"When teachers have a strong sense of professional community their morale is better and teacher commitment is higher. Professional community helps support teaching practices, and helps teachers address the uncertainty that accompanies nonroutine teaching of the sort encouraged by many school reform initiatives."
Adam Gamoran

It is often said that the most important asset of any enterprise is the talent and enthusiasm of its workforce. Education is no exception to this premise.
Being teachers such a vital element in the educational process, when designing policies aimed at getting better academic results, what policymakers must not forget is that teachers are no different from employees in the private sector. They want to succeed in their jobs and they demand the tools, the respect, and the sense of empowerment necessary to reach this goal.
As University of Washington scholar Dan Goldhaber stands, "It appears that the most important thing a school can do, is to provide its students with good teachers".
But teachers are known to improve when they analyze, evaluate, and experiment with colleagues in purposeful learning communities (Fullan, 2001). Fullan also suggests that the school level change strategy is developing professional learning community within schools and emphasize the importance of strong teacher community. Therefore, teachers need to be enabled and encouraged to establish a community of learners among themselves (Lave & Wegner, 1991). Maclaughlin and Talbert (2001) also indicated that a collaborative community of practice in which teachers share instructional resources and reflections in practice appear essential to their persistence and success in innovating classroom practices (p.22).
Building up organizations that are able to learn – according to Kofman and Senge- requires basic changes in the ways people think and interact. “The heart of the learning organizations are communities of commitment. Without communities of people genuinely committed to the organizations’ goals, there is no real change”.

ARTIGAS, URUGUAY

"Shapers" 2007: the net is officially born

"Shapers" 2007: the net is officially born

NEW MESSAGE. CHECK IT OUT!


domingo, 7 de junio de 2009

This video was shown at the very beginning of our Sala, which ended-up with a wonderful "FREE HUGS campaign" among the teachers (thanks for the idea, Teresita!). It felt GREAT!

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1 comentario:

  1. Lidia Barboza Norbis18 de julio de 2009, 22:30

    ´Education is a social process. Education is growth. Education is, not a preparation for life; education is life itself.´

    This quote is from my friend John Dewey,1859-1952, American philosopher and educator; b. Burlington, Vt. He rejected authoritarian teaching methods, regarding education in a democracy as a tool to enable the citizen to integrate his or her culture and vocation usefully. To accomplish those aims, both pedagogical methods and curricula needed radical reform.

    More information: http://www.famous-quotes.com/author.php?aid=2008

    I think that your blog shows John´s teaching approach in certain way...

    Thanks for inviting me to visit your blog and go ahead !

    Lidia
    http://lidia2007.blogspot.com

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