Learning Organizations and Learning Communities

EDU 558 SUM17 Week 4 DB 1

“Learning Organizations and Learning Communities”

Examine the similarities and differences between learning organizations and learning communities. Create a scenario where it would be optimal for a learning organization and a learning community to collaborate and join forces.

From week 4 lecture, I gained the knowledge of the definitions of both learning organizations and learning communities. A learning community is a group of people who interact at a personal level whose interactions can be face-to-face or electronic. A learning community is bound by a common quest to answer questions, solve issues, and solve problems. Learning organizations are “formal social organizations that purposely create, support, and use learning communities”. Both use or learning communities enables them to import and export knowledge.

Differences between learning communities and learning organizations include budgetary matters and permanence. Learning communities in a learning organization are encouraged to act on money issues without going through a chain of command, they can use allocated funds in one area to be used in another area as long as a valid argument is given to use funds for the matter to which they are needed. This is not possible for a learning community within a bureaucratic organization because they are strict and stick to a funding formula to allocate funds for certain things with no change. Learning communities in learning organizations can remain unchanged indefinitely, while formal organizations based on bureaucratic principles are usually only temporary. (University, 2017)

One scenario where it would be optimal for learning organizations and learning communities to collaborate would be during annual senior prom. The learning organization could be in charge of planning and allocating funds, as funding should be a strict process for this. The learning community could collaborate to come up with appropriate ideas for the function and also take care of the social aspects of the event.

Imagine that you are a teacher leader in a learning community. Describe the size and environment of your imaginary learning community. Propose at least three reasons why you could be considered a problem solver and an innovator.

The learning community that first came to my mind is similar to one within the school district where we live. The size of the town is a population just around 11,000. My environment would include establishing smart goals in collaborative teams. I would task teachers to identify areas of strength and improvement by looking into their student data. I would then have the educators to establish goals to address improvements in student learning, aligned with any school goals designed to promote academic achievement. I would ask that all educators provide a step-by-step plan action plan with a time frame to achieve their goals. Through this process, my priority would be to solve problems through received data. At the end of each quarter I would conduct interviews with each teacher. From there, I would then introduce or interject new methods and ideas to assist in reaching each educators annual goals.

References

Schlechty, P. (2009). Leaading for Learning: How to transform schools into learning organizations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

University, E. 5. (2017). Seminar in Teacher Leadership: A New Image of Schools. Retrieved from blackboard.strayer.edu: https://blackboard.strayer.edu/bbcswebdav/institution/EDU/558/1212/Week4-1212/Lecture1/player.html