Professional Learning Communities at Work TM. Robert Eaker
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unified strategies for helping those students. Because the history team did not share the same students, its discussions focused more on ideas for teaching particular units and assessing students’ understanding in general.
At the end of the semester, Connie worked with her teams to analyze the results of student performance on the common comprehensive assessments the teams had developed. First, they compared the students’ achievements to the anticipated proficiency levels the teams had set. Then they compared the results to their longitudinal study of past student performance. They identified areas of concern and then brainstormed steps that they might take to improve the level of student achievement. Finally, they wrote a brief summary of their analysis and improvement plan and sent copies to the principal and their department chairpersons.
Connie felt there was never enough time to do everything that was required, but she appreciated the efforts the school had made to provide teachers with time to plan, reflect, and collaborate. In addition to the teacher planning days at the start of the year, the five half-days and three full days set aside for professional development, and the common preparation periods allocated for teaching teams, teachers were given two hours every two weeks for planning and conferencing. This was possible because a few years earlier the faculty had agreed to extend the school day by 10 minutes each day in exchange for a two-hour block every other Wednesday when teachers could work together on joint projects. The principal emphasized the importance of teacher collaboration by assuring her faculty that she would provide substitutes for any team that needed more time to complete its work. She also had an enlisted corps of parent volunteers who would substitute for this purpose as needed.
That spring, teaching teams were invited to develop proposals for summer curriculum projects. The proposal form called on each team to describe what it wanted to accomplish, how the project was related to departmental and school visions, and what the project would produce. Connie’s interdisciplinary team submitted a proposal for creating two units that linked American literature, United States history, and scientific principles. After their plan was approved by the faculty committee that reviewed project proposals, the team members coordinated their calendars to find a week during the summer break when everyone would be available.
On three different occasions during the year, Connie participated in small-group discussions on proposals developed by different school improvement task forces. The task forces—composed of teachers, parents, and students—were convened to generate strategies for addressing priorities that had been identified by the school. One task force submitted a proposal to increase student participation in co-curricular activities. Another offered strategies for teaching students to accept increasing responsibility for their learning as they advanced from their freshman to senior years. The third proposed a systematic way of monitoring each student’s academic progress and responding to any student who was in danger of failing. Each proposal included the criteria with which the long-term impact of its recommendations should be assessed. Connie learned that every teacher in the school was expected to participate in these improvement task forces from time to time, and that one of the primary responsibilities of each task force was to build a consensus in support of its recommendations. It became apparent that proposals often had to be revised several times before that consensus could be reached.
At the end of the school year, Jim asked Connie to reflect on her overall experience. She acknowledged that not every lesson had gone well and that there had been days when she was frustrated and perplexed. Teaching had turned out to be much more difficult and complex than she had ever imagined. She had expected that her enthusiasm for history would be contagious and that her students would learn to love the subject just as she had. She now had to acknowledge that some did not seem to care for history at all, and she wondered why she had been unable to generate their enthusiasm. She had been certain that she would be able to reach every student, and when one of her students elected to withdraw from school saying, “This school sucks!” she questioned why she had been unable to connect with him. She admitted she did not understand where her responsibility for student learning ended and the student’s began. She often asked herself if she were doing too much or not enough to help each student succeed in her class.
She had been quite certain she knew all the answers when she decided to become a teacher, but as she worked through her first year of actual experience, she felt as though she had more questions than answers. It was not until the second semester that she came to realize that good teaching is driven by such questions. She gradually came to a clearer understanding and appreciation of the section of the school’s vision statement that said, “We will be a school that is noted for two characteristics: our commitment to promoting the success of every student and our continuous discontent with the immediate present.” In her school, the process of searching for answers was more important than actually having answers.
It was clear that every teacher was called on to ask him- or herself each day, “How can I be more effective in my efforts to be a positive influence in the lives of the students entrusted to me?” Yet, it was equally clear that teachers were never to conclude that they had arrived at the definitive answer to any fundamental question. The year had been exhilarating and exhausting, fun and frustrating, but at its end, despite all of the unanswered questions, Connie was certain of one thing—her life would be spent teaching!
The experience described above could not occur in a school that continues to operate according to the principles of the industrial model. Connie’s school offers a fundamentally different model based on significantly different assumptions, beliefs, and behaviors. The challenge of implementing this model is determining how schools can initiate and sustain a change process that transforms their traditional culture so that they can function as professional learning communities.
Summary
The assumptions that have guided the operation of schools since the late nineteenth century were based on the factory model and its reliance on centralization, standardization, hierarchical top-down management, a rigid sense of time, and accountability based on adherence to the system. That model is no longer valid in a post-industrial, knowledge-based society. Researchers both inside and outside of education have arrived at the same conclusions regarding a new model that offers the best hope for stimulating significant improvement in the ability of schools to achieve their objectives. This model requires schools to function as professional learning communities characterized by a shared mission, vision, and values; collective inquiry; collaborative teams; an orientation toward action and a willingness to experiment; commitment to continuous improvement; and a focus on results. The scenario that ends the chapter describes how a school organized as a professional learning community might function during the course of a typical school year.
Chapter 3
The Complexity of the Change Process
The issue is not that individual teachers and schools do not innovate and change all the time. They do. The problem is with the kinds of changes that occur in the educational system, their fragile quality, and their random and idiosyncratic nature.
—The Consortium on Productivity in the Schools (1995, p. 23)
We are wise to believe it is difficult to change, to recognize that character has a forward propulsion which tends to carry it unaltered into the future, but we need not believe it is impossible to change…. We create ourselves. The sequence is suffering, insight, will, action, change.
—Allen Wheelis (1973, pp. 101–102)
Those who review the research for help on how to implement and sustain a successful change process are likely to become confused. Consider the following explanations that have been offered for the failure of school reform initiatives:
• The change moved too fast—people were overwhelmed.
• The change moved too slowly—people lost their enthusiasm.
• The change lacked strong leadership from the principal.
• The change relied too heavily on the leadership of a strong principal.
• The change was too big and attacked too much at once—people change incrementally, not holistically.