Contribution to My Learning and the Learning Community

Group Members

I collaborated consistently with the following group members:

• Ashley Rose

• Sarah McDavid

• Tamie Land

• Joey Fisher

• Kennedy Tarbutton

We communicated on discussions and assignments using Padlet where we shared feedback and tracked progress on our work. We also met often after the class Zoom meetings and maintained regular communication in our small GroupMe cohort. This tight-knit, intentional collaboration was unique to this course. While I have experienced community learning in prior courses, this is the first time I truly felt our group leveraged the opportunity to its fullest potential. Our consistent, real-time collaboration and feedback loop created a meaningful sense of accountability and growth, which directly improved the quality of my work.

Reflection

One area for growth is that I could have engaged sooner in some of the broader discussion forums. Although I ultimately responded to each collaborative discussion and replied to at least three peers per discussion post, I prioritized providing current and timely feedback to my small group first. This ensured their work had actionable and constructive input each week, and it allowed me to track their progress and growth throughout the course. However, moving forward, I plan to engage earlier in the larger class forums sooner in order to help foster a stronger sense of connection with the full learning community.

Attending every live Zoom session also strengthened my engagement and helped me stay on top of expectations. It allowed me to contribute meaningfully in real time, ask clarifying questions, and support others during these sessions. I believe my consistent presence, commitment to the readings and videos, and constructive feedback helped sustain the momentum my own learning thus contributing to our groups overall learning. I felt that I was seen as a reliable and supportive peer throughout the course.

Overall, I am proud of the contributions I made to my own learning and to the learning of others. As Fink (2013) reminds us, “At some point, to be powerful performers in life as well as self-directed learners, students must learn how to assess the quality of their own work” (p. 103). This reflection has pushed me to honestly evaluate how I showed up for myself and for my group, recognizing both strengths and areas for improvement. I not only grew as a self-directed learner but also helped create an environment of trust, feedback, and collaboration. These experiences will inform my professional practice, particularly as I work to foster similar learning communities among teachers in my school.

Links to My Work

You can view all of my work for this course at the links below, including the final compilation page as well as the key assignments that contributed to its development. These artifacts demonstrate my growth as a self-directed learner and my contributions to the learning community throughout this course.

• 5389: Developing Effective Professional Leadership – Main Page

• Alternate PL: Call to Action

• Planning the Alternative PL Assignment

• Connecting & Communicating Ideas