¶ … Professional Learning Community"?
Professional learning communities: Article review
DuFour, R. What is a 'professional learning community?' Educational Leadership, 2004.
A popular idea in the field of education today is the need to develop a 'professional learning community' of educators to facilitate the goals of the institution. One of the 'big ideas' of a professional learning community is the responsibility for educators to come together and to determine how students really learn and how to achieve set learning objectives. For example, if a teacher is struggling with providing differentiated instruction to a diverse community of learners, the school can offer her additional support and resources to bolster the when they experience challenges. Rather than waiting for the student to make the overture, there are procedures to ensure the student is required to seek extra help. Intervention rather than remediation is the aim (DuFour 2004: 2).
A second 'big idea' is the concept of collaboration -- quite simply, when teachers find that particular strategies work, they should share them with their fellow educators. This ensures that teachers are able to learn from one another and that positive techniques are disseminated through the school. However, the article notes that subjective impressions are not enough to validate that particular approaches work: these must be determined…
They may feel threatened by new ideas and fear that they will actually be changes for the worse instead of for the better, simply because they are unfamiliar. Another point is that people may have a vested interest in not accepting change. According to Kotter (1996) people like to feel that they are in control of what is happening to them; they want to be the ones steering their
Nearly all failing schools fit this description (Six Secrets of School Success 2000)." If a country is to overcome educational problems, they must take into account the mentality that poverty creates and how that mentality deteriorates the wherewithal to do well in school. Although poverty is the issue that affects most underachieving schools, the idea of the super head was conceived as the answer to poorly performing schools. According to
According to both testimonials and statistics, educated people report higher levels of personal happiness and job satisfaction. In her book, Nickel and Dimed, comfortably wealthy author Barbara Ehrenreich reports being taken out for a "$30 lunch and some understated French country-style place" and discussing "future articles I might write for [the editor of Harpoer's] magazine" (1). It is lunching with this editor from Harpers that she decides to take on
An act, the purpose of which was the elimination of prejudice and the provision of equal opportunity for all, could not possibly have been endorsing the setting up of a new system of reverse discrimination. To select applicants solely on the basis of their racial background is to deny the opportunity of others on the basis of their racial background. Under the plan advocated by the Journal for Blacks
High School Dual Programs Current social, political, and cultural concerns have hastened the call for high school reform and have intensified an interest in producing high school graduates that are college ready (Kuo, 2010). Competition from up-and-coming economies such as China and India have challenged traditional American economic world dominance and are forcing policy makers to be concerned about making substantive changes in the educational system (Kuo, 2010). However, when positive
This emphasis will build culturally sensitive curriculum. (Oakes, Quartz, Ryan & Lipton, 2000, p. 77) Though the importance of cultural identity, and even the dreaded sources of nationalism, such as independent cultural identity and linguistic heritage must not be ignored in an attempt to universalize education. With some of the world's most influential organizations in a serious bid to establish universal education the goals of the economists may be
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