The Purpose of Learning Communities
As an educator I have always striven to stay current and involved in new educational strategies and ideas. This usually happens through professional learning communities. Many of these communities are online and a few occur within my campus, district, and region.
Consumer vs. Contributor
Like most educators I found myself consuming information from these learning communities rather than contributing anything of value. I spent many hours on communities like EduTopia, Schoology, Pinterest, Facebook. I gathered ideas and then integrated those strategies into my classroom. It stopped there, I didn’t share the other great things I was doing. This lack of contribution had to do with a shortage of time, but also a lack of confidence in that what I was doing was good enough to share. It was not until I began working on my Masters in Educational Leadership Technology that I realized sharing what expertise I have can only be beneficial for myself and for others.
Active Member
In the last year and a half I have worked diligently to become involved in organizations that support the growth and success of educators and students. On my own campus I have led several professional development sessions on safety, teaching using the Fundamental Five, and formative assessments. I am also a very active participant in our Professional Learning Community (PLC) meetings which occur every day. Our PLCs are separated by content and are used to analyze data, vertically align content, create formative assessments, and collaborate on new strategies to use in the classroom.
In the EDLD Program I have been involved in discussion boards every week which allow me to collaborate and share ideas with other students in the program. In consistently sharing thoughts and discussing our own learning I have become a more confident producer of information. This has spurred my desire to share my own strategies and provide suggestions to those in the class.
New Communities
Throughout my Masters program I have been introduced to many new groups that I am currently using to enhance my growth as an educational leader. The following are the groups and sites I frequent:
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Emily K Garcia 