Final+Summary+Paper

Plan:

Introduction: Professional Learning Communities Tom and Elise

The name “Phart” originated from the combination of physical education and art and our group strove to investigate how the two areas intersect. We first started by agreeing to explore the idea of a “professional learning community” (PLC) to see if we could put into place some of the structures and relationships characteristic of such groups. As is the case with anything that involves diverse individuals with varying values, beliefs, goals and experiences, it is harder than it looks. Tarnoczi referencing Dufour and Eaker list the characteristics of a PLC as; the development of shared understandings and common values; collective collaborative teams that share a common purpose; commitment to action and experimentation; commitment to continuous improvement; and willingness to be assessed on the basis of results. Our group worked extremely hard, was committed to each other and the process, engaged in effortful practice and as a result did accomplish the foundations of a PLC. It would be optimistic to say that we achieved a PLC to the fullest sense, particularly in light of the limited time span of this project. It takes a long time to build strong relationships between people so that trust can be implicitly given and received which is fundamental to a PLC. The process was valuable learning allowing our group to face the trials and tribulations of our experience in a safe environment. We were also afforded a glimpse to the advantages and tremendous potential of being involved in an effective PLC, especially when linked to the broader context of continual student improvement in our future teaching practices.

Tarnoczi, J., (2006). Critical Reflections on Professional Learning Communities in Alberta. //Electronic Journal of Sociology.// Retrieved from http://www.sociology.org/content/2006/tier2/tarnoczi.html.

During our first week we started building our rubric by discussing what defined a rubric and how we could design it to best serve the needs of our Professional Learning Community. Goodrich (1996) suggests that all rubrics have three common features. 1) It has a focus on a stated objective (performance, behaviour or quality). 2) It uses a range to rate performance. 3) It contains specific performance characteristics arranged in levels indicating the degree to which a standard has been met. After some dialogue, it became evident that having a range or degree of accomplishment was not a practical reflection and may even be a ‘disabling’ constraint of what we aimed to build as a community throughout of our weekly projects and meetings. We instead chose some principles and key responsibilities that we would either successfully meet each week or not, rather than gradations of quality. What we decided was of highest importance to include in the design was an area where we could critique, comment and build on each week, therefore a feedback column for each objective was added. Our focus is not on a product or grade at the end of each week, rather the process of developing and expanding our Professional Learning Community.

We built our rubric around four factors that we decided we needed to define expectations and establish norms for: 1. The Professional Learning Committee (were the characteristics and qualities that we value in our PLC environment met?) 2. The role and responsibilities of the facilitator(s). 3. Our wikipage contribution and etiquette. 4. Participation and discussion at weekly meetings. There clearly is a shared accountability within our Professional Learning Community and it is recognized that we should trust our intuition when reflecting on ourselves and one another, asking “Was this our best work?” Working together to create this rubric was an ideal community building experience and helped establish our group norms, values and expectations before we explored further topics of interest.

//Goodrich, H. (1996). “Understanding Rubrics.” Educational Leadership, 54 (4), 14-18.//

Inclusion and Integration Charlene and Katie

'Integration' is the connected nature of various disciplines. Like the fields of Physical Education and the Fine Arts (which is what this group is all about), the ‘real’ non-academic environment is integrated. From business to community projects, technology and disciplines must interface and inform one another. Similarly, nature is not neatly divided into separate compartments — it is comprised of fully interconnected and interdependent systems. Given this thinking, it is only natural to realize that, when we integrate subjects like math, science and the humanities, what we get is something—a context—which is more realistic and authentic. The learning that occurs from the interplay between these fields is rooted in everyday life, rather than abstracted into theory that is separate from the act of practice.

The topic of 'inclusion' is a significant part of the complex realities of integrated and segregated human communities. In regards to the school community context, some people support inclusion of the disabled members of our society within mainstream classrooms, while others do not. Most of the time, we do not know how an inclusive classroom is going to actually turn out due to the myriad of factors influencing the personalities of each participant in the room. Time, attitude, knowledge/expertise, and teamwork are important aspects of making an inclusive setting work. Given our society’s assumptions about how the disabled should be included in everyday situations (and perhaps more importantly, how they cannot be included), “inclusion” is temporary, limited to almost ‘forced’ interaction in a certain setting over a certain period of time.

Our cultural norms and language reveal an able – non-able binary. We must become more aware of this prejudiced, dualistic paradigm and work to abolish it, for we recognize that, while all learners learn differently, all are equal in their rights to be fully accepted as whole individuals and valuable participants within any given learning community. Performance-based schooling, which emphasizes a skewed conception of ability, does not foster opportunities for varied forms of learning for those students who do not perform to society’s able-minded standards. By focusing on categorical performance and ability (rather than on the infinitely varied wholeness of the Individual), we only allow the “able” students shine while dimming the lights on those perceived as less able (academically, physically, intellectually, or otherwise). If teachers want to create safe and equitable classrooms, they must address their own lack of knowledge and attitudes surrounding students with special needs. Educators must make time for students to learn from and about each other, as well as celebrate each other's strengths and unique abilities. Most importantly, teachers must emphasize for their students (and themselves) that a disability does not entail a lesser state of being. Just because people are disabled does not mean they are any less capable of learning, and all within the classroom must understand this in order to be truly accepting of one another. When our students grow up, they will have to share the same planet. We want to ensure that we are fostering in our students the fundamental principles and values of a truly inclusive world that does not marginalize or alienate those who are disabled because of factors that are beyond their control. As Whitehurst and Howells (2006) state, "if we can help [students] to move away from perceptions of difference based on uninformed judgements, to perceptions of understanding gained from experience, we can help to create and support environments which...[enable]..the 'socially valuing process'" of welcoming all as valued and equal members of our communities.

Whitehurst, T, Howells, A. (2006). 'When something is different people fear it': Children's perceptions of an arts-based inclusion project. //Support for learning 21// (1), 40-44.

Generalization and Specialization

The major conclusions that came from this week’s topic were that in teaching, a combination of specialization and generalization is required to be maximally effective. That is, both aspects of a generalized approach and a specialized approach have characteristics that may be more appropriate in some situations and less in others, especially as it applies to teaching. The extent of generalization or specialization for a specific situation is going to depend on the situation itself, culture, the subject, its application, of course the students, and the teacher themselves. A good analogy is that of a lantern and a spotlight. In various situations one may be more beneficial over the other. This analogy is reflected in the make-up and characteristics of the two sides of the brain; the Arts versus the Sciences, the “big picture” versus detail, practical knowings versus theoretical knowings (illustrated by the story of Swimology), and “range” versus specificity. Although the specialization/generalization dichotomy tends to be positioned as an "either/or" situation, we surmised that in a thriving learning community, it would be advantageous to approach it as a sliding scale. For every advantage gained, there is a balancing disadvantage acquired as well. For example, specializing to a stratospheric level where your knowledge is inapplicable is useless if communication, social or teaching skills are forfeited as a result. Likewise, generalizing to the point where you are unable to teach professionally and with a confident degree of depth on a subject would be detrimental as well. This applies also to finding the "customized" degree of accommodation for the many different learning styles and subject interests in the integrated classroom. Indeed, i t it is about finding the most efficient and desirable balance between specialization and generalization to create the best learning environment for our students”.

Sherry and Brendan

Dealing with Difficult Parents Deirdre and Kendall

As future teachers, we appreciate the importance of effective communication with parents. Hopefully, for the most part we will experience positive relationships with our students’ parents; however, it is realistic to assume that we will encounter the odd difficult parent. For a weekly seminar, we chose to focus on difficult parents to underscore the importance of communication and to help prepare the group for future challenges in this area.

Through role-playing, the importance of clear communication can be illustrated by acting out various scenarios. Drawing from these skits and its participants, effective strategies of diffusing uncomfortable situations can be noted. Asking questions to clarify the situation, remaining calm and professional, planning future meetings with other school personnel, apologizing and responding honestly, and maintaining personal boundaries are a number of ways a teacher can encourage open communication with parents. The key is to acquire sufficient information to be able to respond in an open, honest, and concise manner.

Teachers tend to be challenged by two distinct groups of parents: hovering parents and disengaged parents. We determined a number of additional strategies that can be employed when dealing with these two particular groups.
 * Establishing boundaries at the beginning of the school year can ensure that parents who tend to hover will understand the need to allow their children to learn independently.
 * Encouraging open communication and stressing the importance of parent participation during parent-teacher interviews. Keeping meetings to this set time and date can ensure that parents (and the teacher) have an opportunity to organize their thoughts before meeting.
 * Continuing to communicate despite the reluctance of parent to engage with conversation. Using a variety of communication tools like agendas or notes can keep these parents informed. Just because they seem disengaged does not remove their right to information about their child.
 * As teachers, it is important to have a sense of empathy and understanding when it comes to parenting. We need to be aware that many parents are coping with a number of adverse conditions and are doing the best job they can.
 * Externalizing behaviours that you notice in their child that are problematic in the classroom. This often means changing the way we frame feedback. If we can separate the problem behaviour from the individual we often avoid conflict and personal attacks.

Uncomfortable situations and confrontations are inevitable as teachers. We also focused on strategies that will help in these situations. The key is to understand that communication has the power to diffuse negativity. It is beneficial to be proactive to ensure that the situation does not worsen quickly. We have to remember that any kind of feedback that parents percieve as negative can be taken personally and put them on the defensive. Their children are precious to them so a strengths based approach to feedback is always the best way.

As our groups mission was to create a professional learning community, our goals and motivations had less to do with obtaining/accomplishing pre-determined educational goals, but rather to use discussions of these various topics that are relevant to our fields and reflecting upon them. Doing this helped us build the structure necessary for us to effectively learn from each other. It seems slightly paradoxical that while we know effective learning takes meaningful effort, our learning this semester often came not from our directed effort, but from letting go of trying to control the outcome and seeing what learning experiences arose. Our openness to these learning experiences wouldn't have been possible if it were not for our consistent and deep displays of respect for each other. That was the pillar of our professional learning community.

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