Reading Reflection #2

1.  Currently in The United States we have encountered a lot of changes within the educational system but one thing that has stayed predominately similar up until now is the focus on learning communities. Many teachers across the country spend a majority of their day locked in their classrooms teaching the same lessons over and over, causing themselves to feel isolated and bored. However, when teachers take the initiative to create new opportunities for learning they may discover that working together with other colleagues is more rewarding. As a teacher we can readjust the focus of learning communities from secluded classrooms to lively opportunities of collaborated teaching. Technology is a great assistive tool to help teachers and students come together to have a more group oriented learning session. 

2. Open learning communities have a lot of benefits, especially when it comes to looking at individual strengths. One thing that I particularly enjoyed was how collaborative teaching will teach the teacher how to broaden their practices by incorporating not only their own techniques but also techniques from their colleagues into their lessons. This teaches teachers how to be flexible and respond to critical feedback. It will bring colleagues together and help build respect. If done properly, learning communities will help teachers feel more connected to their job and workplace. Not only will it benefit the teachers it will also become a benefit to the students. Not all students learn the same way, or even have the same academic strengths so by having multiple teaching styles incorporated you are giving those students an opportunity to do things differently. 

3. Learning communities have a great affect on teachers because it helps them become less dependent on working in solitude and more dependent on being open to discussion and reflection with other teachers. Learning communities not only happen within your own school but can happen all over the world, just like Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis. Belonging to a community will help you feel more productive and lead you to more powerful learning. When many teachers are striving for the same goal you will have a sense of shared responsibility, which will help reduce the amount of pressure you feel to do everything on your own. 

4. Leaning communities are crucial to students because it teaches them what it is like to live and participate in the real world. So much of learning is done in isolation but in reality what we should really be teaching our students is how to work together and ask for help when needed. Implementing a open learning community teaches our students just how to develop their real life skills such as problem solving, communication, project management, motivation, and persistence. Although these types of communities are highly demanding it is important for our students to understand what it means to learn to learn together.

5. Before it is possible to create a shared vision in your learning community it is important that the teachers are all striving towards the same goal of working together to build a deeper understanding. Not only will this benefit the role of the teacher but also the role of the student as a learner. With a clear sense of mission, and clearly defined goals the teachers are free to collaborate in groups and begin focusing on student learning. In order to be successful the teachers need to commit themselves to improvement and learn to share values and beliefs on what is best for their students learning. If done properly teachers will have been able to create not only a better place for working, but a better place for learning.

6. Everything we learned about learning communities in this chapter is directly related to us in this class because we are the perfect example of what the beginning stages of teaching/learning collaboration looks like. We are working together in groups to form common ground about what we hope to teach through our projects and learn through others. As a team we are constantly collaborating by individually adding to our pool of knowledge by completing our projects and assignments together.