RSA1: Online Professional Learning Community

In this week’s readings, the focus on a team collaborating and designing instructional components that benefit the learners in focus was the most apparent issue. Professionals that serve students in different purposes are able to collectively achieve overall goals by applying different opinions, practices and success stories in an organized fashion (DuFour et al, 139). When educators choose to use collaboration time effectively to focus on the greater needs of the student, success rates of the students increase and the school as a whole reaches a place of improvement (140). When professionals are strictly focused on the right work at hand, students will achieve more at higher levels. This can be maintained by directing the focus of meeting times to the four central questions of a Professional Learning Community:

1. What is it we want our students to learn?

2. How will we know if each student has learned it?

3. How will we respond when some students do not learn it?

4. How can we extend and enrich the learning for students who have demonstrated proficiency (119)?

When professional educators are able to take time and effectively focus on the issues of concern, students benefit with higher levels of success and a greater understanding of the materials presented to them.

Rudolfo Bercena Rulloda emphasized in “School Improvement Model to Foster Student Learning” the need for collaboration among teachers in school communities (2011). With the push for students to be taught in the least restrictive environment, diverse learners are becoming more apparent in regular education classrooms. If a student is succeeding in math but failing in reading, a need for a partnership that fosters the student’s preferences, strengths and weaknesses should be acknowledged between the different educators. Using strategies such as a portfolio, a student can reflect on his or her own work and evaluate their own achievements, teachers can use these artifacts to understand how students learn and make connections to experiences the student has had across their school day (Rulloda, p. 8).

Based on research supported by the assigned readings and researched article, it is clear the high impact of team collaboration has on student achievement. Students remain separate individuals regardless of the classes they are placed in and should be treated as so. Each one learns differently than the next and their learning styles need to be taken into consideration throughout the design and implementation of curriculum building. Professionals have much to offer students but very little time to do so, through team work and focus on what is important, students can benefit from the various skills and knowledge each has to offer.

References

DuFour, R., DuFour, R., Eaker, R., & Many, T. (2010). Chapter 3, 4 and 5. In Learning by Doing (pp.

59-154). Bloomington, Indiana: Solution Tree Press.

Rulloda, R. B. (2011). School Improvement to Foster Student Learning (Master's thesis, North

Central University, Minneapolis, Minnesota). Retrieved from

http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED523516.pdf