When I got up this morning and opened up my computer for my coffee-read time, I was delighted to find a post from a specialist in my school. She recently attended a conference and made the time to share the learning with all of us through an email.
Her nuggets of information from many literacy experts served to wake me up with enthusiasm for teaching this morning. The notes served to both affirm and challenge aspects of my teaching practice.
Surprisingly, many in schools are still reluctant to share new learning on a regular basis, hence it takes a bit of courage for those that do share. I believe that it should be a professional responsibility to share after attending a conference on school time as that sharing helps to build a knowledgeable, student-focused community that serves children well.
Further, we have created a professional share blog at our school and titled the blog, Collaborate. If everyone shares and posts on that blog, at the end of the year we'll have a wonderful collection of new learning for our educator community--notes that we can refer back to as we design responsive, standards-based, engaging learning for students.
Do educators readily share new learning in your teaching/learning community? If so, how is that share done, and what kind of response do you get? Do leaders join in and share too? I continue to believe that information sharing fuels a top-notch learning community and will continue to look for ways to support this activity for best effect.
