The teachers often lack confidence and they lack support. Their peers, all of whom would have attended the same training, can be a major source of support. If you can encourage and develop a culture of learning in the workplace you will go a long way towards achieving the stakeholder ownership of your vision. Once the teachers experience the satisfaction of teaching with technology they will understand what the school’s technology vision is about.
There are three main tiers of collaborative learning support:
- The workplace, the school and its community
- Learning from other schools
- Learning from district support staff and other external providers
If a school has a well-established culture of professional learning in the workplace it may mean the staff have a high degree of ownership of the school’s vision and objectives. On the other hand, if there is a poor culture of workplace professional learning it may mean more work needs to be done on communicating the vision and objectives.
Consider how this may help your capacity-building strategy.
Learning Communities at local level
Download and watch this video of Michael Fullan talking about Learning Communities at the local level. What has research shown us about learning communities at the school level? How does one establish a learning community in the school?
Peer Coaching
Read the one-page flyer about Peer Coaching, which is a Microsoft Partners in Learning course offered in many countries throughout the world.
To read more about this programme see the Peer Coach information on the Microsoft Innovative Schools website.
In a nutshell, peer coaching is:
- collaborative
- peer-to-peer
- supportive
- explorative
- workplace-based
What are the other advantages of such an approach? Is the approach compatible with the concept of professional learning communities?
- Join the group discussion for this lesson called Culture of Learning.
- Share your experience of learning in the workplace. Does it resemble either the professional learning community or peer coaching?
- What benefits and challenges have you experienced or could you envisage?
