Professional Learning Community

Reflection means if when you are teaching and you notice something wrong you change it straight away, or for the next time. Practitioners should always be self critical of past lessons and picking out on not only the good parts, but also parts of a lesson that didn’t go so well. For example in order for the practitioners to improve in their practice they could prepare a reflective journal, this would help them by reflecting back on what they did in the perivious lesson and if an activity didn’t go so well the practitioner could think of different strategies of improving the activity or planning a different activity, but on the similar topic and also providing different recourses in order to improve the activity. Also practitioners and staff members should not assume that their work place will automatically inform them about new developments, changes and updates which affect their work, practitioners must be prepared to be active in maintaining their own knowledge base and to ensure that their practice is in line with current thinking and new theories. Practitioners could this by incorporating an awareness of the needs to update their knowledge constantly into all of their work and activities by using resources such as the internet, journals, and libraries or other professional development, e.g. training, and to check their awareness of new developments in their work and to work with other professionals e.g. there

Collaboration: In a community of learners, students work together in teams, partners, or groups. This allows students to gain social skills and increases students’ motivation for the project. Students share ideas and gain a new understanding of the content.

Learning Partnership measures the degree to which teachers, parents, and students work together for the common good of the student. (Gruenert & Valentines, 1998)

For the Professional Learning Community (PLC) experience, I chose to observe a PLC. For this assignment, I observed an eighth grade English PLC. This PLC was comprised of three English teachers and one student teacher. There was not a written agenda for their PLC, but they seemed to have an order to how their meeting was held. The began by discussing the unit that they were completing which was using Greek Mythology to review and analyze student’s reading comprehension and summary writing abilities. They stated that their students seemed to be really interested in the unit and did well with the reading comprehension. However, they had noticed that some students were forgetting to state the title and author of the text within the summary and most summaries lacked elaboration, but most students were knowledgeable about the basic structure of a summary. As most students understood the basic structure, they decided that they were going to transition onto the next unit which focused on informative essay writing, but modify the unit in order to teach students the importance of including the title and author within a summary and

Reflective practice is an essential means of developing basic skills and knowledge into expert skills and knowledge.

Roberts, S. & Pruitt, E. (2003). Schools as Professional Learning Communities: Collaborative Activities and Strategies for Professional Development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

During our second Bear Creek visit, I observed the English Language Arts Professional Learning Community also known as ELA. When I first heard about the PLC, I was surprised because it is a brilliant concept. I never knew this existed. The English Language Arts PLC ran smoothly because the teacher that was presenting knew the standard she was going to focus on and how she was going to present the content to the students. All of the ELA teachers also had a schedule about how the meeting was going to flow so that no one was confused. They also used technology to present the standards and the content so that all of the teachers could see and make suggestions and ask questions. One teacher was questioned about why she chose a particular book

Dr. Fremstad has been instrumental in the implementation of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) at West Fargo High School. She understands the power of teacher collaboration and has led the charge to train and monitor the program with fidelity. Jennifer has inspired educators to share student evidence of learning and extend intervention or enrichment learning opportunities based on the data. In addition, she advocates on the importance of frequent classroom visitations with her leadership team and establishes annual visitation goals to support teachers and

In my opinion, implementing reflective practice approach to professional development in order to expand our knowledge is a challenge. This challenge involves teacher’s ability to “reflect on

The professional development also needs to expand. Utilizing the online classroom/communities is one way teachers can get the necessary tools to help their students engage in PBL. These types support will give educators the ability to gain knowledge and support from their peers. It is also an opportunity for them to share best practices. This environment the teachers are learning provides a model for their students whereby the students witness their teacher being engaged and collaborating with their peers, which shows the pupil that their teachers are engaged in their world. ("eduviews: Teaching in the 21st Century," n.d.)

With the shift in professional learning from collecting PLUs to one focused on improving teaching and learning, it is important that teacher leaders play a role in implementing professional learning communities and helping to make sure accountability in professional learning. I am excited about the opportunity to share these changes and new expectations with fellow teachers. A fellow teacher and I have been trained on the upcoming changes and will be redelivering it to other teachers at our school in the near

Policies in early childhood setting support to protect children, families, educators and management. A range of professional disciplines, including teaching, learning, health, education and welfare, influences policy in the early childhood sector (Waniganayake et al, 2012). The purpose of this assessment is to discuss and understand the legislative, regulatory and ethical requirements, with the strength and issues of Serendipity Early Childhood Outdoor Environment policy and their overarching philosophy. The main aim is to determine where the strength and issues subsist, such as environment, safety, interaction and collaboration. These are supported with evidence from guiding framework, state and Commonwealth legislation and related frameworks.

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

The GTCNI have argued that, “Professional knowledge, by its very nature, is organic and, to an extent, evolutionary, reflecting a synthesis of research, experiences gained and expertise shared” (GTCNI, 2007:10). The GTNCI further reinforces this statement when it states that, “Teaching can never be reduced to a set of discrete skills to be mastered in some mechanical process of assimilation” (GTCNI, 2007:5). Teaching today has moved beyond the outdated view that the most important thing for a teacher was solely to have professional knowledge. Professional knowledge encompasses a range of different forms of knowledge such as knowledge on the curriculum and children and pedagogical knowledge e.g. how to manage a classroom amongst many other forms. Whilst this is still of great importance professional knowledge is of no use if you are not able to adapt this knowledge to meet the ever-changing dynamic situations that you will encounter in the classroom. This essay will examine how reflective practice can be unlisted by teachers to ensure that they are meeting the needs of their pupils as well as

There has been a rapid increase in the ides of critical reflective practice over the last few decades, (Gould, 2004). Before we look at the value and purpose of reflective practice, it is important to take in account ‘reflective practice’ carries multiple meanings from the idea of professionals engaging in self-analysis to that of engaging in critical dialogue with others. For example, with reference to teacher education, Larrivee, (2000) argues that reflective practice is fusing together personal beliefs and values into a professional identity whereby critical reflection can take place without staying trapped in unexamined assumptions and expectations of our professional practice. Therefore, from this, it can be concluded that as a teaching professional, it is important to develop reflections on ones’ professional and pedagogic knowledge to set aspirational goals for a continuing personal and professional development, in other words, it is a way of life.