Chapter Two Review

Chapter two of The Connected Educator, talks about how to develop a connected learning model.  The chapter goes on to explain how the connected learning community model is broken into three categories and how they apply to create one big picture in the work place.  It takes all three of the approaches to provide the 21st century teacher learner with the experiences and ideas needed to become an effective teacher.  The chapter compares the typical teacher to the connected teacher.  The typical teacher only acquires new information from in service days.  These in service days consist of many workshops throughout the day.  The connected teacher benefits from this traditional network but also has access to a much bigger community online of people all around the world.  The chapter goes on to say how the online world and face to face meetings need to be a safe and friendly learning environment so that people can take in as much information as they can.  It is very important to connect with people all over the world to diverse your teaching skills so that you understand all cultural backgrounds.

Now, I will go into the three approaches to professional development.  The first approach is the local community--also known as the, Profession Learning Communities.  This is where you have purposeful, face to face meetings among people in your work field.  Professional learning communities are about improvement, shared leadership, and school reform.  People in these groups can provide feedback and support one another.

The next approach is to Global network, also known as a personal learning network.  This is where you have online connections with a diverse group of people and resources from around the world.  Personal Learner Networks are designed for the teachers to further their short and long term goals for professional growth and personal learning as opposed to focusing on the students.  Educators must have good digital tools and select trustworthy sources to complete this stage in a safe and effective way.

The last stage is bounded community, which is also known as, a community of practice or inquiry.  This is where people in your same field from all over the world come together with overlapping interests and recognize that there is a need for deeper connections than a personal learning network or professional learning community can provide.  Also, in this approach, teachers are coming together to think of new ways to educate children and ways to improve themselves as educators.  This is where educators can share what works and what does not.

This chapter was a big eye opener for me, considering I plan to become a future educator.  This chapter in the field of education, shows that you are constantly trying to obtain new information to not only benefit your students, but yourself.  Already working as a substititute teacher, I see teachers striving to learn new information from one another.  They are seeing what works and what does not.  However, if something does not work for one teacher, another teacher can adapt that lesson and try it for themselves because it might work for them.  Being a teacher, you are constantly learning more information daily on how to teach your students.  Each year you obtain new students, who have different needs and wants and you as an educator have to meet those needs.  Teachers can bounce ideas off of one another to form new ideas or fix old ones that might not be working anymore.  Never stop furthering your education.  Teaching is not only about teaching your students-you are also learning new ideas and concepts each and everyday.