Community of Practice Evaluation: What We Measure and Why
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A few months ago, I wrote a blog titled How Online Communities of Practice Shape Our Work. Today I have been thinking a lot about how we evaluate these communities and why we choose to value certain measurements. The most obvious answer is that we have goals. And, while I completely agree that a community needs to have a goal or goals and needs to be prepared to measure steps towards meeting those goals, I also think that every community needs to take the time to examine what we are measuring when we evaluate a community’s success. Continue reading “Community of Practice Evaluation: What We Measure and Why”
I watched and listened to much of the event honoring the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s “I have a dream speech.”
Ronetta Jenkins is a summer intern for West Wind Education Policy. She will be a Junior this fall at Iowa City High. This is part 2 of a 2-part blog. 
Have you ever noticed that when you are deeply interested in something, you find ideas about that interest where you aren’t expecting to find them and when you aren’t intentionally seeking that information? If you are open to learning something new, then ideas come to you from sources and settings that may be surprising. I often find myself making connections among concepts from experiences and sources that have little to do with my work. My professional interests in exploring ways to help educators learn new knowledge and skills has launched an ongoing inquiry about collaborative processes for learning that yields discoveries outside the usual places I go to acquire information. 
I had the opportunity to take part in a webinar last week with 
My son graduated from high school last Friday and I said I would write a blog post about it. As I started thinking about what to write I looked back at what I wrote when my colleagues and I posted back in the fall about our kids starting the school year. Here’s what I said: