Five Disciplines

Peter M. Senge’s book, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, describes why Personal Mastery, Mental Models, Shared Vision, Team Learning, and Systems Thinking are important to creating a learning organization. The five disciplines help us to focus on the skills necessary to understanding the education system. Throughout this course, I developed three projects: UDL World Religions (“UDL”), Green Screen Technology (“Green Screen”), and Flipped Classroom (“Flipped”). I will briefly describe each of the disciplines and analyze how they were addressed, or not addressed, in each project.

Personal Mastery

“Personal mastery is the discipline of continually clarifying and deepening our personal vision, of focusing our energies, of developing patience, and of seeing reality objectively," (Senge, 7). In other words, when we are aware of our ignorance and flaws, we are committed and motivated to gain knowledge and skills. Personal Mastery is self-awareness – a clear view of our strengths and weaknesses.

One of the guidelines I addressed for my UDL project was Guideline #9: Provide options for self-regulation. “Learners need to be able to set personal goals that can be realistically reached, as well as fostering positive beliefs that their goals can be met,” (CAST, 2013). Personal mastery is evident in UDL because it allows students to acknowledge their own capabilities and set reasonable goals. Personal mastery is also evident in the flipped project. Students are essentially responsible for their learning and determine how much review is needed for mastery of the material.

Mental Models

Mental models “are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures of images that influence how we und...

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...is to find quality videos.

3. Lesson should clearly state the objectives and goals.

4. Stick to one topic per video and keep the videos under 10 minutes.

5. Lessons should be accessible not only through desktops/laptops but also via mobile devices.

In summary, systems thinking encourages one to step back and see the whole picture rather than focusing just on its parts. Another example of systems thinking is the way the school day is divided so that one subject area is taught separately. Students do not learn to apply those skills and knowledge outside of school because the “real world” does not work this way. Regular day-to-day activities occur in an integrated manner, therefore classrooms should function similarly.

John Muir, a naturalist and author, once said, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”