Kim Poe
EDT 3470
February 3, 2011
Reading Reflection #2
The main topic discussed in this chapter was the need for teachers to collaborate and communicate in order to create and maintain an effective learning environment. In the chapter it said that professional collaboration and mentoring are part of the accompanying professional development experiment. Formal opportunities for teachers to work together remain scarce. It is important to use every opportunity available to collaborate with your fellow teachers.
Being comfortable with teamwork is an acquired skill. Be prepared for your fellow teachers to critique your choices and classroom practices. You need to enter collaboration with an open mind and respect colleges who are sharing their journey with you. There needs to be a comfortable environment where everyone feels open to sharing their opinions and discussing other's opinions. Mutual respect should be shown between all of the colleagues.
I agree Kim it is important for teachers to work together, and not only to take advantage of every possible resource, but also to teach the students about the significance of teamwork inside and outside of the classroom. I also agree that they should be able to critique one another, in a respectful way of course, to better the learning experience for the child.
ReplyDeleteI agree that we should keep an open mind as teachers because there will be many people we encounter who will critique us and our work, and many times it can be helpful feedback if we are open to listening to it. This is why i think having children work in peer review groups to get feedback on their work is great idea, because it teaches them early on that feedback can be so helpful.
ReplyDeleteExactly, we, as future teachers, need to know how these communities work prior to our career. By knowing about these communities, how they work and how beneficial they are to not only the teachers but their students can really motivate all of the pre-service teachers to take what they learn and apply it when they are educators. I like how you said we need to come into the environment with an open mind, which is so true because we will really learn from those teachers who have teaching a lot long than us. Its great that this book is teaching us ways that we can use, that way learning communities won't be scarce once we are in the field.
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