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by Geoffrey Caine and Renate N. Caine
Table of Contents
This ASCD Guide is designed to enhance your understanding of the ideas and information developed in Strengthening and Enriching Your Professional Learning Community: The Art of Learning Together, an ASCD book written by Geoffrey Caine and Renate N. Caine and published in November 2010. It is also an instrument to help you assess your current professional learning circle and prepare to implement the process in the book.
This guide does not take people through each chapter nor each section of the book in turn, because the book itself does not work like that.
The book is a process book because, as the introduction says, there is no recipe that, when followed, creates an instant learning community. All communities and individuals, like all relationships, are works in progress. So the word "process" is used to convey the notion that the development of a great community is an ongoing process.
The research and theoretical foundations for the processes and procedures described in this book are found in several places. We begin with the two chapters in section 1 and appendix B on "the field of listening."
Most of the relevant material can be found in section two. Some additional guidance is found in section three, and that will be addressed later in this guide. A word of caution is also needed here. You should NOT examine these steps in great detail at this time. The reason is that the key learning comes from experience. If you study the process too much in advance, it changes the nature of your experience, and reduces its value. The key, here, is to become familiar with the skeleton—the framework—of the overall process.
Chapter 9 is explicitly about the process leader and process leadership. And chapter 10 is about asking the right questions (Additional material on process leadership can be found in several other chapters).
The bulk of material on this topic is introduced in section three. It includes chapters on individual differences, group dynamics, process principles, and the path forward. It is supplemented by chapter 10, which is about asking the right questions. And it is supplemented by Appendix A, which is a summary of research about how people learn. In the long run, all of this is very important. Right now, the key is to gain a bird's eye view of the content, and then revisit it from time to time as you use the process in the book.
Everything in this book is grounded in research, experience, and ideas about how people learn naturally. The topic is summarized in Appendix A: How People Learn. We suggest that when you implement the process in this book, the first big question you address is how people learn. And we suggest that Appendix A be the primary source that you use for the first year of your process learning circle (supplemented with other readings). After all, is anything more important for an educator that a solid appreciation for and understanding of how all learners learn?
Strengthening and Enriching Your Professional Learning Community: The Art of Learning Together was written by Geoffrey Caine and Renate N. Caine. This 200-page, 6" x 9" book (Stock #110085; ISBN: 978-1-4166-1089-2) is available from ASCD for $19.95 (ASCD member) or $26.95 (nonmember). Copyright © 2010 by ASCD. To order a copy, call ASCD at 1-800-933-2723 (in Virginia 1-703-578-9600) and press 2 for the Service Center. Or buy the book from ASCD's Online Store.
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