Reading Reflection #2

1. Discussion on the focus of Learning Communities.
   While reading the chapter on creating a professional learning community I have found that there are several main focuses of learning communities. The first focus mentioned was ensuring that students learn from collaborated lesson plans. Through working with many colleagues during the process of creating projects and lessons you are ensuring that many ideas, passionate thoughts and much feedback have come together to create meaningful lessons for students. As it is stated in the chapter, more brains are better than one. This speaks true for any type of collaborative work whether it's in education, business or everyday life tasks. Being able to communicate and trust each other through the process ensures that students will learn from multiple people and their thought out ideas.
   The second main focus that I found was creating a culture of collaboration for school improvement. Learning communities often bring teachers, students, school administrators and the community together for one main goal, learning. Providing a community feel to a school makes collaborative learning much easier to implement. Knowing that you can count on each member of the school community ensures the success of meaningful lessons that engage students in their journey to success in not only academics, but life all together.
   The third focus that I read about was the focus on results.Assessments and their results are used to reinforce our teaching. If, overall students aren't succeeding on assessments than we, as teachers, need to reevaluate our lessons and how we teach our students. Results also inform us on what the students are succeeding at and how far they have come from initially starting PBL.

2. Discussion on the benefits of Learning Communities.
   Learning communities have several benefits that come with the implementation of collaborative teaching and learning. These are aspects that not only benefit students, but teachers as well. Decreased teacher isolation mainly benefits the way teachers plan and teach their lessons. It is also beneficial because there is time for sharing of ideas and constructive feedback between community members. This is beneficial to the students because they are learning from more than one teacher and are able to succeed in different settings and teaching styles. This causes greater appreciation of the students' talents, work and creates greater expectations of all students no matter their performance levels.
   Another benefit is the increased commitment to the mission and goals of learning communities. Often, teachers that are involved with learning communities strive to be better teachers and in turn strive for greater goals for their students. This creates an environment where learning and striving for a personal best is an important part of success.
   In learning communities shared responsibility is an immense aspect to the success of collaborative teaching and learning styles implemented in project-based learning. Teachers and students are constantly learning from each other by simply working with one another. Learning communities provide teachers and students with the necessary skills such as: communication, persistence, problem solving, motivation and project management to become successful in the real world.
   More powerful and meaningful learning is taking place daily in collaborative teaching classrooms. Because teachers explore their colleagues teaching, reflect on their own teaching and provide each other with critical feedback this type of teaching style gives teachers the chance to create lesson plans that are real world based and provide students with skills that will follow them into the future. This causes students to be diverse in their learning and provides them with the framework needed for success in the classroom and in every day life.
   Implementing learning communities into the classroom along with project-based learning calls for great change to happen. There are so many benefits to this teaching style that change is inevitable, which is a good thing. Seeing as teachers are working together for a common goal the ideas are spread farther than what one single teacher could do. Many teachers that collaborate with one another are more likely to create blogs and share their ideas with more than just the teachers in their district, which creates international sharing. This causes change not only in one or two classrooms, but world-wide.

3. Discussion on how Learning Communities affect teachers.
   When a teacher initially starts project-based learning and incorporates learning communities into the curriculum they need to take on the role of the student and learn different ways of learning, especially how to learn together as a team. Teachers also need to form new thinking patterns to accommodate to all types of learners during the change to collaborative lesson plans. Learning communities allow teachers to become better at what they do, teach. By getting the opportunity to reflect and receive constructive feedback teachers become more passionate about the goals for their students and in hand create more meaningful lessons. An important point to the success of learning communities is the respect and trust between the teachers involved. This is the foundation for the success of the three goals listed in number one. Being able to relate to the students by also being learners in these communities provides teachers with the upper-hand to create meaningful real-world lessons in the classroom.

4. Discussion on how Learning Communities affect students.
   Through the implementation of learning communities in a project-based learning classroom students receive many benefits that will stick with them into the future. Students develop many skills such as: communication, motivation, problem solving, persistence and project management. They also acquire teamwork skills which will benefit them immensely, especially when they enter the work force. Students will benefit from the diverse learning styles from participating in collaborative teaching. Each teacher has their own style of teaching and this gives students the opportunity to benefit from many.
   Because of the immense teacher expectations students are required to put a lot of time and effort into their work. Some students may not appreciate or be able to handle the pressures that all aspects of learning communities bring. Students are also required to trust and have respect for one another and this could be hard for students to understand and implement. It is the teacher's job to create a classroom community where each student is able to succeed with each of these components, only then will students be able to fully gain from this experience.

5. Discussion on the components for shared vision in Learning Communities.
   In order for learning communities to become successful the teachers involved must have shared vision on several different components. If those who are involved do not share these components than working together can be strained and the main goals of the mission will not be met. Having a clear sense of the overall mission is extremely important for the success of the program. The mission is the foundation of learning communities and it drives the force of teaching to learn.
   Teachers must also set specific conditions to meet the overarching mission of the learning community for the success of their students. They do this by working together during the teaching and creating process and by determining the best practices to achieve the mission of learning communities. To maintain the overarching mission teachers must keep the focus on student learning by continuously being goal and result oriented in their teaching. The whole point of this style of teaching is collaboration and being cohesive with one another. Making sure to keep the communication lines open with other teachers and sharing the same values and beliefs helps to aid in the success of the mission and most importantly the success of the students.
   To me, the most important component is making sure that teachers see themselves as life-long learners and can relate to their students. To ensure the success of students, teachers must be able to learn with them and not just give them the means to do so. As I have stated before it is extremely beneficial for teachers to reflect on their own teaching and continuously strive to be better teachers. This is done by receiving feedback from other members of their learning community, reflecting on their teaching and analyzing their students assessment results. Teachers that continuously strive to be the best and provide their students with meaningful lessons are often the most passionate and the most successful.

6. Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.
   All of the information that I've obtained from reading this chapter plays a part in the project that we are working on this semester. Working together in a group is often tedious and can be frustrating. However, if each group member shares the same views on the components discussed in number five of this reflection than there is no reason why success can't be achieved. Making sure that each group member is always on the same page and has the same goal for the project is extremely important in working together. Just like being successful in collaborative teaching, trust and respect for each member of our group has to be obtained in order for this project to go smoothly and work. I feel that communication is the most important component that we, as a group, must take seriously. Keeping the communication lines open between all of us is the key point in the success of this semester. If there is no communication between the members of our group than there is a major problem in being able to work together and succeeding as a group. Another component that I value is sharing ideas amongst one another. Having four brains in our group is more beneficial than just having one because each person thinks and retains information differently and this brings a diverseness to our group. Collaborating our ideas allows us to form the best work possible that we can then share with our blog viewers and our peers.