Reflection 6 : Exponential Growth

I am glad that my team has completed the assignment and submitted it yesterday. Throughout the e-learning weeks, I have learnt to explore many e-learning platforms and their uses. It was tough at first but I manage to pick up some skills. I am still learning. I can now go online and chat with Bo Bo and Joe. It was fun and exciting learning how to toggle from one platform to the next. My sms skills has improved tremendously too! I am very glad to have such patient, caring and wonderful team-mates. Joe and Bo Bo help me with a lot of all these IT stuff. They are ever ready to help and are very encouraging.

Through our numerous face to face meetings, we not only discuss the how, the what and the why of the e-package, we have fun too. It was stressful for all of us as we have to juggle between work and study. We had to rush from work to our meeting place, present our search and ensure that we were well prepared so that we could answer thought-provoking questions posed by the team. We had to clarify aspects of our findings when members foud it hard to understand the rationales of our proposal. This really depleted our brain juice but nonetheless the "grueling" was an effective way to keep us focus on the key ideas we intend to put forth in our e-package.

We have actually started a professional learning community without reaslisng it! We worked collaboratively on our e-package - we researched, discussed and shared our learning. There was collective team work in the way we shared responsibilities for our leanring. We engaged in conversation on ways of improving our learning, working towards a common goal - the production of our e-package. In the course of our discussion, we actively sough for answers and solutions, learnt to be open to new ideas, like using cmap or mindmap to summarise our learning. Besides working collaboratively as a team, we also  encouraged experimentation as an opportunity to learn, such as using google document and pbworks, etc. As our e-package gradually took its form, we reflected on the action that were taken and evaluated its effectiveness so as to keep improving it. 
           
This learning journey has taught me a valuable lesson, that is, together we learn more than if we were on our own. I can see the power of group diversity and appreciate its dynamics. This experience has reinforced my belief - team learning is a powerful learning platform that teachers need to ride on to promote  professional development so as to grow professionally. Team learning builds upon personal mastery and shared vision. This involves creating a snapshot of what is important to both individuals and the school community. Although individuals are responsible for their own actions, feelings and opinions, it is the common good of the community that guides decision making. As teachers’ capacity increases and they develop a feeling of success, they will better understand that when they ally their strengths and skills they are able to reach goals they could not reach on their own.

My learning has increased exponentially!