Protocols for Professional Learning (The Professional Learning Community Series)

Lois Brown Easton

• Publisher: ASCD
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9781416608370
• eBook ISBN: 9781416616375
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Protocols for Professional Learning is your guide to helping PLCs successfully explore any topic. You'll find step-by-step instructions for implementing 16 different protocols that can be used to examine student work or professional practice, address problems with students or among faculty, and facilitate effective discussions.

About the PLC series: Welcome to an adventure! If you are a teacher who is interested in developing a professional learning community to develop your classroom repertoire and increase your students' achievement and motivation, you are in for a treat. A professional learning community (PLC) is a small group of teachers or administrators that meets regularly and works between meetings to accomplish shared goals. PLCs are vehicles for connecting teacher practice and student outcomes, improving both.

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Chapter 1

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What Protocols Are and Why to Use Them

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Protocols in Action

Dave, a science teacher, brought several science portfolios for his interdisciplinary team to examine. Though each portfolio was more than 30 pages long and bulky with drawings and charts, Dave assured us that we didn't have to read them all in depth. Nor did we have to assess them. He requested that we use the Tuning Protocol for our discussion—a process for fine tuning what we do as educators by examining student work or artifacts of teacher practice (such as lesson plans).

Because we knew each other well and met regularly, we indulged only in "checking in" as a starting activity. Dave began with these words:

"I'm really proud of these portfolios. I think that—at last—I've found a way to link curriculum, instruction, and assessment, all in this one format, the portfolio. Things make sense to me, and also to my students. I'd like to take you through one portfolio while you look through the others. They follow the same format."

Dave opened the portfolio he had kept and took us through it as we looked at the ones in front of us.

"Here's the problem: I'm not sure that portfolios stimulate students to think at the highest levels. I'm not sure what levels of Bloom's taxonomy are represented in these portfolios, but I suspect that only the three lowest are. I definitely want science students to be analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating. So my key questions are these: What can you tell me about the levels of thinking in these portfolios, and how can I be sure that student work reflects the higher levels of thinking?"

Dave gave the group the remaining 8 minutes of his 15-minute time period to pore through the portfolios. We did so quietly, although we had questions and were beginning to test some hypotheses. We knew that during this part of our process, we were to say nothing; Dave had the floor, even though he was staying quiet so we could examine the portfolios. Janelle, who was serving as facilitator and timekeeper, told us when Dave's time was up. "Let's go on to clarifying questions," Janelle said.

Raul asked the first question. "How long have you been doing portfolios in science, Dave?" Dave replied that he started on them in February of last year. Other group members asked clarifying questions until the time was up. We knew that we would never have all the information we needed, but we would have enough to tune what Dave had brought us.

After five minutes for asking clarifying questions, we had five minutes to write. Dave repeated his key questions, and all of us, including Dave, began our writing with these in mind. Sometimes writing about the clarifying questions takes a group in a direction different from the one established by the presenter; in this case, I thought Dave's questions were on target and wrote steadily on them until the five minutes were up.

Next it was time for our 15-minute dialogue about the questions. Dave pulled back from the group slightly and turned aside so that we couldn't make eye contact with him. His doing so helped us focus on what he had brought us to tune rather than on him. It helped us "own" the task. We would be less likely to say "you" than "it" or "he." Dave was like a fly on the wall, listening to brilliant dialogue among his trusted colleagues! He took notes so that he could respond later in the process.

It didn't take us long to establish that Dave's concern was on target. Students were not demonstrating that they were thinking at higher levels in their portfolios. We pointed to examples in the portfolios. At last, Desmond captured the problem: "What the students are writing about is not what they think or what they learned, but what they did—time after time." We checked out his assertion, and true enough, the portfolios reflected a "reporting" level of student thinking.

Dave was rapidly taking notes, writing what he heard us say on one side of his paper and his thoughts and reflections about what we said on the other. Eventually, we switched our focus to what Dave could do to help his students think about what they were doing. We generated quite a list, ranging from the simple ("Provide a time at the end of each science activity for students to reflect on what they have done and what they learned") to the more elaborate ("Teach students Bloom's taxonomy and have students write about what they have done in a way that matches each level of Bloom").

Midway through our dialogue, Janelle asked us how we were doing with warm and cool feedback. We realized that we had become so engrossed in what Dave had brought us to work on and in our own interests in using portfolios that we might not have given Dave enough warm feedback. We quickly made up for our omission, letting Dave listen in as we talked about how impressed we were that he was using portfolios and how big a jump that was from typical ways of assessing science. We affirmed that we each wanted to use portfolios ourselves. We shared our excitement about the integrity of the portfolio process, and our belief that it aligns curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Janelle checked on how we were doing with Dave's key questions, and we all agreed that we were addressing them almost to the exclusion of other questions that might have come up. "But that's okay," said Janelle, "As long as we do address them." Finally, she checked whether everyone was getting enough air time. We quickly decided that no one was dominating the dialogue and everyone was getting a chance to contribute. Then we resumed talking until time was up.

Dave, who had been silent during our work, entered the group again, with a big grin on his face. He talked to us about what he had heard—processing it out loud in front of us, pushing our ideas deeper. He corrected some of our observations about the portfolio but concentrated on the fact, now so obvious, that the students were simply representing what they had done, not what they had learned, in their portfolios. He exulted over the ideas for remedying the situation and added a few other ideas. We were quiet during Dave's reflection time.

Now it was time for open conversation, first about the content and then about the process. Some of us averred that we had learned immensely, even though the focus was on science and, more specifically, assessment in science. In fact, each of us declared our intent to try portfolios sometime before the end of the year. Alison asked if Dave wanted to coach the rest of us in designing portfolios for different purposes in our content areas.

When we began to focus on the process, we agreed that, once again, it had worked. It protected the presenter—who, after all, had taken some risk bringing student work to be examined—and it drove the thinking deeper. Dave summarized: "I think that if we had just begun to talk about this in a discussion, we wouldn't have gotten this far."

As happens in such processes, our conversation continued far after our meeting had adjourned. In the hallways and at lunch, the eight of us continued to talk about levels of thinking; integrity of curriculum, instruction, and assessment; and portfolios. Faculty who hadn't attended our meeting were curious about what we were doing and asked if they could join us next time or even form their own groups. "Sure," Desmond said. "You're welcome to join our group, but we don't want it to get too big. Why don't I help you form your own groups?"

What Protocols Are

Dave and his group were engaging in professional learning using the Tuning Protocol—one of many protocols that educators have been using for substantive conversation since the late 1980s. In general, protocols are processes that help groups achieve deep understanding through dialogue that may lead to effective decision making (although decision making and problem solving are not typically the end goals of protocols). Protocols allow groups to explore ideas deeply through student work, artifacts of educator practice, texts relating to education, or problems and issues that surface during the day-to-day lives of educators.

Allen (1998) notes that, even if protocols focus on student work, their purpose is to "move beyond grading and evaluation of the work to discussion that contributes to teachers' understandings of students' learning and their own instructional practice" (p. 3). The National School Reform Faculty (NSRF), which developed and helped people learn many of the protocols in use today, suggests that protocols "consist of guidelines for conversation" ("Why Protocols?," n.d., ¶ 1). According to NSRF, the structure of a protocol that "everyone understands and has agreed to" permits "a certain kind of conversation … [that] people are not in the habit of having" (¶ 1).

People may at first be put off by the word "protocol." As McDonald (1996) says, "Some readers … may think protocol a pretentious word." He declares, however, that he likes the word, as "its two principal meanings reflect some deep dynamics." First there is the diplomatic meaning of the word, where a protocol "provides a way for people with different interests, even deeply antagonistic interests, to interact productively and respectfully while protecting those interests.… A protocol in the diplomatic sense is a kind of treaty governing a particular realm of interactions." Then there is the scientific meaning, as "a plan for inquiry" (p. 205).

Allen (1998) more specifically describes protocols as follows:

• They are facilitated. The facilitator may be from inside or outside the school.
• They are structured. Time is allotted for different activities and for different participants to speak—and listen.
• All those taking part share norms for participation, for example, respect for the student whose work is being discussed. (pp. 85–86)

Allen and Blythe (2004) elaborate: "While different protocols vary in significant features, they all do two things: (1) provide a structure for conversation—a series of steps that a group follows in a fixed order, and (2) specify the roles different people in the group will play (typically, a facilitator, a presenter, and participants)" (p. 9).

Above all, protocols provide the means for professional discussion, unlike that usually found in a faculty lounge (or even typical faculty meetings!). The issue or text being discussed anchors professional conversation to the realities of educators' lives.

Protocols help educators build collaborative communities, sometimes called critical friends groups (CFGs) or professional learning communities (PLCs). According to the NSRF, "protocols are vehicles for building the skills—and culture—necessary for collaborative work. Thus, using protocols often allows groups to build trust by actually doing substantive work together" ("Why Protocols?," n.d., ¶ 1).

Aspects of a Protocol

Allen and Blythe (2004) maintain that "a well-designed protocol is more than the sum of its steps" (p. 20). They point out that protocols have a certain feel or spirit to them due to a series of tensions between

• Talking and listening,
• Discipline and play,
• Safety and risk, and
• Individual learning and group learning.

Protocols are also affected by the experiences, backgrounds, skills, and self-concepts of those involved in them; by the student work or professional practice that they are working on; and by the protocol facilitator. They are not as simple as they seem initially.

Some aspects of protocols make them difficult for some people to engage in right away. For example, according to Allen (1998), staff in traditional schools may find protocols challenging because, according to the culture in those schools, people

• Avoid controversy if at all possible.
• Seek autonomy and isolate themselves (i.e., privatize their work).
• Guard what they do and what their students do, or share only in the form of "show and tell."
• Prefer to share "tips and tricks" rather than student work or deeper aspects of their professional practice.

We can, of course, continue to engage in the same kind of professional development we've always engaged in (sage-on-the-stage) and continue to get the same results we've always gotten (see Allen's list above), or we can change culture by working with each other in different ways. As I note in Powerful Designs for Professional Learning (Easton, 2008), "schools and districts cannot wait until the context [culture] for professional learning is perfect. Having assessed context and made as many changes in context as possible, schools and districts should engage in professional learning [such as protocols]. These professional learning opportunities themselves will improve the context for powerful professional learning" and the potential for real change for all the learners in our school systems (p. 11).

Origins of Protocols

The word "protocol" is derived from the Greek protokollon, which in turn is derived partly from the Greek word kolla, meaning "glue." That's an apt word to describe what a protocol does in education—it glues together people in a group as well as diverse ideas through a process.

The origin of protocols owes something to the innovation of directly assessing student writing rather than looking at a proxy (e.g., multiple-choice questions on a test), which revolutionized writing instruction in the 1970s. Cooper (1977) described a scoring process that involves setting anchors, establishing a rubric, and double-blind (sometimes triple-blind) scoring of each student piece. He declared that this process made writing assessment less subjective than ordinary classroom evaluation of student work. Elbow (1981), Graves (1983), Calkins (1986), Shaughnessy (1977), and the National Writing Project (Lieberman & Wood, 2002) all contributed to the creation of protocols by sharing what they learned from directly examining student work. Looking directly at art portfolios and work samples from the business world also had an impact on the development of protocols.

McDonald (1996) describes how protocols migrated from his classroom to a Boston meeting sponsored by IBM in 1991. He and others planning the meeting asked five schools they were studying to supply student work "generated by their exhibition systems." This was risky business; as McDonald noted, "most teachers and principals are not used to talking about such matters as the vision of performance that prompted the design of their assessments, the standards they use in evaluating performance, or the mechanisms they employ to reflect on their assessment systems" (p. 211). McDonald and his colleagues conceptualized the protocol as a tuning—"a kind of inquiry that schools might best tune up their standards and tune into others' values by engaging in joint investigations of the qualities of actual student performance" (pp. 211–212). They decided that, if participants took turns, it "would make the seminar safe for honesty and risk taking" (p. 212). They also decided that "during the response turn" they would ask "for a balance between warm and cool comments but without blending" them (p. 213). They discovered that "the freedom lent by turn-taking without interruption to ask, think, and prioritize responses" enriched the dialogue (p. 216).

The above characteristics are still vital in the many protocols that have been developed since 1992, notably by the participants in the 1992 Fall Forum of the Coalition of Essential Schools; the California Center for School Restructuring (CCSR), led by Maggie Szabo, Joel Shawn, and Steve Jubb; a school network in the Bronx, New York, including the famed Central Park East Secondary School, the principal of which was Deborah Meier; and through the development of the Bronx Protocol by Paul Allison of University Heights High School in the Bronx and David Allen of the Annenberg Institute, who brought the California and Bronx protocols together. One key decision the CCSR made was about whether protocols were to be used as "show and tell," during which schools bragged of their work and expected praise, or as a learning process that involved candid confessions of reality and earnest assistance through warm and cool feedback towards improvement and learning. The latter approach won.

At about the same time as these early protocols were developed and refined, Steve Seidel and colleagues at Harvard Project Zero were developing the Collaborative Assessment Conference, which "invites teachers to look at, describe, and ask questions about pieces of work in order to develop a deeper understanding of the student who created it, of that student's interests and strengths, and of the teaching/learning environment" (Blythe, Allen, & Powell, 2007, pp. 11–12). Similarly, Patricia Carini and colleagues at the Prospect Center in Vermont were developing The Descriptive Review of a Child, which focuses on collaborative observation and description. According to Allen (1998), Carini and others "have led us away from making judgments about the quality of a child's work to describing the multiple qualities that inhere in every product of human effort" (p. 8).

All of these people and ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. What Protocols Are and Why to Use Them
• Chapter 2. The Nuts and Bolts of Using Protocols
• Chapter 3. Protocols for Examining Student Work
• Chapter 4. Protocols for Examining Professional Practice
• Chapter 5. Protocols for Addressing Issues and Problems
• Chapter 6. Protocols for Effective Discussions
• Online Resources
• References
• About the Author
• Related ASCD Resources
• Copyright