Learning in the Community

Introduction: 

Learning Communities link to the idea of Learning Theories. Learning theorist will group together with people who believe in the same learning values. For example, theorist who believe that children construct their own learning will work together as a community with other theorist who share the same thought. This creates the learning community of Constructivism.

Writing in Communities of practice, a brief introduction, Etienne and Wenger-Trayner (2015, pg. 1-8) define communities of practice as people who collectively work and learn together in a shared domain of human endeavour. Activities that may be carried out within a community of practice are:

·         Problem solving

·         Finding out new information

·         Seeking experience from  other members

·         Coordination and Synergy

·         Building an argument

·         Growing confidence

·         Discussing developments

·         Documenting projects

·         Mapping knowledge and identify gaps

Etienne and Wenger-Trayner (2015, pg. 2) explained that communities and communities of practice have 3 different characteristics.

1.       The domain: In order for it to be a community of practice there has to be a shared domain and commitment to the learning outcome. This domain does not have to be expertise but willingness to learn and share the values of the community is essential.

2.       The community: The community must build relationships between the members so that learning and interaction can take place. This does not have to be a daily occurrence.

3.       The practice- The practice must show development and that learning has occurred.

The Different Communities of Learning

How to Work in a Group Effectively

One of the most important parts of this module is the need to work within a group effectively. It is vital to the success of any project that we do and due to this we decided to create a checklist with the main criteria for successful group work. We will then use this checklist at the end of the project as a starting point for our evaluation. 

The Importance of Effective communication:

The ability to communicate effectively is a vital life skill and one that will help us hugely in this module, both to help us find a project and throughout the project. There are many different types of communication, but we are going to focus on interpersonal communication and written communication (Skills you need, 2017).

Written communication is used when communicating through any sort of writing whether it is a text a letter or an email. In order to convey our message with clarity and ease we must have good writing skills. Grammar, spelling and communication are vital to the presentation of any emails that we send as this will give the reader an opinion of us before we have even met them. If we use bad punctuation spelling and grammar, we will give a negative impression of ourselves and make it less likely for us to get the point across properly (Skill you need, 2017). To write an effective email we must ensure that we have thought about the intended audience and what the main point that we want to portray is. We must also think about these skills when discussing the project in the group chat to ensure that no one is confused, and it is clear what is expected from everyone.

Interpersonal communication is being engaged in face -to- face communication with one or more people. It is not just about what is said, it is about the non-verbal cues that we give to the receiver. Interpersonal communication is always a two-way process with people both sending and receiving messages. The person listening will be sending back signals to the person talking such as head nods and smiles as this will allow to speaker to know that the listener is understanding what is being said or if they are not understanding (Skills you need, 2017). We must make sure that when we are meeting up to discuss the project face to face we are using interpersonal communication effectively as this will help us complete the project more efficiently. We will also need to use effective interpersonal communication when talking to the setting that we end up doing our project in. We will need to show interest and be responsive when being spoken to and to make sure that the setting knows exactly what we are there to do.

BARRIERS TO COMMUNICATION:

There are many barriers to communication that can prevent people from communicating effectively. Being aware of these barriers will help us overcome them and mean that we can communicate efficiently.

-          The use of jargon – using complicated and unfamiliar term when communicating will lead to both parties becoming confused.

-          Emotional barriers and taboos can lead to a person being offended

-          Lack of attention from either party will mean that there will be confusion over what is being said.

-          Differences in viewpoints and viewpoints

-          Language differences.

-          Expectations and prejudices may lead to false assumptions or stereotyping.

-          Cultural differences.
(Skills you need, 2017)

Emails To and From St Mary's Catholic School

Click To Enlarge

Deciding Our Project

Tuesday 19^th September 2017:

After the introductory seminar of learning within the community we met together to speak about our initial ideas and interests of where our project could be. As a group we are all aiming to be future primary school teachers, therefore it was important to us that we picked a project that had an educational goal which worked with primary school children. We each individually emailed separate settings so that we could pick the most suitable project.

After hearing back from all of the settings we decided that St Mary’s Catholic school would be where we volunteered and carried out the project of organising the library and raising boy’s achievement in reading. We felt this project had the best educational outcome and would help develop our knowledge to prepare us for future teaching. The gender gap of reading and writing is a current issue within education and needs to be tackled. It has great relevance for future teacher’s and we were excited at the prospect of being part of closing that gap and raising achievement for male pupil at St Mary’s.

Once we confirmed the volunteering with Assistant Head teacher Isaac Haskell we planned to meet on the 16^th October to clarify and organise the project. Prior to the meeting we planned to meet and discuss our initial ideas and prepare for the meeting. 

Project Plan

Throughout the project we used this project plan to keep on top of what needed doing and manage the project. We would highlight it once completed and alert each other in the group chat when it had been done. We found this easier to follow than using the Gantt diagram.

Network diagram of our project