LEARNING COMMUNITIES
(a point of view)
The Students as the
In a variety of institutional settings, and in a number of forms, learning communities have been shown to increase student retention and academic achievement, increase student involvement and motivation, improve student’s time to degree completion and enhance intellectual development. Students involved in learning communities become more intellectually mature and responsible for their own learning and the capacity to care about the learning of their peers. They delightfully experienced sharing their perspectives to their classmates, and even other students in the parts of country and the world. These students are imparting their knowledge, ideas and understanding to their peers and classmates for the purpose of learning and sharing. “The learning community that the students have now has further instilled both discipline and perseverance in them. Discipline – to abide their self- imposed schedule to read and study. Perseverance – to accomplish what they originally intended to do when they come back to school” . (April Cabillo, UP Diliman). Learning Communities don’t just provide a better learning in academic terms, but it also teaches students to be responsible and disciplined.
Learning Communities through Linkages, Networking and Collaborations
The school and its community, in collaboration with public and private institutions, and organizations are indeed inseparable if they are to create an impact of the lives of the students and members of the community they are committed to serve. Various groups from both are very willing to join forces in pursuing mutually beneficial and productive programs and projects for the good interest of all. All that is needed are well-defined plans and creative efforts aimed at establishing close affiliations between and among them. Such interrelationships will be characterized by reciprocity and genuine sharing of responsibilities, thus ensuring valuable aims and attainment of educational objective. Harnessing the tremendous influence and expertise both of groups will be able to extend definitely a laudable step towards promoting the desired proficiency of the teaching force in the school as well as the efficiency in the services of some associated organizations. “ the school can enjoy linkages and networking activities with international, national and local organizations in the community for mutual benefits and assistance needed. (The Teaching Profession Book, 2006, p.87)
Through linkages, networking and collaborations, teachers and faculty members of the school and the community can offer the right education and learning that the students deserve to have.
Faculty Members and Institutions in Learning Communities
Faculty members involved in learning communities that facilitate cross-faculty collaboration are expanding their repertoire of teaching approaches, continually revising their course content, acquiring new scholarly interests. Teaching community faculty members are also building mentoring relationships with each other and are more frequently engaging with beginning students and general education offerings. Institutions use learning communities as sites for testing out new curricular approaches and strategies for strengthening teaching and learning. These programs offer more coherent opportunities for the teaching of literacy skills, such as reading, writing, and speaking, and more coherent pathways to engage in the general education curriculum. They also offer a robust way to address interdisciplinary ideas and offer a more coordinate platform for study in the major “a learning community addresses the learning needs of its locality through partnership. It uses the strengths of social and institutional relationships to bring about cultural shifts in perception of the value of learning. Learning community explicitly use learning as a way of promoting cohesion, regeneration and development which involves all parts of the community.” (Yarnit, 2000. p.11)
Learning Community and the Use Technology
Contrary to the belief that online learning can be impersonal –and detached- most of the students and teachers made leaps and bounds in making learning community better. Both group of persons fostered higher communication through electronic means. Students chatted in incessantly online to share different perspectives. They kept in touch through emails, instant messages and text messages. Technology enables students to share white papers and researched materials with other students from around the globe. It allows them to impart ideas and knowledge to others students through emails and online discussions. Technology creates a learning community that has a few wider, more global reach. Technology is by all means significant, it doesn’t replace people, it enables people, it only replaces people, when they don’t know how to wielder it. (J. Thomson).
Conclusion
“We can not live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads and along those sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results. (Human Melville). Just like in learning, we can not learn for ourselves alone”. We need others to instill us with ideas and knowledge that are of much help when we want to be productive and a useful human being in this world we live in. we need other people to assist us un everything. We need innovative technologies, to make teaching and learning effective, to make life so easy. In general, we need each other to cater our needs.
