5. Learning Context for Engaged Learning

• Knowledge-Building Learning Community. The learning community resists fragmentation and competition and enables students to learn more collaboratively.
• Collaborative. In learning communities, intelligence is assumed to be distributed among all members. Collaborative classrooms, schools, and communities encourage all students to ask hard questions; define problems; take charge of the conversation when appropriate; participate in assessments and in setting goals, standards, and benchmarks; have work-related conversations with various adults in and outside school; and engage in entrepreneurial activities.
• Empathetic. Learning communities search for strategies to build on the strengths of all members. These strategies are especially important for learning situations in which members have very different prior knowledge.