On-the-job learning

By Fred H. Wood and Frank McQuarrie, Jr.

One of the most promising new approaches to professional growth in education is job-embedded learning, learning that occurs as teachers and administrators engage in their daily work activities.

Job-embedded learning is the result of educators sharing what they have learned from their teaching experiences, reflecting on specific work experiences to uncover new understanding, and listening to colleagues share best practices they have discovered while trying out new programs or planning and implementing a project.

Job-embedded learning is learning by doing, reflecting on the experience, and then generating and sharing new insights and learning with oneself and others.

Such things as study groups, action research, mentoring, and coaching have frequently been identified as examples of job-embedded learning. However, almost any interaction between two or more educators provides an opportunity. Both formal activities designed to promote job-embedded learning and the formal and informal interactions within a school can be employed to promote important professional learning.

A number of formal structures have been created to promote job-embedded learning. The most common are study groups, action research, and reflective logs.

1. Study Groups. Study groups are probably the most frequently discussed approach to job-embedded learning. Groups of teachers and/or administrators come together to learn more about a particular topic, such as discipline, cooperative learning, or curricular or instructional programs. The groups review and discuss the literature, visit model programs, and meet to discuss the potential of the practices or program for their school or classrooms.

Typically, some or all of the participants pilot a program or practice, with the goal of improving current practices and student learning. During and after the pilot, the group meets to reflect on the experiences, share what is working, and cooperatively solve problems of implementation (Labonte, Leighty, Mills & True, 1995; Murphy, 1995).

As part of the process, participants increase their knowledge. They develop new skills and understandings as a result of the training that they pursue before trying out a new approach to teaching. They also learn a great deal during their sharing and problem-solving sessions. Schools have used study groups to learn about and consider such things as block scheduling, team teaching, improving student writing skills, and increasing parental involvement.

2. Action Research. Action research is another common approach to job-embedded learning. It might be thought of as a special kind of study group that uses some of the techniques of formal research. Groups of teachers and/or administrators use action research to find answers to questions about the best way to improve teaching and learning in the work setting.

Action research involves educators in the process of raising questions about how to improve practice, studying the literature and research related to their question(s), and then selecting an approach or approaches that might result in improving current practice. This is followed by developing a plan to implement the most promising approach, and collecting data to assess its effectiveness in the school or classroom. The field test is then conducted, data collected and analyzed, and then shared and discussed by those in the action research group. Based upon the results, group members decide what they will do to implement what they have learned in their work setting. Often the results are shared with others in their school or district (McKay, 1992; Senese, 1998).

This approach to job-embedded learning has been used primarily by teachers to explore different methods of instruction, to discover what works best with students in their school. Areas of instruction that could be examined through action research include:

• The teaching of writing, mathematics and reading;
• Using cooperative learning in various subject areas;
• Teaching learning disabled students in the regular classroom;
• Effective teaching methods for block scheduling; and
• Alternative approaches to classroom discipline.

Action research is also an excellent way to resolve differences over how a staff should teach a particular subject in a school.

Throughout the process of planning and conducting an action research project, a great deal is learned about subject content, teaching methodology, problem-solving skills, systematic thinking, responsibility for improving one’s teaching, and understanding research. Action researchers feel empowered to improve their professional practice.

3. Reflective Logs. Reflective logs are used to encourage learning from success and problems encountered during the work day. Teachers and administrators record key events in their work life, in writing or on tape. They not only summarize what happened, they also reflect on those experiences and report on what they’ve learned. Periodically, those involved with keeping a log are asked to summarize what they have learned and share it with a colleague or several others who are keeping their own logs (Killion, 1991).

Keeping a log helps educators learn how to improve professional practice, to discover what is working and not working, uncover personal strengths, and identify areas where improvement is needed. In their reflections, they examine such questions as:

• What am I learning about teaching and learning?
• What is important for me to learn so I can be more effective?
• What am I discovering about myself (my strengths, my beliefs, and my values)?

What is learned through a log is broader and more open than what typically results from a study group or action research, which are more focused. The individual keeping a log can take it in any direction. But logs are equally valuable in the learning and professional development of educators.

A wide variety of activities that typically occur in schools hold promise for learning. Although not usually viewed as learning experiences or staff development, these activities can lead to improved practices and increased student performance. (Wood & Killion, 1998).

Participation in school- or district-level task groups or committees holds promise for teachers and administrators to learn new content, develop new skills, and clarify their professional beliefs and values. For example, teachers who take part in a curriculum committee to redesign a high school English or math program can:

• Become acquainted with the newest thinking and programs in their field;
• Expand their knowledge of their content area;
• Identify promising new instructional strategies;
• Develop knowledge and skills for planning curriculum;
• Increase skills in working as a team member; and
• Develop a commitment to changes in current practice.

Similarly, working on a school task group to plan a parental involvement program can provide educators with opportunities to:

• Become knowledgeable about the research and best practice for working with parents, and the importance of parent involvement for student success;
• Involve mothers and fathers in supporting their children’s education;
• Identify specific practices that result in parents’ commitment to and involvement in implementing a parental involvement plan; and
• Become more positive about and committed to increasing parental involvement in the school and their classrooms.

Similar kinds of learning can be identified for any group established to study and plan for improvement or to solve problems in a school. Other such groups frequently found in schools include school improvement teams, staff development committees, and teacher advisory councils.

Faculty, department, and grade-level meetings also provide opportunities for promoting professional learning. A growing number of principals have, for example, changed their faculty meetings by including time for teachers to share best practices. We have seen teachers presenting new instructional procedures that they have found to be successful; discussing successes and best practices related to an instructional program teachers are implementing throughout the school; using in-basket and brainstorming techniques to help a teacher find alternative ways of solving a problem; and sharing the results of a visit to another school that has had some success with a full inclusion program.

In department and grade-level meetings, teachers use some of their time sharing best practices. They talk about curriculum, helping colleagues solve instructional problems, and discussing alternative approaches to handling such things as discipline, increasing numbers of mainstreamed children in the classroom, and analyzing assessment data from standardized and state tests. The emphasis here is sharing and expanding the use of the best practices, knowledge, and skills that already exist within the school.

Planning and conducting instruction hold the richest learning for teachers because during this process teachers become aware of new approaches to teaching and learning and what works with their students.

Learning occurs when teachers share their instructional plans with colleagues, with a request for feedback and alternative approaches "to consider" (even if the plan is viewed positively). Through this seeking of feedback and alternative approaches, teachers can begin to discover different ways of teaching and assessing their students.

As teachers review their students’ evaluation data and standardized test results, they again have a chance to develop new insights. From examining data, they can discover their students’ strengths and weaknesses, instructional needs, better ways to construct test questions, and necessary changes in the curriculum. When such an analysis is done with other teachers, the new learnings are usually enriched and more extensive than when done independently.

Probably the greatest opportunity for job-embedded learning to affect instruction is facilitated through team planning and team teaching. Teams provide teachers with opportunities to observe and learn about new instructional practices, what works with different children, diagnosing and evaluating students, systematic planning, working in groups, managing and scheduling of learning, and integrating curriculum.

Instructional supervision and peer coaching programs are both commonly used in schools. Their primary purpose is to improve instructional practice. Their focus is on helping teachers to become more effective in the classroom (Wood & Lease, 1987, McQuarrie & Wood, 1991). In addition, they provide exceptional opportunities for professional learning, and thus are a means to promote job-embedded learning.

Both supervision and peer coaching use the same process of pre-conferencing to set the stage for the direct observation of teaching, followed by the observation. Then there’s an opportunity for feedback and a chance for the teacher and the observer both to learn a great deal about effective planning and instruction.

Some common benefits from supervision and peer coaching include learning:

• New teaching methods;
• How to plan more effectively for classroom instruction;
• Ways of structuring content and experiences to promote learning;
• Procedures for working with students who have difficulty in the classroom; and
• More effective ways to assess student growth.

Peer coaching and supervision also help participants develop trust and the ability to give and receive non-judgmental feedback.

These are just two of the formal programs used in schools that can be employed to promote job-embedded learning. Others that have become more popular in the last two decades include mentoring and new teacher induction. Both have already been identified in the literature as means to promote learning from job-related experience (Hofsess, 1990; Killion, 1990; Wollman-Bonilla, 1997).

All of the school experiences described here provide opportunities for learning. But that doesn’t ensure that teachers and administrators learn from them. The learning that comes from experiences must be brought to a conscious level. Only then can educators verbalize and control what they have learned (Keeton, et al., 1976).

Bringing meaning to job experiences occurs when teachers and administrators take time to reflect on their experiences, to uncover insights and learning embedded in those experiences. Individual experiences, and what educators learn from them, become useful when they are shared and discussed with other colleagues. Such discussions also help expand the full meaning and implications of what has been learned.

It is through experience, reflection, analysis, and sharing and discussing that job-embedded learning becomes useful to the individual learner, and thus available to a school staff for improving the current practice. The more these learnings are generated and shared, the greater the chances that best practices of each individual in the school will become common practice across the school.

Staff developers need to give more attention to finding ways to promote this kind of learning. Job-embedded learning not only promotes practical learning, it also:

• Takes less time away from the job than traditional inservice education;
• Promotes immediate application of what is learned;
• Costs less, in most cases, than paying high-priced consultants to conduct training; and
• Agrees with what we know about adult learning.

As Sparks and Hirsh (1997) have noted, job-embedded learning is a new paradigm for staff development that will help shape professional learning in the 21st century. Job-embedded learning clearly provides a different view of inservice learning. It presents educators with an alternative to workshop-based professional development and other more traditional inservice learning programs. It changes our thinking about work from completing tasks to viewing daily experiences as opportunities to learn.

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Fred H. Wood is a professor at the University of Oklahoma. He can be reached at the Department of Educational Leadership, University of Oklahoma, 820 Van Vleet Oval, Norman, OK 73019, (405) 325-2370, fax (405) 325-1824.

Frank McQuarrie Jr. is an associate professor at the University of Oklahoma. He can be reached at the Department of Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum, University of Oklahoma, 820 Van Vleet Oval, Norman, OK 73019, (405) 325-1523, fax (405) 325-4061.