Kevin Curtis

Final Project -The Fifth Discipline

Due Date Sunday, May 4, 2014 11:59:00 PM EDT

1) Personal Mastery is the discipline in which people are completely aware of their own ignorance,
incompetence, and areas of growth. The learner persistently develops his personal vision by being
self-aware of where his energies are spent, developing patience, skills, and embarking on a
enduring journey of education and self discovery (Senge, 1990).

2) Mental Modes these are the preconceived notions, perceptions and beliefs that are so ingrained
in us that often times we do not know that they can dictate how we responded to the world. In this
discipline the learner is self-reflective and tries to examine those beliefs, values, mindsets, etc.
that impact learning and development (Senge, 1990).

3) Building Shared Vision is the discipline in which there is a mutual concept of what the future
can hold. Students, teachers and administrators would develop a common idea about the future of
each students future success, the success of the school and all that are employed at the school. In
this discipline each learner has a desire to excel (Senge, 1990).

4) Team Learning is the discipline in which dialogue occurs between members of a team where
they can learn and develop great outcomes not necessarily achievable without the dialogue.
Within team learning, members learn to suspend assumption and begin to think together as well
as learn how to overcome patterns of interaction that undermine the learning process (Senge,
1990).

5) Systems Thinking takes the long view of consequences, as it takes a systems view of decisions
that are made. Negative and positive feedback loops, as well as delays, are essential to looking at
the consequences of our decisions and are not satisfied with the short term gain at the expense of
the long term (Senge, 1990).

Project 1: UDL Before and After
Upon analysis of project 1, I see that it does foster the concepts put forth by Senge. In this project
students are asked to analyze primary source articles for the use of scientific method and then
develop their own experiment relating to toxicology. Through this process students are
confronted with their own insecurities about their reading ability relating to scientific literature.
As they gain confidence reading the literature, they then begin to apply the knowledge in a team
effort as they develop experiments within their lab groups. As a team they learn how to design an
experiment and as they redesign their experiments in subsequent labs they are confronted with
any mental obstacles have with regards to studying toxicology. A shared vision is obtained as
students and I discuss the project from start to finish. As students begin implementing their
experimental design, they discover that the original design of the experiment has direct impacts
on the results they obtain and begin to think using systems thinking.

Project 2: Constructivist Technology Proposal
It appears to me that I hit all of the disciplines in this project. The project allows students to
develop their skills in personal mastery, mental modes, building shared vision, team learning and
systems thinking by permitting students to work in teams to develop their videos as they are
working on the project students will learn where their personal weakness are with regards to
video editing, storyboarding, shooting the video, etc. This allows them the opportunity to develop
skills in these areas and to become aware of any mental obstacles they have as they develop their
project and bring it to completion. It provides space for students to build shared vision as they
need to work within a group to develop the video and produce a product they are proud of while
also increasing their team learning proficiencies. As this project is a multiple step project,
(develop their video concept, shoot the video, edit the video and publish the video) students need
to begin thinking about the entire project as a system and that what they decide in the beginning
will impact the outcome of the final product, along with any changes made during the process.
Learners can develop a system based thinking while working on the project, as long as they can
see the big picture while they are working on the smaller parts of the whole.

Project 3: Flipping Your Classroom
In this project students are watching videos at home and working on problem sets in the
classroom, while I am developing the videos for them to watch and helping them in class. In this
project I am not convinced that the five disciplines are entirely necessary the way the project was
designed. If the project were to be redesigned, they could be inserted if I were to change the in-
class work to a project in which students worked together or if I were to give them a Process
Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) exercise to work on. In this case, students would work
in teams to solve inquiry-based problems. While working, students have the opportunity to
develop skills in each of the five disciplines put forth by Senge. As students discuss the problem
within their teams, they become aware of areas they need to develop skills in and as they do this
they may be faced with some of mental modes that hold them back or that are underlying their
understanding of the subject matter. While working in teams, students have the opportunity to
work on the last three disciplines together as they dialogue about solutions to the problems they
face in the exercise. As they do this, they build upon the shared vision of the group, while keeping
in mind the entire system of working together in the POGIL model with manager, strategy
analyst, recorder, and spokesperson.

Citations:
Smith, M. (2001, January 1). Peter Senge and the learning organization. Infed.org. Retrieved
April 29, 2014, from http://infed.org/mobi/peter-senge-and-the-learning-organization/

Senge, P. M. (1990). The fifth discipline: the art and practice of the learning organization. :
Century Business.

Bers, M. U. (2008). Blocks to robots: learning with technology in the early childhood classroom.
New York: Teachers College Press.

Bergmann, J., & Sams, A. (2012). Flip Your Classroom: reach every student in every class every
day. Eugene, Or.: International Society for Technology in Education;.

Home | National Center On Universal Design for Learning. (n.d.). . Retrieved April 29, 2014, from
http://www.udlcenter.org/