"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!


sábado, 27 de junio de 2009

VISIT TO BELLA UNION











On a still dark and VERY COLD Friday morning, three teachers of English from Artigas -María Noel Cabezas, Andrea Fernández and I (PAD Beatriz Sendic)- departed towards Bella Union.

The purpose of the trip was to meet some colleagues there and to exchange ideas on testing and Sheltered instruction.

It was a FANTASTIC experience; we spent the whole day visiting teachers who were kind enough to open their classroom doors to us (thanks Loana, Rosario 1 and 2, Laura and Elizabeth!) and in the afternoon we held a small Sala at liceo number 2.

We would like to thank all the teachers from Bella Union and their students, headmistresses Gladis Sosa (Liceo 1) and ALicia Tripodi (liceo 2) and their partners Ana Renart and María del Carmen Farías, Andrea´s mother (who prepared a DELICIOUS meal for us) and all the adscriptas, auxiliares de servicio, secretaries and teachers from Liceos number 1 and 2. All of them made us feel welcome there.

The pictures we are sharing with you are part of that "adventure". We hope you like them.
And Bella Union ... we will be back! Thanks again to all of you.

María Noel Cabezas, Andrea Fernández and Beatriz Sendic.-





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1 comentario:

  1. cedibella union1 de julio de 2009, 15:09

    Dear Beatriz,
    Thanks again for sharing with us and making our hard work a little easier.We are also really grateful to Andrea and Maria Noel who gently gave us very useful tips and ideas on how to implement SIOP and technology in our classrooms.Hope to see you again soon and share my own experiences!!
    Best,
    Gina

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