Presenters:
Carla Taugher Aranda, The Ball Foundation
Rex Babiera, The Ball Foundation
Cindy Kim Bak, Teacher on special assignment, Rowland Unified School District
Sarah Opatkiewicz, Principal, Shelyn Elementary School
JoAnn Lawrence, Director of Curriculum and Staff Development, Rowland Unified School District
Date: May 18, 2012
Time: 11:00 a.m. CDT
Communities of practice are social structures that support the way people naturally learn. In this webinar, you will learn how the Rowland Unified School District, in partnership with the Ball Foundation, uses communities of practice as a model for professional learning. We will discuss what communities of practice are, why we use them, and what we have learned about supporting them.
We will share resources and tools for starting and supporting the development of communities of practice in your school or district. Specifically, we will discuss how we have worked toward the following outcomes:
- The group develops skills in conversational processes that enable everyone to be heard.
- All group members take responsibility for supporting their own and others’ learning toward the shared goal.
- Participants consciously use an iterative cycle in which study of data and planning leads to deliberate action in their practice.
- The group’s inquiry process is well grounded in analysis of evidence of student learning. Over time a variety of artifacts are used: standardized test data, classroom assessment, student work, observational data.
Finally, we will talk about creative ways that schools and districts can invest their resources of time and money to support communities of practice.
Can't attend? Click here to access this On Demand Web seminar.