusses how it is crucial in a time when the profession of teaching
is so ever changing, that we need to provide learning experiences for these
teachers.
With this constant
change and this need to work collaboratively, what better way to do it than
through technology. With technology teachers all over the world will be able to
effectively collaborate with one another. When we open up our learning
communities and view them as communities that go through ongoing learning
together, we open up our minds to a whole new group of people. The learning
that happens together though an online forum needs to address the teachers
concerns, which are the success of their students and maintaining their
students achievement at high levels. If all educators keep this common goal in
mind we are looking at a world wide professional learning community. Just as we
read in our weekly readings there needs to be common assessments and in order
to create these common assessments, teachers need the time to make sure their
learning targets reflect what they actually want their students to walk away
knowing. In an online community educators are able to communicate with one
another and create these assessments that ensure student success.
DuFour, R., DuFour, R., Eaker, R., Many, T. (2010). Learning
by doing: A handbook for
professional learning communities
at work (2nd ed.). Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.
Duncan-Howell, J. (2010). Teachers making connections:
Online communities as a
source of professional learning.
British Journal Of Educational Technology,
41(2), 324-340. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2009.00953.x
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