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Benefits of cooperative learning
Paper on effective professional learning communities
Benefits of cooperative learning
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Over the past ten years, the term Professional Learning Community (PLC) has become the buzz word in schools that in most cases, means a meeting. This meeting can be anything from a faculty meeting, department meeting to a group of teachers that teaches the same subject. What happens in these meetings is decided by administrators and can be anything from policy trainings, best practices, and emergency training to a faculty book club. According to the premier architect of the PLC process, Richard DuFour, this perception of a PLC being any type of meeting is wrong. “First, the PLC is the larger organization and not the individual teams that comprise it. While collaborative teams are an essential part of the PLC process, the sum is greater than the individual parts. Much of the work of a PLC cannot be done by a team but instead requires a school wide or district wide effort. Second, the PLC process has a pervasive and ongoing impact on the structure and culture of the school. If educators meet with peers on a regular basis only to return to business as usual, they are not functioning as a PLC. So, the PLC process is much more than a meeting” (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many, 2010, p. 10). The difference between a faculty meeting and a PLC is that there must be action taken on the knowledge gained from the discussion within the meeting. In most cases, teachers do not act of the information gained at a school meeting. This may be for a variety of reasons such as not having or being given the time to implement the information, not agreeing with the policies or having become cynical about continual cycle of “new” initiatives. For a true PLC to work, there must be time and effort given by administrators and teachers in order to achiev...
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...munities at work: bring the big ideas to life. Paper presented at the Solution Tree, Salt Lake City, Ut.
DuFour, R., DuFour, R., Eaker, R., & Many, T. (2010). Learning by doing (2nd ed.). Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.
DuFour, R., & Dufour, R. (2013, November). Building the collaborative culture of a professional learning community at work. Paper presented at the Solution Tree, Salt Lake City, Utah.
Eaker, R. (2013, November). What it means to be a professional learning community. Paper presented at the Solution Tree, Salt Lake City.
Sonju, B. (2013, November). The big rocks: specific actions that make a difference for PLC leaders and teams. Paper presented at the Solution Tree, Salt Lake City, Ut.
Williams, K. C. (2013, November). Are you interested or committed? Reconnecting with the why of PLC work. Paper presented at the Solution Tree, Salt Lake City, Ut.
I can help my teachers be professional learners by using observation and evaluation processes, like those found in Danielson’s model, to promote self-assessment, reflection on practices, and professional conversations with them. The Framework can help me have honest, reflective conversations with the teachers about their instruction and I can use it as a guide to help all involved in professional development decisions. In other words, I can use such teacher evaluation models to promote active engagement and encourage professional growth in all
Senge, P. M. (1990). The leader's new work: Building learning organizations. Sloan Management Review, 32(1), 7-22. doi: 812347
Laura Jimenez’s article “The Next Frontier of Education Reform” was a well thought out article about the possibility for a new program called LEAP or LEarning Together to Advance Our Practice to help improve the failing system of improving our public school educators. Jimenez uses accurate data to show the reasons behind the need to reform educator professional development and shows different examples of how this could be accomplished. She largely looks at the DC public school system’s IMPACT and the newly created LEAP projects.
A school’s lifeblood is its students however, a school’s lifeline stems from the community partnerships that it forms and retains over the years of its existence in the community. Just as times change, so does the list of potential partners within the community. One of the most valuable resources a school can use in its quest to form community partnerships is the faces, voices, and support of its leadership staff. Schools typically have an internal chain of command; however, the quest for partnerships requires that the chain of command, littered with bureaucratic red tape, be abandoned in exchange for one where those in decision-making positions are more easily accessible to members of the community. The following is a
Bennis, Warren G, and Patricia W. Biederman. Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration. Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley, 1997. Print.
This proposal is designed to address the need for professional development of which can be utilized in assisting teachers within our institution mature and grow educationally for the purposes of becoming better instructors for the purposes of education our students academically and assisting them to succeed within their academic goals and objectives. The proposed plan of action of which can ultimately assist bot our facu...
Senge, P. M. (2006). The fifth discipline: The art and Practice of the learning organization (1st ed., Rev.). New York, NY: Doubleday.
Traditionally, teacher development typically occurs through trial and error in the isolated confinements of each teacher’s classroom with some periodic whole-group professional development (Goddard & Goddard, 2007). Within the past few decades, many schools and districts, including ours, have considered and experimented with Professional Learning Communities (PLC) as an alternative framework in guiding a more efficient development program for their teachers. PLCs are focused on enhancing student learning through developing teacher practices. The concept of PLC relies on using structured collaborative sessions amongst teachers within the school to build internal capacity. Through PLCs, teachers critically reflect on current practices, brainstorm solutions, and obtain help and advice from others in a supportive growth-oriented environment over an extended period of time (Vescio, Ross, & Adams, 2008; Nelson, 2009; Scher & O'Reilly, 2009; Bolam, McMahon, Stoll, Thomas, & Wallace, 2005). The theory of change guiding PLCs holds that by providing teachers with targeted support from within the school community, as oppose to hiring additional outside experts, professional developments can become for efficient. Implementation of effective PLCs requires intentional effort, school-wide and possibly district-wide restructuring of teacher schedules, and additional resources. For schools considering implementing PLCs, it is important to understand the logic of action and the benefits of PLCs as it relates to teacher improvement and increased student achievement.
Solberg, J. (2011). Becoming learning common partners: Working toward a shared vision and practice. Journal of Organization Transformation and Social Change, 8 (3), 243-260. http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/jots.8.3.243_1
McGill, I. & Beatty, L. (1996, 2nd edn.) Action Learning: a practitioner’s guide London: Kogan Page.)
Early on in my career as a teacher I learned the value of professional growth for myself. This took the form of professional development that I gained from conferences I attended and grants I was awarded. I also knew that I could share what I learned with others within my school and presenting at conferences. As an educational technology leader I use the knowledge and skills gained from my university classes in providing professional develop...
Effective Professional Development Effective professional development is intensive enough to allow people to develop new knowledge and skills (Cook, 1997). When entering into a professional development workshop, there are components that would allow you to believe you’re in the workplace as well as in a training environment. Professional development instructors believe that "professional development enriches teaching and improves learning for all students. It is an essential link to higher student achievement" (Cook, 1997). Workshops help teachers gain support in the classroom to enable them to succeed.
Collaborative learning is a situation where two or more people attempt to learn something together. Dillenbourg, P. (1999). Lev Semenovich Vygotsky, (born in 1986), introduced his theory that, human development—child development as well as the development of all human kind—is the result of interactions between people and their social environments. What this states is that the development of a “higher education” is the product of comparing and contrasting ideas of others ultimately to conclude a solution to a problem as a whole or group. Everyone’s input in a collaborative situation will play a role in final solution.
...o expand knowledge of subject matter is through read books, journals, and magazine, participate in professional development activities and attend conferences. The value of participating in professional associations and organization helps teacher to move towards expertise to become engaged, active, and passionate and connect to their students (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009). As the teacher enhance and grow in the professional development can have a greatly impact on student learning, “Expert teachers know more than novices and organize that knowledge differently, retrieve it easily, and apply it in novel and creative ways” (Garmston, 1998). Therefore, there is such a significant value of participating in professional development through joining association or organization to help teacher to grow in expert in teaching and making an impact on student learning.
Professional development, in its most simple definition, is learning opportunities. Under professional development, individuals are open to a wide array of these opportunities in order to gain knowledge and improve. The learning opportunities that make up professional development take up many forms. Conferences that aim to teach new skills and methods, formal pieces of academic material, training methods provided by an external or internal organizations are all learning opportunities through which professional development is attained. Professional development is a continuous process, that requires adapting to new techniques and approaches to improve a person’s technical capabilities.