Building Teacher Practice Through Professional Learning Community
Let’s focus on two questions:
how can it strengthen the teaching profession?
Scottish Learning Festival September 20, 2007 Glasgow
Gary Bloom New Teacher Center @ University of California Santa Cruz gsbloom@ucsc.edu
A Short Experiment…
What is a Professional Learning Community and
What is the role of classroom visitations and examination of student work in PLC’s?
The Moral of the Story….
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What Is a Profession?
Changing Expectations Changing our Profession Area
Traditional Model
Professional Model
Loosely coupled and idiosyncratic
Standards based and articulated
Teacher as artisan, isolated, idiosyncratic
Teacher as professional, standards based, public, collaborative
Specialized body of knowledge
Set of skills
Group mission or identity
Teaching Content Teaching Practice
Standards of behavior and practice
Accountability
De-emphasized, mystified
Public, prominent
Equity
Implicit and input oriented
Explicit and outcome oriented
What Can Coronary Stents and Luxury Cars Tell Us About What it Means to be a Profession?
Vs.
PLC’s are grounded in Etienne Wenger’s Communities of Practice “ Communities
of practice are formed by people who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavor: a tribe learning to survive, a band of artists seeking new forms of expression, a group of engineers working on similar problems, a clique of pupils defining their identity in the school, a network of surgeons exploring novel techniques. In a nutshell, communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn to do it better as they interact regularly.”
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Elements of Professional Development
A Medical Model: Clinical Oncology
Content Content
JobJobEmbedded Embedded Work Work
Reflective Practice & Personal Responsibility
Reading&& Reading Research Research
• Weekly Cancer Conference
Communitiesof of Communities Practice: Practice: Networkingand and Networking Benchmarking Benchmarking
Richard Elmore’s Definition
Hospital rounds
Elaboration Elaboration
High alignment among responsibility, expectatons and accountability High transparency of practice Explicit norms, processes, structures of accountability High support: focused, individualized High agency: “If I can’t do it, they will help me. If we can’t do it, we will learn how.”
• Mortality Review
Attributes of PLC’s Southwest Educational Development Lab, 1997
Collegial and facilitative participation of the principal; shared leadership Unswerving commitment to student learning Collective professional learning applied to practical solutions addressed to student needs Visitation and review of each teacher’s classroom behaviors and results by peers with feedback directed at individual and community improvement Physical conditions and human capacities that support such an operation
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Nested Professional Learning Communities
Grade-Level/ Department Teams
Principal Teams
Instructional Leadership Teams
K 2 3 4
ES
Let’s Visit a Classroom
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5 E M
Classroom Learning Communities
First year teacher Kindergarten class English Language Learners
What do you see in this classroom?
S H MS
FL A E M S
HS
H FL A
How Would You Discuss Your Observation With Your Colleagues?
Non-judgmental statements
Evidence v. opinion
Focus on student engagement
Focus on student learning
Focus on cause & effect
Safe and supportive
Some Thoughts on Adult Learners
Adults want to be the origin of their own learning and should have some control over the what, who, how, why, when of their learning.
Adults come to the learning process with selfdirection and a wide range of previous knowledge, interests,and competencies.
Adults will resist activities they see as an attack on their competence. Speck & Knipe, Professional Development; Why Can’t We Get it Right In Our Schools?
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Learning Walks, Quick Visits, Walkthroughs
A Typology of Collaborative Professional Classroom Visitations Learning Walks
Support professional learning communities focused upon teaching and learning
Strengthen teaching as public practice informed by standards
Support the success of every teacher and every student
Peer Coaching
Are organized around evidence based processes, protocols and cycles of inquiry
Principal Professional Learning Walks
Informing school level professional learning communities
Data Walks Gathering quantitative school and/or district data
Informing individual teacher professional development
Informing administrator professional development
Quick Visits Informing the teacher supervision and support process
Learning Walks
WHY: Informing school level PLC’s
WHO: Teachers, teacher leaders, heads
WHAT: Gather quantitative and qualitative data to inform conversations and action planning in site level PLC’s; to give feedback to individuals and to groups
WHEN: Quarterly to monthly, usually announced
Data Walks
WHY: Gathering quantitative school and/or district data for program evaluation purposes
WHO: Teachers, teacher leaders, heads, central leadership
WHAT: Gather quantitative data to assess needs and program implementation. Data are aggregated to focus upon units, not individual teachers
WHEN: One to four times a year, usually announced
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Other Visitation Types
Teacher Professional Learning Communities Examine Student Work
Peer Coaching
Principal (Head) Professional Learning Walks
Rigor
Quick visits
Fidelity to standards
Learning!
Looking for evidence of
What sorts of student work might PLC’s examine?
Cultural Shifts in a Professional Learning Community A shift in purpose…
From a focus on teaching to a focus on learning
A shift in the work of teachers…
From isolation to collaboration
A shift in school culture…
From independence to interdependence
A shift in professional development…
From external training to job embedded learning Adapted from Learning by Doing , DuFour
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Professional Learning Communities informed by public practice can be the chassis that professional development and school improvement ride upon.
Building Teacher Practice Through Professional Learning Community Scottish Learning Festival September 20, 2007 Glasgow
What support do you need to strengthen the establishment of PLC’s and learning walks and other public practice at your site?
Gary Bloom New Teacher Center @ University of California Santa Cruz gsbloom@ucsc.edu
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