Module 4 - Foundations and Principles in the Context of Practice
My Path to find my Professional Learning Community:
My first challenge of this question was discovering the meaning of a Professional Learning Community and Context of Practice. This involved a lot of googling and clearing up definitions.
Another step that was extremely helpful was reading through the outputs from this Module of the peers from this course.
I began to brainstorm ideas of what I wanted my focus to be on.
I then quickly recognized the common thread of them all and realized that the words were prompted from a week long Graduate Education program from Harvard called the Project Zero Classroom, that I attended a couple weeks ago. While working through this Module I I felt challenged to find the right professional learning community to match the values I learned from Project Zero (PZ.) After an e-mail to our professor asking for direction, I realized that the answer was already staring me in the face. Project Zero!
About Project Zero
Description of Project Zero from their website:
“Project Zero was founded by the philosopher Nelson Goodman at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1967 to study and improve education in the arts. Goodman believed that arts learning should be studied as a serious cognitive activity, but that "zero" had yet been firmly established about the field; hence, the project was given its name.
Over the years, Project Zero has maintained a strong research agenda in the arts while gradually expanding to include investigations into the nature of intelligence, understanding, thinking, creativity, cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural thinking, and ethics. The organization has conducted dozens of major research initiatives, published over 90 books and hundreds of articles and reports, and collaborated with countless partners. Project Zero’s work takes place nationally and internationally, in a variety of settings; while much of the research occurs in schools, an increasing amount is focused on businesses, cultural organizations such as museums, and online. In addition, Project Zero offers symposia and workshops, most notably the annual summer institutes.”
My Experience:
The Project Zero Classroom brought together over 300 educators from all over the globe for a week of study at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This summer the focus throughline for the institute were:
- What does it mean to understand? How does understanding develop?
- What are the roles of reflection and assessment in learning?
- How can we nurture critical thinking and creativity?
- How can we design for and with a variety of learners and contexts?
- How can we continue our learning with others after the PZC?
Why I chose Project Zero
My experience at Project Zero was extremely motivating, challenging and inspiring. For a week I was surrounded by educators from all over the world, that were together and working towards the common goal of engaging with creativity, critical thinking and authentic understanding. Not only did I choose PZ because it supports and extends my teaching philosophies, but also I was inspired! After participating in a very intense week long program, I was filled with motivation, questions and desire to continue developing. This module is the perfect opportunity to combine my Master's work with the work I did at PZ.
Access to the Community
My school principal recommended I apply and attend this program, so my initial access to this community is through her. I had already know about some of the programs and routines that from Project Zero, such as:
- Making Thinking Visible routines by Ron Ritchhart and David Perkins
- Multiple Intelligence theory developed by Dr. Howard Gardner
By participating in the Project Zero Classroom Program I was able to meet presenters and the authors of some of these resources. I also met many educators through the courses, presentations, and study groups. I now continue to have communication with them through e-mail and Twitter.
I also have access to the Project Zero Classroom Dashboard with resources and contacts for all of the courses and sessions throughout the week.
How I will participate with the Project Zero community
I will continue to participate with the professional learning community of PZ through following the presenters on Twitter:
I also have ongoing conversations through e-mail with the educators and leaders from my study group. During my time at PZ the study group was a place where I could synthesize and personalize the information I learned through my session and courses. I am continuing to communicate with them as I start looking at the formation of new school year in September.
How PZ can contribute to my growth as a professional and provide me a place for leadership
Project Zero will contribute to my personal growth because it has given me direction for my philosophies and how I want my teaching to grow. It has inspired me to read Creating Cultures of Thinking: The 8 Forces We Must Master to Truly Transform Our Schools, by Ron Ritchhart. I have read his other book Making Thinking Visible and regularly use the thinking routines in my class. I read this book with my colleagues at my school and it was extremely beneficial to be in a group to read it. With the Cultures of Thinking book, and because of the PZ community, I do not feel like I am reading the book in isolation. I know that I have multiple people that I can ask questions towards, and also a platform to share my own insights.
This learning community provides me the opportunity to not only learn from others, but also embark my understandings and knowledge to others in the PZ community. I can also extend this and take it to my own school. After communicating with my school administrators, I have received permission to lead a professional development workshop about my practical ways that other teachers can implement visual thinking routines into their class and making a classroom that cultivates critical thinking and creativity.
What type of curricular design commonly guides planning, instruction and evaluation? (Think back to educational philosophies and conceptions of curriculum at some point in your writing). Then, write out your analysis.
The curriculum that has the strongest alignment to the PZ values as stated by Hill, is Idealism.
To restate the Philosophy summary I wrote in the “Curricular Concepts, Philosophies & Designs” from module 2:
Philosophical Foundation:
- Search for the truth and true ideas
- Develop an understanding of the world as a whole
- Bringing ideas from the World into the classroom
Concepts of Curriculum:
- Focus is on whole learning
- Focus on teaching the student as a whole
- The curriculum is based on concepts that challenge the students and require them to have self growth.
- The goal of the curriculum is for students to learn how to develop their thinking skill and their own full potential.
Connection to Curricular Design:
- Through teaching, the students develop their own beliefs and opinions.
- This philosophy avoids teaching specific subjects that limit and constrict a student’s’ learning and curiosity.
- It emphasizes and requires the students to be actively engaged in the lessons and their learning.
- The students participate in their learning
- When designing the curriculum, the role of the teacher is to present to the students experiences, stories, questions and problems of the world.
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