Classrooms as Learning Communities: What's In It For Schools?

"The What's in it for schools"? series aims to make educational policy issues relevant to practitioners. Each book in the series focuses on a major educational issue. The authors set the issue in context, look at how it impacts on the daily lives of schools and teachers, and raise key questions. The books are grounded in social theory, recent research evidence and best practice, and will make an excellent contribution to any staffroom bookshelf. In classrooms that operate as learning communities, the social and learning purposes advance together through all participants being involved and engaged in building knowledge. This is a new way of seeing and managing classrooms, it offers: * An integration of what's best in learning and what's best in the social life of classrooms * A vision of the role of the teacher that is more creative and more related to the commitments of teachers * A more connected view of school, in contrast to the mechanistic view that currently dominates * An answer to the short-term performance pressures of politicians - better performance. This book presents the practice and vision of classrooms that operate as learning communities. This is the most comprehensive and practical book on this theme. The text is engaging without either preaching or patrolling how teachers think. It is the aim of the book that after reading it any classroom teacher will feel more able to take steps towards building a more effective classroom with the aspects of learning communities they choose.

Chris Watkins is Reader in Education at the Institute of Education, University of London.