Creating a Culture of Mindfulness Consider how your experience at VIS has been with regard to the five key

characteristics of a Professional Learning Community. Jot some notes to contribute to a discussion with your PLC team when we meet. What level of demonstration have you noted? What elements could be strengthened? What practices could be; Shared? Improved? Changed? To foster these characteristics?

Shared Norms and Values

Peter Senge (1990) states that leadership in a learning organization starts with the principle of "Creative Tension." He goes on to describe how creative tension emerges from seeing clearly where we want to be--the vision, and describing truthfully where we are now--our current reality. The gap between the two generates creative tension. To what degree do members of your school community understand, value, model, celebrate, reward, communicate about, and use their combined resources cooperatively to achieve our schools stated mission, goals and outcomes? Depends on us sharing a vision the school MS is broad, so the which can be seen through the lens of the IB St and Pract . Is this always the shared vision?

A Collective Focus on Student Learning

To what degree do members of your school community focus on, collect and share evidence of and discuss individual and collective students continual learning and the instructional strategies they employ as students progress through the school? Building structures but still disparate and patchy. Dependent on individuals.

Collaboration
To what degree do members of your school community value human variability by drawing on staff members unique expertise, seeking to understand and learn from other because of their differences in beliefs, levels of experience, learning preferences and cognitive styles and in working cooperatively across grade levels and subject areas? PYP planning is a good start but not between grade levels or across the school

Deprivitized Practice
To what degree do members of your school community observe, discuss, coach, reflect on and learn more about the craft of teaching from each other? Very little hopefully this process will help.

Reflective Dialogue
To what degree are members of your school community striving to enhance their communicative competencies, by monitoring, reflecting on their own listening skills, practicing non-judgmental and empathic dialogue and making a commitment to enhance interpersonal communication? There is no metacognition related to the empathetic dialogue needs to be focused on.