Professional Learning Communities at Work TM. Robert Eaker
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to ensure he would keep up with his work.
Jim trained Connie in the school’s approach to classroom observation and teacher evaluation before the department chairman and principal began the formal process with her. She became comfortable having Jim observe her teaching and found her debriefing sessions with him to be very helpful. He explained that all the mentors had been trained in analyzing teaching and providing constructive feedback.
Connie expected the principal to be more directive in the teacher evaluation process and anticipated she would receive some kind of rating at the conclusion of her conference with the principal. She was wrong on both counts. The principal asked probing questions: Why did you decide to teach this content? How does it fit with the major outcomes of the course? How did you know students had the prerequisite knowledge and skills to be successful in this unit? Why did you use the instructional strategies you selected? How do you know if students achieved the intended outcomes? What patterns do you see in your teaching? What worked and what did not work in this lesson? If you were to teach this lesson again, would you do anything differently? By the end of the conference, Connie realized that she had done most of the talking and that the principal was simply providing prompts to encourage her to reflect on and articulate her conclusions about her teaching.
Connie was surprised to discover the number of action research projects in progress in her department. For example, teachers were divided on the question of ability grouping. Some argued that remedial classes created a climate of low expectations and were harmful to students. They called for students to be grouped heterogeneously. Others argued that remedial classes offered the best strategy for meeting the special needs of students who had experienced trouble with social studies in the past. The teachers subsequently agreed to put their respective theories to the test. Remedial students were randomly assigned either to heterogeneous classes or to remedial classes, and the teachers agreed on the assessment strategies they would use at the end of the year to see which approach was more effective. In another project, some teachers volunteered to increase their class size by 25% in order to reduce their teaching assignment from five sections to four, thus leaving more time for joint planning. Once again, teachers in the experimental and traditional classes agreed on the criteria they would monitor to determine the effectiveness of each approach.
Connie learned that action research was not limited to her department; in fact, each department had various action research projects underway. She also learned that the school had established a special entrepreneurial fund offering teachers opportunities to develop grant proposals for projects to improve the school. After a review by a faculty committee to determine which proposals offered the greatest promise, the school board provided funding for the implementation of those proposals. It was obvious to Connie that experimentation played an important part in the culture of her new school.
Reflection and dialogue were also essential to the workings of the school. For example, all teachers benefited from peer observation. Teachers created reading clubs that reviewed and discussed books and major articles on teaching and learning. Faculty members participated in a portfolio development project based on the criteria identified by the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards. Department meetings typically opened with a teacher sharing a strategy or insight with colleagues and then responding to questions. Connie was impressed with the lively give and take of these discussions. She noticed that teachers felt comfortable probing and challenging one another’s thinking.
It was soon very evident that ongoing professional growth was expected at this school. The district offered three different areas of concentration—authentic assessment, student-centered learning, or multiple intelligences. Teaching teams agreed to pursue one of these three professional development initiatives for at least three years. Connie’s interdisciplinary team had already opted for authentic assessment. Each school year, five half-days and two full days had been set aside for concentrated focus on these topics.
The faculty members had committed themselves to making a concerted effort to integrate technology into the curriculum. They had agreed to adjust other budget areas in order to fund a full-time technology trainer. This trainer not only offered a regular schedule of technology classes for all staff during their preparation periods; she also provided one-on-one, just-in-time training when individual staff members identified a need. With the trainer’s help, Connie learned to log onto a social studies teachers’ group on the Internet. She enjoyed asking a question and soliciting ideas from colleagues around the world.
Each teacher in the school was asked to develop an individualized professional growth plan in an area of special interest. Connie decided to focus on effective questioning strategies and worked with her department chairman to develop a plan for investigating the topic. The chairman provided her with articles summarizing the research on questioning strategies, and the principal recommended that she observe several teachers who were particularly skilled in questioning. During the next several weeks, Connie implemented some of the strategies she had either read about or observed firsthand. She also requested feedback on her questioning techniques from Jim after he had observed her teaching.
In addition, the district offered a series of workshops and courses that were tied to district goals. Most of these classes were taught by local teachers or administrators. Connie took the course on questioning strategies as well as a series of courses on classroom management, and she received credit on the salary schedule for doing so. The district not only encouraged teachers to be active in their professional organizations, it also contributed toward the membership fee of approved organizations. Connie joined both the National Council of Social Studies Teachers and its state affiliate. The principal, department chairman, and Connie’s colleagues frequently distributed copies of journal articles that they found interesting, and team and department meetings were often devoted to the discussion of the ideas in those articles. The district also published its own professional journal once each year, comprised exclusively of articles written by teachers in the district.
The district’s partnership with a local college served as another stimulus for reflection and productive interchange. Undergraduate students in education were frequent observers and often served as teacher aides in the school. They had many questions after they observed a class. University staff often advised teachers in setting up action research projects. School staff reciprocated by participating in the research of the university. Professors frequently taught units in the high school, and many of the undergraduate and graduate education courses were team-taught by university staff members and a teacher from the district. Late in the year, Connie was invited to share reflections on her experience as a first-year teacher with a class of college students as they prepared for their student teaching assignments.
Connie had been surprised when, shortly after she had accepted her teaching position, the personnel office asked her to complete a survey on her experience as a teaching candidate. As the year went on, she realized that surveys soliciting feedback were frequently used throughout the district. The principal and department chairpersons distributed surveys to the staff for feedback on their performance. Teachers could choose from a variety of survey instruments that gave students the opportunity to comment on the teacher and the class. All seniors were asked to complete a survey reflecting on their high school experience, and the school conducted a phone survey of randomly selected students one year and five years after their graduation to assess their high school experience and to determine their current status.
Parents were surveyed annually to determine their impressions of the school, and the principal and members of the school board participated in neighborhood coffees throughout the district to seek feedback and answer questions from members of the community. Teachers completed annual surveys for assessing the school’s improvement efforts and identifying areas for improvement. They also completed self-evaluation forms on how effectively their teams functioned. It was clear that seeking and considering feedback on performance was the norm both within the school and throughout the district.
Connie considered her common planning time with the members of her interdisciplinary team and several members of her history team to be her most valuable resource. The members of the interdisciplinary team used some of their time to refine integrated curriculum units and to discuss how to apply what they were learning about authentic assessment. Much of this time was spent discussing the students they had in common, identifying