Chapter 2: Learning Communities

      The focus of a learning community is to work together to create a positive learning environment.  Teachers are encouraged to reflect on each others learning interactions.  The idea is to capitalize on the wisdom of the group instead of just being isolated.  Learning communities focus on ensuring that students learn, creating a culture of collaboration for school improvement, and and they focus on results. 

      There are many benefits of Learning Communities.  There are benefits for both the teachers   and the students.  Teachers benefit because there is decreased teacher isolation.  Teachers are encouraged to collaborate ideas, and to get together on a regular basis so that it doesn't feel as if they are tackling education on their own.  Another benefit is shared responsibility for the teachers.  Teachers work together to accomplish one goal.  Students benefit because there is more powerful learning taking place.  Students are being reinforced by many teachers instead of just one.  

      Learning communities affect teachers by allowing the responsibility of educating students to fall on a group of people rather than just one single person with one set of ideas, and one style of teaching.  Learning communities allow and encourage educators to bounce ideas off of each other, and to collaborate together.  Teachers are less isolated, and responsibility is shared.  

      Students benefit greatly from the implementation of learning communities.  Students will learn how to communicate with each other and to work with a team.  They will work on problem solving, project management, motivation, and persistence.  

      Components for shared vision in Learning Communities include; having a clear sense of mission, sharing a vision of the conditions that must be created to achieve the mission, and work together in teams to achieve the mission.  It will take strong teachers to lead and organize their students.  It is important for teachers to collaborate with each other about their ideas and the effectiveness of their teaching.  The most important thing is to focus on student learning.  As long as all of the teachers involved care abut their students learning, then the learning community will be a success.

      The fact that collaboration is very important is very present in the group project that we are participating in.  We must all bounce ideas off of each other to come up with a final end result.  We must communicate with each other about what we think is effective, and what we need to change about our project.  The final goal of our project is to create a lesson that will ensure that students will learn from participating in the lesson.