Developing Learning Communities Through Teacher Expertise

Giselle O. Martin-Kniep

• Publisher: Corwin
• Year: 2003
• Print ISBN: 9780761946175, 9780761946168
• eBook ISBN: 9781483360812
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

"No book I have read in the past ten years has made clearer to me the difference between what I am doing as a professional developer and what I should be doing. It is so unremittingly honest about the difficulty of our work, and yet so rich in practical examples that I cannot help but feel inspired to move forward and change the way I teach and learn with teachers."
Richard W. Strong, Vice President
Silver Strong & Associates, LLC

"There are many books on the market covering school improvement and teachers as experts as well as staff development; however, this book is concise, provides excellent templates, and is backed by real experiences and expertise."
Suzanne C. Fonoti, Principal
Flagstaff Arizona Unified School District

Forget expensive consultants—use the expertise within your own school for quality professional development!

Martin-Kniep offers practical methods for developing a reflective, collaborative environment where teachers and administrators work together to enhance teachers? practices, increase student learning, and produce valuable school processes. Developing Learning Communities Through Teacher Expertise includes frameworks, templates, and examples that can be employed to determine the value and implications surrounding the use of teacher-designed standards-based curriculum and assessment, data-driven inquiry, and professional portfolios.

Based on work completed at the nonprofit Center for the Study of Expertise in Teaching and Learning, this innovative volume includes:

• Examples of teachers? reflections, portfolio artifacts, and student work
• Sample standards-based curriculum units for different content areas and grade levels
• Discussion questions and recommended readings
• Sample worksheets and self-assessments
• Standards-based curriculum and assessment design tools
• Sample rubrics for student and teacher development

Developing Learning Communities Through Teacher Expertise offers step-by-step instructions for developing an action plan for incorporating learning communities into a school. Providing numerous real-life examples, Martin-Kniep includes three specific teaching units and supporting material, which illustrate how to identify and capitalize on teachers? existing expertise.

1

Learning Communities

We have learned that teaching is not a simple skill but rather a complex cultural activity that is highly determined by beliefs and habits that work partly outside the realm of consciousness.

—J. W. Stiegler and J. Herbert, The Teaching Gap

WHAT ARE LEARNING COMMUNITIES?

Teaching is, for the most part, a lonely act. Teachers and administrators spend much of their workdays directing or enabling other people’s learning and work. Their interactions with adults are limited to brief exchanges or to problem-solving and classroom management situations. “In many cases, teachers share the same feelings of alienation in school that students do. Teacher isolation has permeated schools for decades. Teachers work in their individual classrooms with little time to interact and connect with other adults” (Combs, Miser, & Whitaker, 1999, p. 140).

Learning communities are the means by which we can break such isolation and foster a collaborative and reflective culture. In fact, creating a collaborative environment has been described as “the single most important factor” for successful school improvement initiatives and “the first order of business” for those seeking to enhance the effectiveness of their school (Eastwood & Lewis, 1992, p. 215).

Learning communities can be large or small. They can work within formal structures of collaboration, inquiry, and reflection or can operate loosely. They are composed of teacher leaders who have a shared commitment to teacher, school, or student learning, common goals, or a unified vision. This vision of leadership is consistent with that of Kouzes and Posner (1999), who defined leadership as the art of mobilizing and inspiring others to struggle for shared aspirations.

In this chapter, I pursue the question of how we develop learning communities that embrace the notion of “teachers teaching teachers” by using the experiences we have amassed at the Center for the Study of Expertise in Teaching and Learning (CSETL) to show the power of learning communities in stimulating individual learning and organizational change. In 1995, CSETL began with a group of 15 teachers, all of whom had been identified through work my colleagues and I were doing in the New York City metropolitan area. Each year, CSETL fellows met for 7 full days during the year and for 1 week each summer. Most of the teachers we recruited were eager and curious learners who had acquired significant expertise in standards-based design, portfolio assessment, or action research. Though they experienced much success with their students, they were hungry for learning opportunities that would challenge them as adult learners and help them grow as teachers.

The mechanisms we have used to cultivate learners and to create a learning community can be used in school buildings or school districts as long as there is an overall climate where risk taking is encouraged and celebrated. We have proof of their applicability in that we now have teams of administrators and teachers who replicate in their own schools what they have done in CSETL. Anne Smith, the principal of Cutchogue East Elementary School, in Cutchogue, Long Island, New York, addresses this process:

Ultimately, it is the process of CSETL that is becoming a part of the culture of the school, using CSETL as a model for how teachers and administrators can work together. The process has a profound impact on the quality of instruction so that we think of curriculum embedded assessment programs, not just isolated content we want to teach.

WHY ARE THEY IMPORTANT?

Learning communities are important because they help teachers move away from the immediacy of quick decisions and actions, thus enabling them to ponder questions about how to improve teaching or maximize learning. They also foster collaborative environments that create positive working relationships and help retain teachers.

Learning communities facilitate the exchange of ideas and the use of feedback to improve professional practices. The research on effective teaching indicates that effective teachers elicit information and criticism from others. “Additionally, in the interest of improving their ability to have a positive impact on student learning, these teachers readily accept constructive criticism and reflect upon it” (Stronge, 2002, p. 21).

Learning communities are essential if we are seeking to cultivate the internal capacity of schools to support their continued improvement. In the absence of learning communities, schools must rely exclusively on outside experts for their improvement. Not only is this costly, but it denies the validity of using current staff to determine what needs to be improved in a school and to select the best solutions or strategies to address those needs. There is too much one-shot staff development that seldom becomes fully implemented, let alone institutionalized (Doyle & Ponder, 1977; Guskey, 1986). A learning community culture is necessary for long-lasting change in teachers’ beliefs and practices. There are no alternatives to sustained and focused attention on the development of teachers’ knowledge and skills if we want to improve schools.

WHAT DO LEARNING COMMUNITIES DO? WHAT DO THEY REQUIRE TO FUNCTION?

Learning communities engage in a wide range of activities centered on teaching and learning. These activities include individual and collaborative curriculum development projects, the review and analysis of student work, teachers’ presentations to their peers and others, action research and collaborative inquiry activities, and collaborative reflective work. All of these activities are most effective in an environment where participants share the following beliefs and behaviors:

• Caring deeply about learning

• Feeling free to take risks

• Challenging each other and raising the expectations for everyone

• Respecting and valuing perspectives other than their own by seeking and valuing each other’s input

• Asking questions of themselves and each other, even if the answers are sometimes elusive

These activities are supported by current research on teacher leadership. In a 2-year study of teacher leaders, Swanson (2000) found that teacher leaders challenge the process, inspire a shared vision, enable others to act, model the way, and encourage the heart. When leaders do their best to encourage the heart, they set clear standards, expect the best, pay attention, personalize recognition, tell the story, celebrate together, and set the example.

At CSETL, we promote the preceding behaviors through formal and informal processes. For example, to challenge the process, stimulate teachers’ curiosity for learning, and develop a shared vision, we take time to ponder essential questions such as: What are the non-negotiables of teaching and learning? What aspects of teachers’ expertise are learned while teaching? What are the best ways of gaining and transferring expertise? We discuss these questions, not in search of a definitive answer, but to make our assumptions explicit and to explore the different perspectives we possess as a group. Though these questions may not result in tangible products or processes, they nourish our intellect and force us to delve into our core values and beliefs. Faculty meetings and superintendent conference days would be well served by conversations around essential matters.

CSETL also encourages teachers to develop and publish original standards-based curriculum and assessment prototypes. All fellows are expected to publish a prototype over a 2- to 3-year period. Prototypes can be integrated standards-based units with accompanying assessments, year-long student portfolio designs, action research projects, staff development programs, or program evaluation studies.

CSETL prototype units, such as the ones described in Chapter 2, incorporate critical components of learner-centered, standards-rich curriculum and assessment, including (a) essential and guiding questions that launch and sustain student inquiry throughout the learning experience; (b) standards and indicators from at least two content areas that legitimize the unit’s purpose and space within the overall curriculum; (c) integrated learning and assessment opportunities that consider a range of developmental needs and interests and provide teachers with ongoing feedback about students’ learning; (d) rigor and inquiry to support the need for students to see themselves as researchers as well as active learners immersed in the process of making meaning of new information; (e) authentic culminating assessments that provide a real audience and purpose for students’ work; and (f) reflective and evaluative opportunities that enhance strategic thinking and self-monitoring.

Schools can benefit from supporting individual and collaborative design work aimed at addressing specific classroom, grade, or program needs. I suggest, however, that unlike the fairly typical summer curriculum projects that many schools promote, any design work be accompanied by a quality review and feedback process whereby teachers assess their products against explicit design standards and continuously revise their work to address diverse student needs.

A crucial component of the CSETL process is the forming of groups that work together over time. The members can get to know each other, constantly frame specific agendas for rigorous and useful work, and produce materials for classrooms that are aligned with local standards and excellent pedagogy.

Fellows begin this process by exploring their professional strengths and interests and linking these to their practices. They brainstorm organizing centers or research questions and begin to outline the parameters for their standards-based unit, staff development module, or action research. Much of the prewriting occurs in the first year of CSETL, so writing activities begin in a fellow’s first summer. More often than not, the drafting process takes 6 to 10 additional months, and the prototype is piloted and revised many times in between. Most prototypes are published 2 years after they are begun.

We have created a number of templates to assist fellows in the design process. Appendix B shows one of our most recent templates for the development of standards-based units. School administrators may find this template valuable in helping individuals or groups of teachers who are interested in developing or refining their curriculum.

Though most program fellows receive inservice credit for their work, the deeper rewards for fellows are the opportunity to work on projects that are of personal significance, the ongoing access to a cadre of individuals who are equally committed to their work, and the collective pursuit of wisdom and quality thinking. In many schools or districts, after a couple of years’ experience, fellows play a leading role in staff development.

Fellows seek and value each other’s input through formal processes such as mentoring and buddy arrangements. Through the mentoring process, experienced fellows help probationary and new fellows become part of the organization and community. As is consistent with research by Snell and Swanson (2000), we believe that mentors enhance knowledge acquisition and teach profound lessons about paying attention to human needs. This relationship exists formally for a period of 1 year.

To be considered a mentor, an experienced fellow must have designed, implemented, revised, and published a standards-based curriculum and assessment prototype. Mentors are matched with one to three probationary fellows on the basis of common interests and areas...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• 1. Learning Communities
• 2. Standards-Based Curriculum and Assessment Design
• 3. Data-Driven Inquiry and Action Research
• 4. Professional Portfolios
• 5. Developing an Action Plan
• Appendix A: Description of CSETL and Its Mission
• Appendix B: Unit Design Template
• Appendix C: Application to Become a CSETL Fellow
• Appendix D: Professional Portfolio Rubric
• References
• Index