Becoming Connected

By Jamie Guillaume

October 2013 is Connected Educators month, a celebration of online communities of practice and networks in education.   With September quickly ending, this is a great time to introduce this project being promoted by the Department of Education that is designed to help educators learn about online communities that share  the common goal of improving teacher and leader effectiveness as well as enhancing student learning.

There are many different avenues that allow teachers to be connected, but one network all Indiana Teachers need to become familiar with is the the Learning Connection (LC).  The primary reason is because this essential tool serves as the state’s platform to house academic standards, student growth model data, curriculum resources, and learning communities, just to name a few.  

            When you first go to the Learning Connection: learning connection.doe.in.gov, you are presented with information accessible to anyone, and very importantly the academic standards.  This is an easy way to access all of the standards for each grade level and subject matter. If you click on “Academic Standards,” you will first be taken to a page that gives background information regarding both the common core and the Indiana academic standards.  If you click on the tab that reads, “Standard Search, “ You will be given a  pulldown menu that allows you to pull down your subject matter and grade level in order to locate your standards.  Using this method ensures you are accessing the correct, and most up to date standards.

            Another important aspect of the learning connection, connects you with other educators of your interests and fields, called communities.  From the LC page,  you first must login.    After logging in, go to the tab at the top that reads, “Contacts and Communities.” Here you will see a list of the  communities in which you belong.  To find a community of your subject matter to belong to, click on the link, “Find Community.”  Here you will type in a  keyword search such as reading, math, science, high ability, learning disabilities, etc.  This will guide you to a list of communities which means a group of people who share resources and information on a particular topic.  Once you are a  member of a community, you will begin receiving emails with resources, information on possible workshops, and so forth.  This is a great way to become connected!

            Of course teachers are now working on writing Student Learning Objections (SLO’s) and the Learning Connection can be a huge help with this process.  When writing these objectives, a teacher always has a handful of students that fall on the line between high and middle or middle and low.  How do you decide?  When logged in to LC, if you go to “My Classes,” all of your classes you are currently teaching will appear.  Click on the class for which you are writing your SLO.  A list of students will appear on the right.  Click on the student you are questioning and look at their testing history.  This gives you a better picture of how this student has progressed over the last few years and aid in your decision.  

            Being a connected learner is becoming more and more pertinent for 21st Century Educators.   There is a wealth of information, resources, learning communities, etc available for educators.  It is difficult to try to decide what to use or follow and what to disregard. After all, there are only so many hours in a day.  I highly recommend starting with the Learning Connection.  It is specifically designed for Indiana Educators by the Department of Education.