Teachers Learning in Community

Realities and Possibilities

Betty Lou Whitford, Diane R. Wood, Betty Lou Whitford, Diane R. Wood

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781438430607, 9781438430614
• eBook ISBN: 9781438430621
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Curricula

This book raises provocative questions about the efficacy, viability, and sustainability of professional learning communities given the present political and structural realities of public schools. The culmination of six years of research in five states, it explores real world efforts to establish learning communities as a strategy for professional development and school improvement. The contributors look at the realities of these communities in public schools, revealing power struggles, logistical dilemmas, cultural conflicts, and communication problems—all forces that threaten to dismantle the effectiveness of learning communities. And yet, through robust and powerful descriptions of particularly effective learning communities, the authors hold out promise that they might indeed make a difference. Anyone persuaded that learning communities are the new "magic bullet" to fix schools needs to read this book, including teacher educators, educational leaders and practitioners, professional developers, and educational leadership faculty.

1

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES FOR COLLABORATIVE TEACHER DEVELOPMENT

BETTY LOU WHITFORD AND DIANE R. WOOD

In the last decade, reference to “professional learning communities” has dramatically increased in the literature of both education and business.¹ Much of this literature claims that professional learning communities are a major strategy for improving institutions in a changing world. For example, in Professional Learning Communities that Work, Dufour and Eaker (1998) argue, “The most promising strategy for sustained, substantive school improvement is developing the ability of school personnel to function as professional learning communities” (xi).

Schools must cope with changes—either ongoing or projected—in the U.S. economy and in student demographics. They are affected by increasingly sophisticated technologies, media, and communication systems. In order to ensure that their practices are relevant and effective in the face of such sweeping changes, it is essential that adults in schools be learning continually. Since learning is fundamentally a social process (Belenky et al. 1997; Dewey 1997; Vygotsky 1986), teachers need to work in collegial communities that encourage sharing expertise and problem solving; building collective knowledge and exploring relevant outside knowledge; providing critique on existing practices; and inventing, enacting, and analyzing needed innovations. In these ways, learning communities become productive sites for the professional development of teachers, as well as critical leverage points for profound change in school cultures and much-needed whole-school change.

Thus proponents claim that schools must become “learning organizations” (e.g., Darling-Hammond and Sykes 1999; Dufour and Eaker 1998; Fullan 2006; Hargreaves 1994; Senge et al. 2000). Unfortunately, there is a stunning lack of clarity about what actually is being proposed. A wide variety of distinct professional development approaches, school social groupings, and change and improvement strategies appears in the literature labeled “professional learning communities.” What, in fact, is a “learning community”? What purposes should learning communities serve? How do they operate? How do participants interact? How should they interact to fulfill their purposes? What motivates people to participate in them—or resist them? Do these communities actually contribute to school improvement and improve student learning, and how do we know? What conditions would convincingly attest to their efficacy? In the end, how does a learning community differ from any other group of colleagues working together?

In this book, we share what we have learned about the aforementioned questions based on five years of research in an initiative funded in 1999 by the Lucent Technologies Foundation. Called the Peer Collaboration Initiative, the project established “Lucent Learning Communities” (LLCs) in a set of schools in four districts in New Mexico, Washington, Pennsylvania, and Florida. (In a second phase, the foundation funded a district in New Jersey.) The project designers intended to provide and support an innovative vehicle for teachers' professional development. Within the Peer Collaboration Initiative, we came to define LLCs as small groups of educators who meet regularly to engage in systematic, ongoing, peer support and critique in order to improve their educational practices and student learning. To scaffold their efforts, the LLCs used a priori guides (known as protocols²) to structure their conversations as they shared professional practices and artifacts of student learning.

In chapter 2 we describe in detail the Peer Collaboration Initiative and the research we conducted. Here in chapter 1, to illustrate what we mean by “learning community,” we present two vignettes drawn from our field notes of direct observations. Throughout our documentation process, we were guided by Flyvbjerg and Sampson's (2001) conception of “social science that matters,” that is, research that aims to contribute to practical wisdom about human welfare—and we can think of few institutions that offer more toward the common good than public schools. With that in mind, we intend for the two vignettes to shed light on the practice, problems, and possibilities of teachers' learning communities, particularly because such communities are so often invoked as the means of improving student learning.

The first vignette is from a highly functioning LLC; the second is from one far less developed. Through points of comparison and contrast, we seek to accomplish three purposes. First, we illustrate key features of the learning communities we studied. Second, we provide a common text for readers that can be used as a point of reference in later chapters. Third, we conclude the chapter with a discussion of what these vignettes imply about ways to foster and sustain teacher learning in the community.

A LINCOLN ELEMENTARY LLC

The following vignette depicts a meeting occurring about seven months into the life of this particular learning community. The LLC is composed of six fifth-grade teachers at Lincoln Elementary, one of two schools serving students in the district's lowest socioeconomic neighborhoods. Lincoln enrolls about 700 students from diverse racial and cultural backgrounds. The teachers meet twice a month for two hours. While all have between two to four years' experience as members of an LLC, this is the first year that this group has met. And, while the facilitator has four years' experience as an LLC coach at Lincoln, this vignette occurs during her first year working with this group. On this day, the participants experienced a breakthrough. For the first time, a teacher brought an example of a student's work with her and candidly confessed frustration in working with that student.

It's a gloomy February day at Lincoln Elementary School, one of the poorest schools in this East Coast, mid-size urban district. In a second-floor classroom, a group of six teachers gathers around a table cluttered with food, coffee cups, pop cans, and papers. Speaking over the animated laughter and chatter, Alice, a teacher serving as coach for the group, speaks up, “Okay, we'd better get started. I just want to remind you of our norms, especially number one.” She grins and then gestures toward a poster propped up on a bookcase. It reads:

1. Be punctual.
2. Be honest. Give constructive criticism and listen to constructive criticism.
3. Share the air. Give everyone a voice.
4. Stay on topic. Use time efficiently.
5. Try to reach an equitable consensus when possible, but report all voices and opinions.
6. Be prepared.
7. Be flexible with norms by revisiting them from time to time.

Voices hush. Alice continues, “Okay, Mary Ann, you're presenting today. Remember you've got five to ten minutes to describe your dilemma. We'll listen and we won't interrupt. Then we get a crack at asking some questions for about five minutes or so. After that, Mary Ann listens and we discuss the problem. Then we'll debrief. You know the drill, right?” She gestures to an easel holding a chart. The chart reads:

Protocol

Presenter presents dilemma (10 minutes)

Clarifying questions (5 minutes)

Probing questions (5 minutes)

Discussion (15 minutes)

Presenter responds (5 minutes)

Debrief the process (5 minutes)

Mary Ann begins, “Since fall, I've been trying to create a kid-friendly rubric. You know, one that makes my expectations clear? I'm using math exemplars from past versions of the state tests with the kids as in-class assignments. I don't know if these test questions are realistic for some kids, but I suppose I'll never know unless I try hard to help them. Anyway, I'm hoping to get this group of kids better prepared than last year's. I'm pretty frustrated, though.” Mary Ann has launched the group into its work.

“I brought this example of one kid's work. As you can probably see, he's trying to solve one of the exemplars. [She distributes copies of a mathematical word problem that entails being able to sort out relevant and irrelevant information and analyze a simple graph.] It's typical of what happens when some kids work on these problems. You can see there's more guessing than estimating. You can also see that he's not quite sure which information from this word problem he needs and which information is just beside the point.”

Mary Ann goes on to provide more detail about why the student's work had troubled her. Eventually, she says, “I need to figure out what to do here.”

The five other teachers lean forward, listening carefully. One says, “So do you have a particular question you want us to consider with you?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about the question. Well, let's see. I guess I want to know, ‘How can I create a kid-friendly rubric that shows kids what is expected of them?’ ”

Alice speaks up at this point. “Since I'm the facilitator today, I want to remind everyone that we can take several minutes for clarifying questions.”

Jeff pipes up immediately, “You say this is typical. How many of the kids are struggling like this kid?” Over the next few minutes, the group peppers Mary Ann with questions to put her dilemma in a clearer context. “How much experience with problems like these had you given the kids before you assessed them?” “Have you laid out the steps for the kids?” “Have you asked them to explain their problem solving to each other?” The questioning continues, until Jean asks, “Since this is a word problem, have you thought about how much your student's reading level might be affecting things?”

Before Mary Ann can answer, Alice jumps in: “We've sort of organically moved into probing questions. So, if it's okay with everyone, let's start asking the probing questions. You know what I mean. These are the questions to help Mary Ann to look more deeply at what's going on here. We've got five minutes. Go for it.” Jean repeats her question. Mary Ann responds, “Well, I certainly check out reading scores and take that into consideration, but in lots of cases, I don't think that's the real problem.”

The questions come slowly at first but then gain momentum:

“Have you asked the kids to think aloud as they work through these problems?”

“Are you having the kids work together on any of these, so they can talk about how they're trying to solve them?”

“Do you think this kid really ‘gets’ the concepts involved here, or is he just trying to go through a memorized procedure?”

“Do you think you've given enough scaffolds to support this kid's problem-solving process? Do you know if he's got some misconceptions about how to solve this kind of problem?”

“Do you give the kids a chance to look at their work afterward and revise?”

Mary Ann answers the questions and takes occasional notes. At times, she answers a question quickly and decisively. At others, she looks surprised or puzzled. Occasionally, she winces and smiles painfully. A little more than five minutes into the process, Alice announces, “We need to move to discussion.” Mary Ann pushes her chair back from the table, signaling her role as a listener rather than participant. The group begins their discussion.

“I think it's important that Mary Ann gathered these exemplars and that she's trying to help kids be successful,” says one teacher. Another responds, “I agree, and the fact that she chose this particular exemplar shows she's got high expectations for kids.”

After a brief silence, someone remarks, “I admire her for bringing a student's actual work here. It's hard to share a sense of failure, you know?” Alice good-naturedly quips, “Yeah, leave it to Mary Ann. She's always the first one in the door—ready or not!” They laugh.

“You know I can't get the reading aspect of this out of my head. I wonder if Mary Ann worked with small groups of kids and had them read the problem aloud if it might help her. Oral reading can sometimes show you a lot.”

“Okay, but her question is about a rubric. Remember she said she wanted kids to be clear about her expectations?”

“I know, but if part of what you have to do to solve a problem like this is read with comprehension, then shouldn't that be a criterion on the rubric?”

“So how's having that on a rubric going to help a kid who's struggling with reading? You can have all kinds of rubric criteria, but what good does it do?”

“Wait a minute! Are we getting rubrics mixed up with something else here? Maybe Mary Ann's not looking for a rubric here? I don't think this is really about making expectations for a final product clear. I think what this is really about is helping kids know how to think through a problem like this. It's almost like she wants a checklist to help kids with the mental process. Aren't rubrics for assessing products?”

“Maybe you're right. What Mary Ann is really asking is how to give kids a way to think about this kind of problem. Maybe a rubric could actually do that. She wants the kids to monitor how they're thinking about the problem, right? I keep going back to reading comprehension, though. It's so central to all this.”

Mary Ann's colleagues discuss her dilemma from multiple angles, turning it over like a prism in the conversations, looking for insights and possible strategies. Alice remarks, “I keep wondering if the kids need a lot more practice. This problem actually requires kids to sort out a lot of relevant and irrelevant information.” Jeff jumps in, “I agree. And I'm thinking about that idea I brought up earlier. What if the kids could do these exemplars in groups and explain their thinking out loud? Wouldn't they get better at doing it on their own?” Lisa replies, “Actually, this whole discussion has me wondering how I might rethink my own approach to giving kids these practice problems. I want to figure out how to help the slow readers understand the problem so I can separate out the difference between reading skills and math skills. I guess I'm in the same boat as Mary Ann. Seems like the same kids keep struggling, you know?” Alice responds, “Yeah, and how do you help those kids without boring the others out of their tree?”

“Listen, the more I think about this, the more I'm convinced we need to integrate our literacy instruction with math instruction. When kids ‘get’ these problems, they've grown by leaps and bounds in reading comprehension, don't you think?” Mary Ann writes furiously and, by turns, frowns with concentration or grins in delight. Throughout, she is silent. After ten minutes or so passes, Alice says, “Well, we're running out of time. Let's have Mary Ann tell us what she's heard.”

“Wow! All I can say is that was amazing! I've got tons of good ideas!” Mary Ann responds enthusiastically and then enumerates suggestions and questions she plans to pursue. She ends with, “Of course, you were completely off the wall on some things. [Everyone laughs.] I mean, some suggestions you made just aren't my style and some just wouldn't work with my kids. But one thing that's really clear to me now is that my question wasn't right. What I really want to know is how to scaffold kids' thinking on problems like this.”

At this point, the whole group d...

Table of contents

• Series Page
• 1 Professional Learning Communities …
• 2 Creating Learning Communities
• 3 Learning Communities
• 4 Learning Communities in an Era…
• 5 Context and Collaboration
• 6 Deepening the Work
• 7 What's to Not Like about Professional
• 8 A Look to the Future
• About the Authors