The 3 Cs of Professional Learning

I was putting some resources together for a professional learning community group that I'm involved in and I came across this great resource written by my friend and colleague, Dr. Parry Graham:

THE THREE Cs OF PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
http://cnx.org/content/m14270/1.1/

While collaboration between adults in a schoolhouse is essential to improvement, it is often an elusive goal that founders in the face of challenge. “The process of creating a professional learning community can be difficult, lengthy, and incredibly rewarding,” writes Dr. Parry Graham—school administrator and regular contributor to the High Five Professional Learning Communities Online Forum—in this article endorsed by the National Council of the Professors of Educational Administration. True collaboration requires conversations, contention and commitment. “This article examines those three Cs [and the role they] play in the development of a professional learning community.”

Parry contends that conversations, contention and commitment are essential to adult learning in any schoolhouse.

Is that true in your experience?

Which of the three is most essential to successful adult learning? Which do schools struggle with the most? Can these 3 Cs develop independently of one another? Can schools restructuring as professional learning communities possibly be successful without them?

Blind Leading the Blind?

I've gotten into the habit of following the weekly focused conversations that Education Week hosts with experts across the professional spectrum. Tackling topics ranging from merit pay to mentoring, I find these chats to be a source of diverse viewpoints that stretch my thinking. Following the Crucial Conversations concept of "filling the pool of shared knowledge," Ed Week has done a great job making education policy approachable.

This week's conversation focused on teacher directed professional development. Guest experts from the Teacher Leaders Network took questions on the power of professional learning teams, structuring teacher directed professional development at the high school level and the role that action research can play in identifying instructional practices that work. Practitioners and policymakers alike submitted questions that were answered with a first hand understanding of what high quality, job embedded professional development looks like at the school level.

Perhaps the most intriguing question in the conversation came from Dr. Francis Gardner, an Emeritus Professor of Biology at Columbus State University, who wrote:

I have conducted over 30 teacher workshops (in content mostly; space science and biology) and taken more than 15 workshops and Chatauqua courses myself. My concern and question(s) is/are: Can the blind lead the blind; especially in critical areas that need reform?

Certainly we need the expertise only obtained by experience, but too often this trumps good, sound research. For example, education has been fraught with "trends and fads" for more than 100 years; usually created by complex interactions, especially in teacher education programs, with little input from content experts.

What checks and balances will be used in these "in-school" staff development programs? Does this approach offer just another over-simplified lip-service to "improving education"?


Gardner's post pushed my thinking...but not about teacher-directed professional development. He left me wondering how we've gotten to the point where the first-hand knowledge of practitioners is described as something other than "good, sound research."

Why is it that content specialists are seen as "experts" yet decisions based on classroom expertise qualifies as nothing more than "trends and fads?" How can outsiders judge sophisticated conversations between colleagues as "just another over-simplified lip-service," while demanding "checks and balances" for teacher driven professional development?

How can we---as accomplished teachers who understand the complexity of our work-- begin to re-establish credibility beyond our classrooms?

Learning to Analyze....

I came across an interesting idea today proposed by a reader who was responding to my thoughts on the difficult conversations that come when teachers tackle data. She wrote:

"The idea of reshaping instruction and differentiating is very frightening for some. What is more, there is limited serious professional development about what this change means for veteran teachers, how it changes everything from classroom management to daily lesson plans. It is much harder then just saying, "Let's look at our test scores." However, that is usually what happens with poor results. Most teachers with 5+ years in the classroom have never been taught that, and data analysis is still not required for most credentials."

What if we made data analysis course work a requirement for earning a teaching credential? We're constantly pushing education towards "data driven reform" and "scientifically proven programs," yet few educators have the skills that it takes to manipulate data at the classroom level in a meaningful way.

Intriguing....

Would we be more effective and influential as a profession if part of our preparation was spent learning to manipulate data? Would data analysis skills allow us to better define and defend our instructional practices?

An Exam Meritocracy...

In a recent article titled Five Myths About U.S. Kids Outclassed by the Rest of the World, Paul Farhi of the Washington Post cites a conversation between Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria and Singapore's education minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam. In it, Shanmugaratnam was asked why his country consistently ranks higher than the United States on international math and science exams, yet fails to produce top-ranked scientists, business leaders and inventors.

Shanmugaratnam answered that America, "is a talent meritocracy, ours is an exam meritocracy. There are some parts of the intellect that we are not able to test well -- like creativity, curiosity, a sense of adventure, ambition. Most of all, America has a culture of learning that challenges conventional wisdom, even if it means challenging authority. These are the areas where Singapore must learn from America."

How can we--as teacher leaders--make the case for the return of intellectual curiosity to our classrooms? How can we help to convince policymakers--or more importantly, parents--that creative thinking and innovation should be a part of every classroom, every day?

We often bristle at the increased role that standardized testing is playing in our profession because we know that meaningful instruction and assessment is far more complex than the skills often emphasized in test-driven classrooms, but what have we done to make the case for more sophisticated measures of student--and school--achievement?

Have we--as a profession--allowed America to become an exam meritocracy? Have we stood silent, watching as educational decisionmakers pushed creativity and innovation aside in order to secure a higher ranking in international exams?

What do we lose when we sit on the sidelines during these debates?

Our Bulemic Reality...

In a recent comment, Mike Ford wrote, "Teachers are the stability of the system. They must lead, create, and work to sustain all professional developments if the system is to enjoy quality. Unfortunately, in too many systems, a paternalistic or maternalistic view of leadership exists. Folks look to the top to drive change, and, alas...we end up with bulemic systems that binge and purge per the whim of the leader du jour."

Talk about on point, Mike. I've been through literally dozens of binges and purges in my 14 years of teaching, never quite understanding how each new decision played a part in the development of human capacity within our organization. While individually, every opportunity was valuable, none was given the complete time and attention necessary to become an integral part of the "way we do things" in our building. Instead, we seemed to flitter from one program to the next---in the proverbial "inch deep, mile wide" approach to professional learning.

And I agree that a "paternalistic view of leadership" still serves as a barrier to true teacher engagement in decisionmaking---but I hold teachers equally accountable for that reality. In the end, teachers have a responsibility to step forward and lead. All too often, we're willing to vent frustration at our lack of involvement, but we do little to make empowerment less risky and more rewarding. Instead of developing the kinds of relationships with leaders that inspire confidence, we sit back and take the "this-too-shall-pass" approach to our interactions with school administrators.

Here's an interesting question: Where does the primary responsibility for engaging teachers in key decisionmaking rest? Do school administrators bear a greater burden in seeking out accomplished teachers who can advise and lead school change? Or do teacher leaders bear the responsibility for building positive working relationships with administrators that can lead to greater classroom influence over decisionmaking?

How do we restore balance to the administrator/teacher relationship in schools? After all, Roland Barth reminds us time and again that the key to success in schools is the relationship between the adults involved in education. Are positive working relationships a matter of luck--happening only when the right people come together in the right place, or can they be taught and implemented across schools, driving systemic change?

Closing the Gap...

I got into an interesting conversation with a colleague who is a cooperating teacher the other day when she noted that student teachers often come to the classroom with a "deep-rooted understanding of 'thinking outside the box,' but usually know very little about curriculum, assessing learning, and many other the practicalities of the job."

I immediately saw my own weaknesses in her statement. I truly feel underprepared when it comes to developing effective assessments, reliably measuring student learning and spiraling a curriculum. Not only did I have little preparation in these areas in my undergraduate education, I've had few opportunities to participate in meaningful professional development in these areas since entering the classroom 14 years ago.

Isn't that shocking?

What's worse is that I've been aware of these gaps in my abilities for a few years now. I've been reading books on classroom assessment and seeking out opportunities to work with colleagues that I see as 'experts' in this area on a pretty regular basis. All of this extra effort, though, comes after school or on the weekends---whenever I can find a few spare moments between sets of papers that need to be graded. It's inconsistent at best--far from the systematic, on the job learning that leads to real professional growth.

Can we really close achievement gaps between student groups before we address the knowledge gaps that teachers bring to their classrooms? Is it time to begin differentiating professional learning opportunities for teachers based on their individual skill sets and self-identified needs?

Why are we so resistant to teacher driven professional development?

The Spaghetti Project...

In a really interesting post comparing schools to spaghetti sauce, Dr. Parry Graham--a colleague of mine--recently argued that the amount of information being given to parents regarding student success is inadequate.

"Once a child is enrolled in a school, parents receive relatively limited information about the quality of education the child is receiving. While parents may see good grades on a report card every nine weeks, do those grades necessarily reflect the quality of education?" he writes, "How many parents with students in K-12 public schools have a clear understanding of what their children should be learning, how their children are progressing relative to those learning goals, and how their children’s rate of progress compares to that of children in other classrooms or nearby schools?"

What's more, Graham argues that providing parents with more information would actually lead to improved schools. "By providing parents with more specific information about the quality of education that their children are receiving, we would give them tools to help us improve the quality of education that we provide. External, consumer-driven pressure is a powerful force for improvement in any industry, but consumers can only make good choices if they have good information."

While I agree with Graham's central premise that parents deserve accurate, timely, easy to understand information about student performance--information that is often not currently provided--I think he's missing a few key points that must be addressed to make his plan possible.

First, teachers will need significant support in developing formative assessments that accurately measure student achievement. As an "accomplished educator," I am almost ashamed to admit that I have little confidence in my own classroom assessments because I've never been taught how to create high quality, reliable measures of student achievement. While I've got a "good sense" of what my children know and can do, it is based on more than fourteen years of experience---not on the homework assignments or quizzes that I give.

(Don't tell my principal that I said that!)

What's more, I have little access to management systems that allow me to quickly and easily collect and analyze data at the classroom level. "Looking for trends," and "making comparisons" between students means shuffling through stacks of paper or flipping pages in my gradebook. Our school--a leader in student achievement and innovation--asks teachers to keep data records in three-ring binders--and I end up drowning in data that I struggle to draw meaning from.

Finally, teachers will need significant time to develop reporting systems that work. While the trend towards increased communication between home and school is essential, it also chews away at already limited planning hours. Between replying to emails, updating websites and returning phone calls, communication has become an almost overwhelming task. To add additional expectations and responsibilities without extending non-instructional time for teachers would hurt the quality of classroom teaching.

Graham's logic is sound---Parents deserve to have accurate information about the performance of their children. But generating and communicating accurate information is a task I'm not sure I'm currently qualified or capable of completing.

How about you?