DIGITAL

CHALKBOARD

Members of this group will find resources related to high-quality transitional kindergarten (TK) programs including the newly (July 2017) released online professional learning modules for classroom teachers, site and district-level administrators, and all staff providing services to children in TK.

The TK professional learning modules can be found at: www.tkplonline.org.

The California Department of Education encourages members to participate in the modules as local learning groups and to use the My Digitial Chalkboard (MDC) and Collaboration in Common (CinC) platforms to form communities of practice (COPs).

Adapted from Peer Learning Community Guide: CEELO (2014), please consider forming a variety of groups on this platform using these understandings and guidelines:

The Domain: A community of practice (COP) is not merely a club of friends or a network of connections between people. It has an identity defined by a shared domain of interest (TK). Membership therefore implies a commitment to the domain and therefore a shared competence that distinguishes members from other people.

The Community:  In pursuing their interest in TK, members engage in joint activities and discussions, help each other, and share information. They build relationships that enable them to learn from each other.

The Practice:  A COP is not merely a community of interest--people who like certain kinds of movies, for instance. Members of a community of practice are practioners. They develop a shared repertoire of resources: experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring problems--in short, a shard practice. This takes time and sustained interaction.

It is the combination of these three elements that constitutes a COP. And it is by developing these three elements in parallel that one cultivates such a community.

TK PL Communites of Practice are intended to:

Connect TK educators with and across the state

Provide an opportunity between those who might not otherwise have the opportunity to interact

Be a vehicle for ongoing communication and self-reflection

Provide a platform for those with more experience to share with those beginning to learn

Provide a forum to identify solutions to common problems and a process to collect and evaluate best practice

Encourage and mentor new/other members

To that end, you are encouraged to initiate a TK PL group. Form a COP of TK teachers in your school or district. Form a COP of TK administrators/school principals in a county. Form a group of TK teachers throughout an entire region. The possibilities, truly, are endless! We look forward to supporting you in whatever ways possible as we are all working on the same goal: providing California children with an incredible early educational foundation!