Discussion question concepts and applications

¶ … Education

Copland and Knapp's belief that an inquiry into learning is an integral part of the existence of a professional learning community is definitely true. Learning itself is a life-long process. It never ends, regardless of whether or not people have completed their formal education or if they are even educator-researchers. However, particularly in the case when a person is involved in the profession mentioned in the latter situation, inquiries into learning play an essential part in the expansion of learning and the facilitation for the development of new methodologies and approaches that can effectively improve learning. Today's world is constantly changing and the information pertinent to it is in a state of flux as well, so it is actually part of the duty of any sort of educator-researcher or education practitioner to continue to revise and refine his or her methods of conveying education.

One of the most important ways of going about improving the methodologies used to better one's pedagogy, in fact, is to research them and to compare such research with the professional community at large. In several instances, people are one's most valuable resources, and a sharing of information between educators can prove highly influential in the spread of knowledge and techniques for the improvement of learning. Such environments, in which "teachers support each other" via "collegial networks across schools" (Copland, Knapp, 2006, p. 43) provide the ideal combination of access to classroom implementation of didactic measures as well as access to the people who have the most to gain from sharing and disseminating improved learning tactics.

There are several facets to the role of a professional educator, particularly one who considers himself or herself as a reflective practitioner. As such, one of the primary tenets of the profile of such a professional is to embrace change and to utilize a degree of adaptability and flexibility in the planning and performance of everyday job functions. This notion that transformation is an integral component of effective learning systems was widely championed by the late Donald Schoen. What appears as one of the most efficacious learning systems for a reflective practitioner to utilize then is known as double-loop learning, in which learning systems are regularly reflected upon and analyzed to find varying methodologies in which they can be improved.