Learning+Communities

= **Learning Communities:** = Would they help close the achievement gap? I think this...... Like the idea of working with different people from different strands. Try something small to start with. It's not connections Need common planning time Interest oriented Creative solutions = VERY Roosevelt! Don't want to lock kids into community for all three years...move around each year Project based learning - each discipline teaches around the same topic...from different angle Kids are not restricted from classes based on their learning community Worried some kids from FI community would want to leave FI to enter another learning community Will take a long time to establish the communication in order to make the curriculum fit Want to teach more classes than just what would be taught within the learning community If we go to learning communities, It's already impossible to do what we want to do, with the current teaching constraints. Don't want to be mandated to teach a certain novel, or cover a certain kind of writing. Don't want to be limited to only common themes or group decisions....you could choose to not participate. Learning communities taught during the core class times...not during choice class time. Don't want to feel like we are teaching someone else's content Feels like we would be circling the wagons for kids. Having a smaller group of teachers teaming to talk about and create solutions for kids...high and low achieving Learning communities don't always have to have the same themes....the kids being in common could be the community Don't want to have small self-contained class periods. Kids need to still feel like they belong to the larger community. We are still one school with one common goal Relationships, autonomy, teaming, individuality... there is a lot to think of when considering teaming with another person....I want to teach what I want to teach, when I want, to whom I want. We need to find ways to get teachers together to talk about kids Getting to do what you want, when you want, to whom you want, may not be the best model Finding ways to take creative energy/ideas and making them work in new ways Stepping outside of the comfort box Could possibly restrict kids from other classes. You are only limited by the creativity that you choose to use in your teaming/planning You have multiple people teaming together to discover solutions. How we decide to do this needs to be carefully considered. We may need more time to create solid learning communities. Have a trial run...certain teachers tryit out next year and see what kind of impact it has. Everyone wants to increase the time/opportunities to talk about and support kids!!! Why is House not already fulfilling this need? Have the learning communities embedded into the choice classes We want to allow/make possible for teachers to be able to teach to their passions Take the whole year to plan this out and begin in 2011 How does the learning specialist fit in to all of this. How can I help all communities

= Examples: From Dee's experience at Creswell: = 4 core teachers teaching the same grade. All teachers are teaching all 100 kids Block classes...2 1/2 hours. All taught math, combined other content areas, split groups. All of 7th grade was a learning community. Planned everything together. All kids rotate among teachers. Kids knew they belonged to all 4 teachers. Agree on theme French Immersion is an example of a learning program IHS is another example

= Have already been teaming on classes: = Dee and Steve Honore and Richard Dee and Marty and Carol