Reflection 2

Catherine Hinckley

Reflection 2

     The focus of Learning Communities is that they create new opportunities for teachers to work together and overcome the traditional isolation of the teaching profession.  There will be change and restructuring in order to organize teachers and students to where time and opportunities for teacher collaboration are built into the normal school day.
     The benefits of Learning Communities are that the is room for collaboration.  As a group you are smarter or have more collective knowledge that one person would on their own.  This means that your weaknesses maybe someone else's strength and all the bases are covered.  Solving problems will become much more efficient.
     Learning Communities definitely affect teachers.  Lesson plans are almost expected to be made as a group so everyone is on the same page.  This takes pressure off of the teachers so they do not have to come up with the entire lesson plan all by themselves.  However you do have to make sure that you are being honest with each other.  This in key because the teachers depend on each other and there cannot be a weak link in the chain.  Teachers are also able to create their own opportunities for shared learning.
    These communities also affect students.  Learning Communities help student get prepared to the real world where they will have to work with other people to solve problems and get results.  It also ensures that students learn, creates a culture of collaboration for school improvement, and focuses on results.  The communities not only decrease the isolation of students, but also give the students shared responsibility which ultimately takes pressure off the students and they are able to learn more.
     The components of Learning Communities are have a clear sense of mission, share a vision of the conditions they must create to achieve the mission, work together in collaborative teams to determine the best practice to achieve the mission, focus on student learning, organize into groups headed by teacher-leaders, goal and result oriented, collaborate with each other, hold shared beliefs, commit themselves to continuous improvement, and see themselves as life long learners.
     This idea of Learning Communities is relevant to our projects now because we are working as a group to complete an "event" and each step of the way we have to collaborate with each other.