I really like the
ideas brought up in this chapter. The idea of collaboration and working as a
team has been a part of my education at Western, and it makes sense to carry it
into the classroom. As a special education student, I have been part of a cohort
for my junior and senior year. We are a group who rely on each other for help
and support with classroom assignments, but also for ideas when working with
students. This community sounds similar to the idea of using collaboration and
technology as a part of project based learning. I can see how important
collaboration is and hope to find a school that recognizes its importance and
plans for that time. Especially as co-teaching becomes more popular, which
takes collaboration to a more in-depth level.
The chapter
mentions how respect is an essential condition of collaboration, and this makes
a lot of sense. In order to collaborate fully teachers have to trust each
other, and make themselves open to new ideas and corrective feedback. This only
works if the other teachers show respect and make themselves worthy of gaining
trust.
When teachers
collaborate well, it can turn into student collaboration. Teachers
collaborating can create opportunities like “The world is flat project”, by two
teachers getting together their students had the opportunity to branch out and
working with other students across the globe. This ties into what the book is
saying about how there are similarities between professional learning
communities among teachers and project-based learning collaboration among
students. I believe teachers need to have that strong learning community before
students can fully gain from the project-based learning.
Finding time, and
willing teacher, to build a learning community from scratch would take a lot of
work. The book brings up good ideas, such as using blogs to connect with other
teachers. Technology does open more doors and make collaboration possible in
ways that were not always an option, but there are more factors at play that
can create problems, like finding time. Working with pre-existing groups is a
good solution that the book brought up to help with some of these challenges.
There are a lot of factors that the book mentions to make a community
successful, but I think the most important are having a common mission and the
dedication to follow through.
I definitely agree one of the most major components of a PLC is trust. In order for different people to collaborate and help each other in any environment, all the people in the group must trust each other to do their part. Also trust is essential to get anything done, if you did not trust your partner in this class, this class be much more difficult because you would end up doing everything yourself. I think the same concept applies to the PLC. If their is not any trust then it would be insanely difficult to reach any of the PLC's goals
ReplyDeleteHi Emily!
ReplyDeleteI love that you touched on the issue of finding the time to communicate with other teachers in an efficient way! As education students and emerging teachers, we are already noticing that the time spent preparing for lessons is incredibly infinite. Work days begin before school starts and often continue well after the dismissal bell has rang. Thus, finding the time to actually sit down with other faculty members and maintain a life outside of school become nearly impossible. The use of technology and communication within the school day are extremely necessary and beneficial in making sure that learning is cohesive and efficient for the students and the teachers. Wonderful job! :)
-Sabrina
I definitely agree with you on the fact that respect is key to collaboration. You have to be able to trust each other and the ideas that are brought up when collaborating. I think it’s also important for teachers to give constructive feedback to each other and for teachers to take constructive feedback in a positive way and not a negative way. I think the more collaboration that is done the more opportunities and ideas that will arise. It’s definitely important for teachers to have a strong learning community. Without a strong learning community I don’t think that project-based learning can be successful. Everything that a learning community and project-based learning consists of absolutely takes dedication.
ReplyDeleteEmily I enjoyed reading your post. I also like how we have learned so much about collaboration and PLC’s while in the SPED program at WMU. I also agree with you about how the most important part of a PLC is trust and without that the PLC will have a harder time working together. I am a strong believer that students look up to their teachers, and because of this when teachers collaborate well the students are more likely to also do the same because they are modeling the teacher. I think the connection with learning communities and project based learning are two things that will work well together as the book was mentioning and as you had done if the foundation is laid at the start and the teacher and community (other teachers) are supporting them. With all the technology being used in the classrooms I think it is helping teachers to communicate and to build a strong relationship/bond and most importantly trust and respect among each other. I look forward to learning more about project based learning and being able to continue to connect it to things I have already done.
ReplyDelete-Michelle