The Professional Learning Community

The engine room for change and sustained school improvement

Marian CollegeWednesday 28 January, 2009

Welcome

Who we are…

Read first before looking at picture. The attached picture was used in a case study on stress levels at St.Mary's Hospital.

Look at both dolphins jumping out of the water. Both dolphins are identical. The researchers concluded that a person is under stress if he/she finds both dolphins look different.

If there are many differences found between both dolphins, it means that the person is experiencing a great amount of stress. So, if you see too many differences between the two dolphins, you are advised to pack your bag, Go home immediately and take a rest. Have a nice day. 

RULES FOR WOMEN TEACHERS (1915)1.You will not marry during the term of contract.2.You are not to keep company with men.3.You must be home between the hours of 8p.m. and 6 a.m., unless attending a school function.4.You may not loiter downtown in Ice-Cream parlours.5.You may not travel beyond the city limits without the permission of the Chairman of the Board.6.You may not ride in a carriage or an automobile with any man unless he is your father or your brother.7.You may not smoke cigarettes.8.You may not dress in bright colours.9.You may under no circumstances dye your hair.10.You must wear at least two petticoats and your dresses must not be shorter than 2” above the ankles.11. To keep the school room clean you must:sweep the floor at least once dailyscrub the floor with hot spongy water at least once a weekclean the blackboard once a daystart the fire at 7am, so that the room will be warm by 8a.m

Outline

A Professional Learning Community What is it? What it is not?

Where are we now? Why: what the literature says

Morning Tea Getting real – the practical realities Where to next ?

WHAT IS A PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITY?

What is a professional

learning team?

Misconceptions…Mythconceptions

VISION : is it about all of us travelling in the

same direction????

What it is not….

Winners and losers philosophy

Creating and Sustaining Effective Professional Learning Communities Project, 2001-2004

An effective professional learning community has the capacity to promote and sustain the learning of all professionals in the school community with the collective purpose of enhancing pupil learning.

Co-directors: Ray Bolam, Agnes McMahon, Louise Stoll, Sally Thomas and Mike Wallace

Going beyond show and tell…Beyond bring and brag…

What's the difference between talking to each other to share practice and being part of a learning conversation ?

Three types of conversations:

Instructional

Learning

Community

(West Burnham and Otero, 2005)

WHY??????

IF IT AIN’T BROKE, DON’T FIX IT!!!!!

Futures

Possible futures - things which could happen, although many are unlikely

Probable futures - things which probably will happen, unless something is done to turn events around

Preferable futures - things you prefer tohave happen and/or what you would like to plan to happen

Beare (2001)

Three key change forces influencing schools

1. Powerful industrial sector associated with new technologies views education as a market place

2. Growing awareness of the need for new approaches to learning and realisation that the only genuinely marketable skill is that of learning itself

3. ‘Child power’: children with increasingly less regard for school as it lags behind the society it serves

Papert (1996)

RoleClarity

SupportiveLeadership

ExcessiveWork

Demands

Teamwork

Appraisal&

Recognition

Empowerment

ProfessionalGrowth

Ownership

IndividualMorale

SchoolMorale

SchoolDistress

IndividualDistress

20

24

40

40

33

29

-41

66

30

40

38

56

33

334772

45

44

59

39

-55

-21

30

-42

22

Strength of Relationship

turn point

##

Best Practice Model of People Management

TeamPerformance

StudentOutcomes

DiscretionaryPerformance

Innovation

ParentSatisfaction

EngagingClarity LearningEmpathy

Leadership and Management Culture

What do Teachers Need to Learn?

• Understanding learning

• Content knowledge

• Pedagogical understanding

• Emotional understanding

• Fundamentals of change

• New professionalism

• Meta-learning Stoll, Fink and Earl (2003)

No single teacher knows, or could know, the totality of the staff’s professional knowledge.

David Hargreaves, 1999

Major sources of variance in student’s achievement Ref: John Hattie

Sources of influence on teachers professional practice

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITY IMPLEMENTATION RUBRIC (NCSL - BOOKLET 8)

1. Complete the rubric - individually2. Identify one aspect that you think

is significant for your team3. Share this with the group

. . . is a complex blend of motivation, skill, positive learning, organisational conditions and culture, and infrastructure of support. Put together, it gives individuals, groups and, ultimately whole school communities the power to get involved in and sustain learning.

Stoll, Stobart et al (2003)

Capacity

Are You Part of a Professional Learning Community?

“…the most promising strategy for substantive school improvement is developing the capacity for school personnel to function as a professional learning community (PLC).”

Robert Eaker, Richard DuFour, and Rebecca DuFour, Getting Started: Reculturing Schools to Become Professional

Learning Communities

What causes student achievement?

The data from our studies suggest that where there is a high degree of teacher and leadership efficacy, the gains in student achievement are more than three times greater than when teachers and leaders assume that their impact on achievement is minimal. (Reeves, 2008, p. 5)

What is expected gets inspected…

Schools with the highest scores on monitoring showed more than five times the gains in achievement compared to schools with the lowest scores on monitoring. The schools with the best scores on monitoring in our study were able to provide frequent feedback to their colleagues in a constructive manner. (Reeves, 2008, p.5)

Are You Part of a Professional Learning Community?

“Quality teaching requires strong professional learning communities. Collegial interchange, not isolation, must become the norm for teachers. Communities of learners can no longer be considered utopian; they must become the building blocks that establish a new foundation for America’s Schools.”

National Commission on Teaching, 2003

A collaborative venture…

“Isolation is the enemy of learning. Principals who support the learning of adults in their school organize teachers schedules to provide opportunities for teachers to work, plan, and think together.”

NAESP, Leading Learning Communities: Standards for What Principals Should Know and Be Able to Do

MORNING TEA

GETTING REAL: MAKING IT HAPPEN

1. GOAL SETTING2. BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS -

PROTOCOLS

The Professional Learning Team

The Professional LearningCommunity

Three ways of responding to change (Modified Tye, 2000)

1. COPING

Limit selves to managing

Survival mode Directive leadership Directives outside

the school

2. REACTIVE –CHRISTMAS TREE SCHOOLS (Bryk et al, 1998)

Aware of trends Indiscriminate goals set(Bryk et al, 1998)

GOAL FOCUSED !!!!!!!

1. Select a few reasonable goals

2. Establish priorities

3. Ignore or manage other pressures

Marian College LEARNING AND TEACHING ACTIONS

- 2009

1. To continue to work at implementing a curriculum underpinned by Habits of Mind as Thinking, Personal Learning and Interpersonal strategies. (Years 8 – 10)

2. To investigate the embedding of the Habits of Mind into the curriculum. (Year 7 Focus – implementation 2010)

3. To showcase approaches to Habits of Mind at Curriculum and staff meetings.

4. To showcase student work at team and staff meetings.5. To develop and implement Student achievement and

Consolidation policy6. To introduce the Student of the Term and Semester

Academic Excellence Award7. To review the current curriculum structure and design

proposed new Curriculum Program structure (Years 7 -10)8. To integrate ICT across the curriculum9. To investigate the National Curriculum’s impact on Marian

College.

Developing effective goals = understanding priorities

How do you know what matters ?

What is high leverage? What could be collapsed? What could be rested? Characteristics of a

secondary school A passion for teaching intellectual stimulation Creative combustion

Goal setting – advice from the literature

THREE WHOLE SCHOOL INITIATIVES One goal which:

sustains/ reinforces existing practice deepens learning and teaching capacity builds opportunity for risk-taking and innovation builds pool of expertise creates refined performance benchmarks (qualitative and

quantitative

Two new goals which: are new challenge shift the goal posts

What are the implications of this for the Brigidine nature of Marian College?

Structuring team goals?

Respecting the role of the adult learner means using time wisely

(you have been allocated 12 sessions) Are goals long term or short term? Are goals realistic? Are goals specific ? Are goals achievable in the next 12

months ? Are the goals too ambitious?

TEAM GOAL SETTING

1. Work together in your ‘Area Team’2. Write a team goal that is specific and descriptive

Consider: Is it achievable? Can you do this in the next twelve months?

THE BIG CHALLENGE – HOW WILL YOU KNOW YOU HAVE ACHIEVED THESE?

HOW WILL YOU KNOW IF IT’S MADE A DIFFERENCE TO STUDENT LEARNING ?

Establishing Protocols = Building “credit in the bank”

The altruistic nature of teaching – we all believe we are doing the “right thing and we are all working hard!!!”

Teachers invest “emotional labour.” (Liz Freeman, 2003)

“credit in the trust bank” (Covey, 1995)

The most challenging feature – team work

“The one area that was the most difficult to carry out for business and education leaders was developing and sustaining teamwork.” (Hay Management 2000)

FIVE CONDITIONS FOR EFFECTIVE TEAM WORK :1. Real team2. Compelling direction for work3. Enabling structure 4. Supportive organizational context5. Expert coaching

(Hackman 2002)

Two important categories to consider

1. PROTOCOLS RELATED TO OUR LEARNING

We will come to meetings prepared.

We will complete tasks between meetings.

2. PROTOCOLS RELATED TO PROFESSIONAL REGARD FOR OTHERS..

We will begin each meeting on time.

We will make these 12 meetings a priority and commit to them in our calendars.

We will engage respectfully but honestly with colleagues

We will set an agenda at the end of each meeting for the following meeting.

WRITING TEAM PROTOCOLS

Work together in your teams

Brainstorm write protocols which will focus on both: How you will learn

together? How you will show

collegial respect for one another?

Resolving Tensions - Problem Solving Strategy

PROTOCOLS

We will come to meetings prepared.

WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE..

We will have read pre-reading material

We will complete assigned tasks..

Implementation dips = learning dips

Natural part of change/improvement cycle

Part of The Knowing/Doing gap

(Pfeffer & Sutton, 2000)

Ebb/flow model – respect peak learning time (Jarni 2005)

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change

that we seek.

FINAL THOUGHTS…

“Our schools can be wonderful places of enchantment and creativity, opening doorways to new ways of perceiving, new ways of being; but they are most of all places of exquisite hope in the possibility of people… this means we have to choose what is seen to matter and then go out and collectively begin to move towards achieving it..”

(Clarke in Stoll, Fink & Earl 2002)

References

National College for School Leadership website: www.ncsl.org.uk

Hattie, J. Teachers Make a Difference What is the research evidence?

Reeves, D.(2008) Leadership and Learning

Monograph Series 43, ACEL

STEP OUT OF THE BOX(EXAMPLE ONLY!!!)

GOAL ONE: PROMOTING CAPACITY FOR DEEP THINKING (STUDENTS AND TEACHERS)

To investigate the embedding of Habits of Mind in the curriculum To implement the Thinking domain into all aspects of the curriculum

GOAL TWO: ENHANCING PEDAGOGY (STUDENT FOCUS) To develop inquiry-based units of work (rich assessment

tasks/essential questions/open-ended) To develop strategies that extend high achieving students To continue to integrate ICT into curriculum

GOAL THREE: EMBEDDING RICH PRACTICE To continue to improve literacy To continue to improve numeracy To explore ESL in the mainstream To use Principles of Learning and Teaching as a reflection tool