home

=Team Charter= The directions state: After reading Palloff and Pratt’s chapter on “the process of online collaboration,” as a learning community decide the following and post your group decisions on the home page of your wiki for your own Team Charter. Please make corrections and additions to collaborate on our team charter.

1. What are the most important and essential responsibilities of the members in a learning community? Palloff and Pratt (2005) make it clear that collaboration through the use of tools and techniques is essential for the success of a learning community(p.24). The tools for collaboration must be identified and set up early so that all members of the group can become comfortable with using the technology. According to Palloff and Pratt,"when working in dyads, it is helpful to establish ground rules and expectations at the very beginning of the quarter" (2005,p25). When expectations are established all members will know what is expected of them, and this will‍‍ help eliminate issues within a group‍‍.

Additionally, it is important that each member, once empowered by the instructor to take charge of the learning community, participates on a regular basis to engage with others in a meaningful way, such as problem solving, providing feedback, and add valuable input from other sources to deepen the learning experiences of the community.

2. What are some guidelines you can offer that would make your learning community interaction more productive? Palloff and Pratt (2005) offer team charter guidelines on page 27-28. The two guidelines ‍‍that stand out are ‍‍communication and expectations of members. We know that communication will ultimately be performed through the wiki format. Timeliness of communication is imperative for success. The learning community interaction would also be more productive if the instructions and guidelines are communicated clearly (Palloff and Pratt, 2005, p.26). The wiki needs to be viewed often by each member of the team. This way even if there is not time to respond (because each of us has busy lives) each team member would be able to reflect on what they have read until they are able to effectively communicate. In addition we will need to create clear expectations for our responsibilities to one another during the project. Waiting days for someone to do their part of a project, and then having to put all other responsibilities you have on a back burner to try to get a project finished is no fun.‍‍ Each member‍‍ should be held accountable for his or her parts. Each member should commit to participating in thoughtful and engaging discussions to allow for creativity and critical thinking. We each should commit to checking and posting to the Wiki at least three times a week for a half hour, aside from our regular class posts.

3. How should members of the learning community deal with other members that do not actively participate or that participate in a negative manner? We all need to support as well as respect each other in these endeavors. Everyone is busy. That could mean an email saying, hey what's up? Are you going to be able to get this done in the next couple days or do you need some help? Continual communication is essential to success! Members who do not participate should be held accountable by the other group members and the instructor. As a classroom teacher of 16 years, I have always said, "students only get away with what we (parents, teachers, and administrators) allow them to get away with." We must have high expectations of each other and support one another, but when we slack off and not do our part, we must be held accountable for it.