My Reflections on Learning Communities with in Primary Schools.

A learning community is a group of people who share common academic goals and attitudes. They are continually growing and becoming valued more in education for teachers and pupils. Since Funding for Virtual  Learning Environments (VLEs) became available this has also shown an increase in popularity and use of them in schools.

The Teachers Viewpoint.

When planning and organising lessons online communities can be extremely helpful in order to share resources and idea in the teaching community. There are many websites that offer this such as TES and Twinkl etc., these websites allow teachers to correspond with each other in a educational/ professional environment as well as share lessons.  They can offer both, advice on good lessons plans that will aid a child’s learning and ease the planning process as well as lessons that may not have gone to plan, being able to offer support and guidance on teaching. They also offer a number of solutions and suggestions this allows the teacher and communities to work together developing lesson plans.

Using resources in the classroom can also benefit the teachers and pupils as the teacher can set and monitor homework from an online community, such as Fronter or Frog, that the class is a part of this allows almost instant feedback and communication between teacher, peers and pupils on an educational level outside of the classroom.

On placement when in the role of teacher, I definitely found the numerous websites and online professional chats for teachers supportive, they were able to give incite into activities that the pupils would enjoy on specific subjects as well as activities and lesson plans that didn’t follow the correct path. Having access to readily available lesson and support allowed me to develop my own ideas as part of a community and also offer them to others to expand or diversify. They opened up an infinite number of channels thought which I could learn and help other. I also found that due to the National Curriculum the amount of resources available for the correct content is huge! Allowing teachers to adapt and even use plans and advice straight from online communities, although I feel they should always be adapted to suit the class being taught.

The Pupils Viewpoint

As mentioned pupils can be part of  VLE’s such as Fronter, Frog, or even Moodle in higher education, these are accessible at home in school and across the world. I feel that providing pupils with a safe environment that they can access at home and in school can also increase their willingness to learn as it can create a more active and social side to it to learning. Being able to show their parents and peers what they has achieved can act as a motivational tool as pupils then wish to take pride in their work. VLE’s and learning communities can benefit pupils as they are a place to record and find resource allowing them to share learning as well as find new channels of learning though embedding content.

As I have used Fronter and Moodle from the perspective of a pupil I feel that they are a great source of information when away from school for pupils as well as parents, they allow pupils to continue learning at home but in different styles.

I’ve only discussed a limited amount of implications found on learning communities but overall my experience and understanding of them is good, I feel that they benefit teaching and learning at home or in the classroom. In practice I would definitely use a VLE or learning community to aid my abilities to teach, as well as the pupils ability to learn.