Building Learning Communities Through Email Networking

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Building Learning Communities Through E-mail
Networking

• By Amy Nakagawa
• Beverly Wong

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Current Staff Development

• Just an Event
• Large Group
• Lecture/Modeling/Hands-on Practice
• Mandatory Compliance

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Is our current staff development model effective?

• Legal Requirements are Not Consistently
  Implemented
• Poorly written IEPs
• Poor Assessment Practices
• Limited Use of Appropriate Instructional
  Strategies

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Sped Teachers feel Isolated

• Teaching has long been called a lonely
  profession... Isolation allows, even if it does
  not always produce, conservatism and resistance
  to innovation in teaching. (Lortie, 1975)

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Sped Teachers are Overwhelmed

• Our beginning teachers main problem was an
  inability to cope with challenges to their
  authority. Frequent power struggles with their
  students gradually bogged down teachers in what
  they saw as a daily succession of failures.
  (Caccia, 1996)

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Sped Teachers Lack Support for Ongoing
Professional Development

• Traditionally, professional development for
  teachers spend much of the limited resources on
  hit-and-run workshop. There is almost no time
  in the school day for teachers to consult
  together about curriculum, instruction, and
  student matters. (Gottesman, 2000)

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Will Coaching through e-mail learning
communities empower special education teachers to
improve their practices?

• Building Learning Communities
• Networking
• Facilitating Dialogue

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What is a Learning Community?

• Senge defines a learning organization as one in
  which people expand their capacity to create the
  results they truly desire by nurturing expansive
  thinking, collective aspiration, and the ability
  to see the whole together. (Allen, 2004)

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Networking Through E-Mail

• No longer does the individual teacher need to
  feel that he or she is laboring alone in the
  classroom. Given the Internet, like-minded
  professional teachers are only a click away.
  (Burnaford, 2001)

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Empowering Teachers Through Dialogue

• Empowerment means that teachers will have a
  sense of shared ownership and responsibility, as
  well as a feeling of being in control of their
  destiny and direction. Structured Professional
  Dialogue is a way to help teachers who are
  contemplating a change in practice or curriculum
  (McEwan, 2002).

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Teachers modeling what students should know and
be able to do.

• Teachers who learn from their peers, lead their
  peers, and present their ideas and opinions to
  their peers are more likely to have their
  students do the same in the classroom. They
  conduct their classes in a manner similar to the
  way they conduct their professional activities
  (Carvin, 1998).

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Plan of Action

• Plan PD credit course on Building Learning
  Communities
• Set up procedures for technology aspects i.e.
  list serves, e-mail access, etc.
• Prompt Reflect Respond Write questions to
  promote discussions.
• Continue networking after credit course

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Timeline SY 2004 - 2005

• Present Sept. Gather research on learning
  communities, plan for course, questionnaire, etc.
• September February Implement 12 week
  interactive course. Keep on-going data through
  portfolio system.
• March May Gather information from data,
  analyze, write Plan B.
• June Problem re-formulation.

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References

• Burnaford, G. Fischer, J. Hobson,D. (Eds.).
  (2001). Teachers Doing Research (2nd ed.).
  Mahwah, NJLawrence Erlbaum Associates
• Gottesman, B. (2000). Peer Coaching for Educators
  (2nd ed.). Lanham, MD Scarecrow Press
• Lortie, D. (1975). School Teacher A Sociological
  Study. Chicago University of Chicago Press
• McEwan, E. (2002). 10 Traits of Highly Effective
  Teachers. CA Corwin Press