How can schools make time for teacher learning?

By Dennis Sparks
RESULTS - March 1999

Principals seeking to raise performance for all students know better than anyone that more time is required for teacher professional development. The question is not whether to make ongoing improvement in teacher skills and knowledge a more significant part of teachers' daily work life, but how to do so without disrupting student learning or breaking the bank.

The National Staff Development Council advocates that at least one-quarter of teachers' work time be given to professional study and collaborative work. The Council believes this time should not be implemented through isolated "inservice days" but should be embedded in teachers' daily work and more closely linked to improving student learning. In many schools, this "job-embedded" approach to staff development is being implemented in the form of study groups, action research, training, coaching, and the joint planning of lessons and critiquing of student work.

Free Teachers From The Classroom

Recognizing the value of freeing teachers to learn, National Urban League President Hugh Price suggested several years ago that schools experiment with "academically productive ways" in which students could spend the equivalent of one day a week away from their regular teachers. To keep costs under control, Price suggested several alternatives, such as introducing school-based extracurricular activities, occasional large classes, course-related projects, and community service.

Research is beginning to suggest other effective ways schools can be reorganized to ensure that teachers continue to learn and put their new knowledge to use in the classroom. Promising and productive approaches include using substitutes to free teachers, focusing faculty meetings on teacher learning, adjusting the master schedule, and lengthening the school day for a few minutes four days per week. Schools also are implementing an early release on the fifth day to provide an extended period of time for professional development, engaging students one morning per week in alternative activities such as community service, and providing commonly scheduled lunch or planning periods for teachers working on joint projects.

A Radical Approach To Change

The late Audrey Cohen was more radical in her approach to changing the school environment to make more time available for learning. She encouraged educators to think about how schooling needs to operate if we are to really provide the kind of teaching and learning students need to be successful. "I suggest that we imagine that we are starting from scratch, as if no schools existed," she wrote. "What kind of schools would we want to build if we could look at our needs without any presuppositions?"

If we are to make more time for the school employees' learning, two things are essential. We need to find time for teachers to learn and to explore more creative and effective ways in which teachers and students can spend their day. A starting point is to use one or more of the strategies mentioned above to make available at least three or four hours a week‹about 10 percent of teachers' work time‹for learning and working with peers on improving instruction. Then schools can begin to experiment with ways to extend that time over the next two or three years to 25 percent of teachers' work time using the "starting from scratch" approach recommended by Cohen.

That type of bold action will be required in every school if we are to provide teachers with the time they genuinely need to do what is being asked of them. To raise student achievement, school leaders ultimately must grapple with the problem of how to find time to further advance teacher skills and knowledge. It's not so difficult once schools explore the myriad ways staff development time can be made available.

Leaders must explore ways to provide teachers with time to advance their skills and knowledge.

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