Chapter 9: Institutionalizing Cultural Knowledge Through Collective Learning
Establishing knowledge sharing practices is as much a route to creating collaborative cultures as it is a product of the latter. This means that the organization must frame the giving and receiving of knowledge as a responsibility and must reinforce such sharing through incentives and opportunities to engage in it.
--Fullan, 2003, p. 86
As I read Michael Fullan's (2003) quote, what came to mind for me was the concept of "transparent learning" that we learned about in EDL 610 with Professor Jeff Heil. When we embrace the concept of transparent learning we are constantly sharing our new knowledge either in person, or through mediums that allow us to reach out to so many more people. These mediums include Twitter, personal websites, G+ communities, YouTube videos, and other on-line means that allow people you have not even met, to access the knowledge you are sharing with the world. With transparent learning you accept the responsibility of contributing to the world through your newly-acquired knowledge.
My colleagues and I teach at a language academy where we have the flexibility of integrating a variety of teaching moments into our lessons. We engage in learning about the cultural groups within our school community through daily interactions with our students and their families. We welcome and encourage families to share more about their background through presentations that we are able to weave into our social studies lessons and as part of our International Fair lessons. Our students teach us so much about who they are through their writing assignments and also through other presentations that they feel compelled to create and present to the class. I make myself as approachable as possible and show such interest in learning more about my students and who they are, that many families will even invite me to special events that they attend as part of their culture. I accept their invitations and see the value of these great opportunities for me to learn more about my students and their families.
I would not consider myself to be culturally similar to most of my students. I have definitely expanded my thinking as I learn so much from my students and different ways that they, and their families, have of doing things. I would say that most of the educators in my school are culturally different from our students. One of the ways in which community members share their cultural knowledge is through assemblies that they offer to put on in our school's auditorium. They also reach out to the teachers through e-mail, or by placing flyers in our mailboxes, and offer our students opportunities to go on field trips and learn more about what they have to offer. We take advantage of these wonderful opportunities and always find ways of connecting these experiences to our curriculum.
My Reaction to the Guiding Questions on Table 9.1, p. 112 (Lindsey et. al) is that they really support deep reflective thinking on our part to inform our practice and refine it in the best interest of our diverse student population. These are questions that seem fairly new to me and I am not sure that they have been used to guide my work at the school I work. Some questions that may be slightly present in the ongoing discussions among faculty and staff at my school are how do teachers keep themselves informed and what books have they been reading, as well as "In what ways do I identify and address student needs by benchmarking success indicators?" A question that poses the opportunity for further learning for me and for my school is, "In what ways do I develop and use a continuous improvement inquiry model to assess progress toward clearly stated achievement goals?"
How do you respond to the incomplete sentences that ask how you engage and learn?
*To keep myself informed, I have been reading...educational magazines, newsletters, on-line articles, different staff development books, research articles and anything I come across that I feel will be informational within my field.
*To keep myself informed, I am engaged in this learning activity...Twitter learning Communities and G+ Learning Communities.
*I bring cultural information to school in form of... prepared lesson plans that I deliver to my students through social studies lessons and in preparation for the Annual International Fair.
*I engage in inquiry to inform my thinking and behaviors to...be better prepared to serve my students and their families.
Reflection:
Some outcomes that might come about as a result of the team in providing professional learning for the faculty and entire school community is a better understanding of who their students are which in turn could yield higher academic progress. Some other stakeholders the learning team might want to engage in this process might be parents, students and interested members of the community. Some guidelines we might use to identify who needs to be at the table might include who has a genuine interest in our students, who supports our school's programs, who is in direct constant communication with our students and our school. Other contexts I might consider for being more inclusive in decision making could be any one who is somehow directly, or maybe even indirectly, impacted by any decisions being made.
Reflection:
As I think about Vignette 10, the thoughts that arise for me is that I can understand where everyone here is coming from and that I have also been in situations where everyone has expressed a variety of supportive and unsupportive opinions. My school institutionalizes learning in ways to provide generative knowledge through PLC time. The experiences of Pine Hills High School Data Learning Team inform the work I am doing by offering me a very helpful perspective of how to structure the school in a different way that offers teachers more supportive opportunities that allow staff to learn more about their students and intentionally create an environment that is even more conducive to learning.
Going Deeper: 3 Keys
3 Key Learnings from this Chapter:
*Collaborative learning is more effective than independent learning.
*Our students benefit more from our synergy.
*It is in our students' best interest for us to keep connected to other educators in order to continue to expand our thinking and offer them more supportive learning experiences in which they are successful.
3 Key Quotes:
*"Learning about our communities and the cultures within those communities extends and deepens our learning in ways that we educators benefit from personally and, as a result, we become more effective professionals" (Lindsey et. al, p.110).
*"Culturally proficient learning communities recognize that our schools' curriculum and instructional programs work well for the students for whom they were designed--mostly middle-class, predominately white students" (Lindsey et. al, p. 110).
*"Collective efficacy implies that together we can make a difference" (Lindsey et. al, p. 111).
3 Key Questions I Now Have:
*Is institutionalizing cultural knowledge considered progressive, or maybe even radical? Or is it an accepted new norm?
*Are the current teaching credential programs actively supporting their students to develop the necessary skills to successfully navigate through school settings so that they are able to set all students up for success regardless of their cultural background?
*Has the term "cultural" been redefined in the educational setting to be more inclusive of not just what has been traditionally defined as "cultural" but also different lifestyles?
Thinking of my role as an educator, the information from this chapter causes me to think about my practice in an innovative way. Just when I thought I knew how to be accommodating to students of different cultural backgrounds, I learn new groundbreaking perspectives that expand my thinking to become that much better of an educator. This information causes me to think differently about my school or district by helping me realize that we still have a long way to go and we have really only covered the tip of the iceberg. We truly have a long way to go as far as helping staff realize the need to be culturally proficient and what it truly means to be culturally proficient and creating culturally proficient learning environments for our students.
Establishing knowledge sharing practices is as much a route to creating collaborative cultures as it is a product of the latter. This means that the organization must frame the giving and receiving of knowledge as a responsibility and must reinforce such sharing through incentives and opportunities to engage in it.
--Fullan, 2003, p. 86
As I read Michael Fullan's (2003) quote, what came to mind for me was the concept of "transparent learning" that we learned about in EDL 610 with Professor Jeff Heil. When we embrace the concept of transparent learning we are constantly sharing our new knowledge either in person, or through mediums that allow us to reach out to so many more people. These mediums include Twitter, personal websites, G+ communities, YouTube videos, and other on-line means that allow people you have not even met, to access the knowledge you are sharing with the world. With transparent learning you accept the responsibility of contributing to the world through your newly-acquired knowledge.
My colleagues and I teach at a language academy where we have the flexibility of integrating a variety of teaching moments into our lessons. We engage in learning about the cultural groups within our school community through daily interactions with our students and their families. We welcome and encourage families to share more about their background through presentations that we are able to weave into our social studies lessons and as part of our International Fair lessons. Our students teach us so much about who they are through their writing assignments and also through other presentations that they feel compelled to create and present to the class. I make myself as approachable as possible and show such interest in learning more about my students and who they are, that many families will even invite me to special events that they attend as part of their culture. I accept their invitations and see the value of these great opportunities for me to learn more about my students and their families.
I would not consider myself to be culturally similar to most of my students. I have definitely expanded my thinking as I learn so much from my students and different ways that they, and their families, have of doing things. I would say that most of the educators in my school are culturally different from our students. One of the ways in which community members share their cultural knowledge is through assemblies that they offer to put on in our school's auditorium. They also reach out to the teachers through e-mail, or by placing flyers in our mailboxes, and offer our students opportunities to go on field trips and learn more about what they have to offer. We take advantage of these wonderful opportunities and always find ways of connecting these experiences to our curriculum.
My Reaction to the Guiding Questions on Table 9.1, p. 112 (Lindsey et. al) is that they really support deep reflective thinking on our part to inform our practice and refine it in the best interest of our diverse student population. These are questions that seem fairly new to me and I am not sure that they have been used to guide my work at the school I work. Some questions that may be slightly present in the ongoing discussions among faculty and staff at my school are how do teachers keep themselves informed and what books have they been reading, as well as "In what ways do I identify and address student needs by benchmarking success indicators?" A question that poses the opportunity for further learning for me and for my school is, "In what ways do I develop and use a continuous improvement inquiry model to assess progress toward clearly stated achievement goals?"
How do you respond to the incomplete sentences that ask how you engage and learn?
*To keep myself informed, I have been reading...educational magazines, newsletters, on-line articles, different staff development books, research articles and anything I come across that I feel will be informational within my field.
*To keep myself informed, I am engaged in this learning activity...Twitter learning Communities and G+ Learning Communities.
*I bring cultural information to school in form of... prepared lesson plans that I deliver to my students through social studies lessons and in preparation for the Annual International Fair.
*I engage in inquiry to inform my thinking and behaviors to...be better prepared to serve my students and their families.
Reflection:
Some outcomes that might come about as a result of the team in providing professional learning for the faculty and entire school community is a better understanding of who their students are which in turn could yield higher academic progress. Some other stakeholders the learning team might want to engage in this process might be parents, students and interested members of the community. Some guidelines we might use to identify who needs to be at the table might include who has a genuine interest in our students, who supports our school's programs, who is in direct constant communication with our students and our school. Other contexts I might consider for being more inclusive in decision making could be any one who is somehow directly, or maybe even indirectly, impacted by any decisions being made.
Reflection:
As I think about Vignette 10, the thoughts that arise for me is that I can understand where everyone here is coming from and that I have also been in situations where everyone has expressed a variety of supportive and unsupportive opinions. My school institutionalizes learning in ways to provide generative knowledge through PLC time. The experiences of Pine Hills High School Data Learning Team inform the work I am doing by offering me a very helpful perspective of how to structure the school in a different way that offers teachers more supportive opportunities that allow staff to learn more about their students and intentionally create an environment that is even more conducive to learning.
Going Deeper: 3 Keys
3 Key Learnings from this Chapter:
*Collaborative learning is more effective than independent learning.
*Our students benefit more from our synergy.
*It is in our students' best interest for us to keep connected to other educators in order to continue to expand our thinking and offer them more supportive learning experiences in which they are successful.
3 Key Quotes:
*"Learning about our communities and the cultures within those communities extends and deepens our learning in ways that we educators benefit from personally and, as a result, we become more effective professionals" (Lindsey et. al, p.110).
*"Culturally proficient learning communities recognize that our schools' curriculum and instructional programs work well for the students for whom they were designed--mostly middle-class, predominately white students" (Lindsey et. al, p. 110).
*"Collective efficacy implies that together we can make a difference" (Lindsey et. al, p. 111).
3 Key Questions I Now Have:
*Is institutionalizing cultural knowledge considered progressive, or maybe even radical? Or is it an accepted new norm?
*Are the current teaching credential programs actively supporting their students to develop the necessary skills to successfully navigate through school settings so that they are able to set all students up for success regardless of their cultural background?
*Has the term "cultural" been redefined in the educational setting to be more inclusive of not just what has been traditionally defined as "cultural" but also different lifestyles?
Thinking of my role as an educator, the information from this chapter causes me to think about my practice in an innovative way. Just when I thought I knew how to be accommodating to students of different cultural backgrounds, I learn new groundbreaking perspectives that expand my thinking to become that much better of an educator. This information causes me to think differently about my school or district by helping me realize that we still have a long way to go and we have really only covered the tip of the iceberg. We truly have a long way to go as far as helping staff realize the need to be culturally proficient and what it truly means to be culturally proficient and creating culturally proficient learning environments for our students.