leading learning through professional learning communities dr louise stoll immediate past president...

Leading Learning Through Professional Learning Communities

Dr Louise Stoll Immediate Past President

International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement (ICSEI)

Visiting Professor Institute of EducationUniversity of London

louise@louisestoll.com

PresentationMinistry of Education, Toronto, Ontario

June 5 2006

Outline

Why are professional learning communities important right now?

What are they and what difference do they make?

How can you lead learning through professional learning communities?

Why are professional learning communities important and what difference do they make?

Futures

Possible futures - things which could happen, although many are unlikely

Probable futures - things which probably will happen, unless something is done to turn events around

Preferable futures - things you prefer tohave happen/you want to plan to happen

Beare (2001)

A key change force

‘Child power’: children with increasingly lessregard for school as it lags behind the society itserves

Papert (1996)

The four pillars of learning

Learning to know

Learning to do

Learning to live together

Learning to be

UNESCO (1996)

In a fast changing world, if you can’t learn, unlearn and relearn, you’re lost. Sustainable and continuous learning is a given of the twenty-first century.

Stoll, Fink and Earl (2003)

If it’s not about learning, what should it be about?

Five Core Values constituting ‘the fundamentals of a proactive and

responsible approach to professionalism’

Learning

Participation

Collaboration

Cooperation

Activism

Sachs (1999)

Capacity

. . . is a complex blend of motivation skill, positive learning, organisational conditions and culture, and infrastructure of support. Put together, it gives individuals, groups and, ultimately whole school communities the power to get involved in and sustain learning.

Stoll, Stobart et al (2003)

What are professional learning communities and what difference do they make?

A professional learning community is:

. . . an inclusive group of people, motivated by a shared learning vision, who support and work with each other, finding ways, inside and outside their immediate community, to enquire on their practice and together learn new and better approaches that will enhance all pupils’ learning.

Stoll et al (2006)

An effective professional learning community has an impact on:

individual teachers’ and other staff’s practice, morale, recruitment and retention

leadership capacity for learning across the whole school

a school’s capacity to engage successfully in networks and partnerships beyond the school

students’ learning process and progress, attitudes, attendance

How do you lead learning through learning communities?

Three ways leaders handle pressuresof education and change

Coping Limit selves to managing school and respond only to directives from higher sources

Diffusion Aware of new trends and indiscriminately set goals - “Christmas tree schools” (Bryk et al, 1998)

Goal-focused Select a few reasonable goals, establish priorities, and ignore or manage other pressures

Tye (2000)

Capacity building

creating and maintaining necessary conditions, culture

and structures

facilitating learning and skill-oriented experiences

and opportunities

ensuring interrelationships and synergy

Stoll and Bolam (2005)

Louise Stoll (2005)

Professional learning community

Ensuring supportive structures

Designing deep learning experiences

Growing a learning culture

Nurturing trust and collaboration

Promoting enquiry mindedness and innovation

Developing networks, parterships and connections

Being inclusive and empowering

QuestionsWhat are the first things that catch your eye when you enter your school? What messages do they give out?

If you were an anthropologist and you had to pick three artifacts that represented your school, what would they be and what do they represent?

From Stoll, Bolam, McMahon, Thomas, Wallace, Greenwood and Hawkey (2006)

Flow

Control

Relaxation

Boredom

Apathy

Worry

Anxiety

Arousal

High

Low HighSKILLS

CHALLENGES

Csikszentmihalyi (1990)

Promoting an Inclusive PLC

Every teacher and nursery officer is a key worker for a number of children

Every teacher and nursery officer coordinates a curriculum area

All staff take turns to take notes at meetings

Teachers and support staff are mentors to pupils

Teacher and support staff set learning targets together for individual pupils

Collaboration sheets help articulate joint work of teachers and support staff

Support staff train teachers at PD days

Support staff plan curriculum with teachers Bolam et al (2005)

Distributed leadership

. . . incorporates the activities of multiple groups of individuals in a school who work at guiding and mobilizing staff in the instructional change process

Spillane et al (2001)

Distributed leadership is collective responsibility in action

Stoll (2006)

Emotions, trust and respect

It’s essential to have professional trust, respect, consideration, openness, and to unpick the words. It’s not ‘touchy feely’. Then you can inject the challenge to keep the setting moving forward.

. . . the underpinning . . . one of the key elements.

. . . There are going to be certain things where you think ‘I wish I’d done that’. But you learn from it and at the end of the day, if you have the respect of the other staff, which we have, we all learn from each other. Bolam et al (2006)

The decisive factor is almost exclusively the “horizontal” trust of staff among themselves and the “vertical” trust between management and staff. Without horizontal trust, there can be no transfer of knowledge; without vertical trust, no willingness to take risks.

Sprenger (2004)

Teachers’ Learning: seven r’sRehearsing and Refining

PractisingTrial and error

ReflectingReflection in and on action

Becoming assessment literateMeta-learning

ReadingStudy groupsBook clubsInternet

‘RitingJournal writing/diariesPortfolios

ResearchingAction research

RelatingDialoguePeer observation

Mentoring and coachingCo-operative group learning

Collaborative planning Networking

Risking

Trying new strategiesSeeing pupils as partners in the learning

processUpdated from Stoll, Fink and Earl (2003)

Specific features of collaborative continuing professional development

that might be linked to benefits

External expertise

Observation

Peer support

Teacher ownership

Building on teachers' existing knowledge

Cordingley, Bell, Rundell and Evans (2003)

Which activities are most powerful in helping to deepen staff learning and develop their practice?

How do you vary professional learning strategies for different needs and purposes?

In what ways are you trying to ‘spread’ and extend the development of deep learning activities?

To what extent are paraprofessional staff and school council members involved in learning activities?

What are your sources of external support and expertise to promote deep learning?

Adapted from Stoll, Bolam, McMahon, Thomas, Wallace, Greenwood and Hawkey (2006)

Deep Learning Questions

‘A place of questioning where you must ask the question and the answer questions you’.

Stoll et al (2006)

Leadership in a Data-Rich World

Develop an Inquiry Habit of Mind

Become Data Literate

Create a Culture of Inquiry

Earl and Katz (2006)

Staff survey

Statements A %agree % uncertain %disagree B % important % less imp. % unimportant

There is a shared A 37 40 23whole-school vision of B 90 8 2where the school is going

High levels of trust and A 32 34 34respect exist in this school B 93 7 0

There is effective A 40 37 23communication between B 88 8 4 SLT and staff

Teachers observe each A 15 46 39other teach and give each B 41 27 32Other feedback

Teachers routinely collect, A 27 58 15analyse and use data and B 37 36 27 evidence to inform theirpractice

From McCall et al (2001)

What helps you to learn in school?

Group workI enjoy working in groups 91% agree

Making learning active and enjoyable

I am really interested in my schoolwork 61% agree

My teachers make learning fun 34% all/most

2164 Year 8 students – Evaluation of Key Stage 3 (Middle Years) Strategy Pilot in England – Stoll, Stobart et al (2003)

Clear learning objectives and explanations

I like to be clear what I am learning 93% agree

My teachers explain things clearly 63% all/most

Within school PLC

Districts as PLCs

International NLCs

Local communities

as LCs

District and national

NLCs

Wider community as LC

Policy makers

as LCs

Inter-agency

LCs

Connecting learning communities

Louise Stoll (2005)

Focus and purpose

Collaboration

Accountability

Relationships

Building capacity and support

Enquiry

Leadership

Key features of learning networks

Profess-ional

knowledge creation and

sharing

Deep and sustained changes

in practices

and structures in schools

Impact on pupil learning

and engage-

ment and

success

Earl and Katz (2005)

Key reasons when networks have a positive impact on improving teaching, learning and attainment

Specific focus – networks structured around clearly defined (and narrow) aims

Collaboration – to achieve network breadth and principal means to achieve in-depth transfer

Ownership of network’s goals and processes – important for sustaining collaborative activities.

Continuing professional development – principal means of effecting transfer of knowledge and practice within networks

CUREE (2006)

Formulate key question

Introduction & discussion

Lesson observations and presentations

Plenary

Written and verbal feedback

Evaluation

Learning Walk

Prudhoe School, adapted from NCSL

Learning from international visits

. . . an understanding of culture and what it was possible for this to mean in schools. I feel I . . .have talked glibly about school culture and then wondered why, within wider communities, our values and culture have felt isolated. The integration and respect given to Maori rituals and culture and the valuing of parents as part of the process was enlightening and “real”.

English headteacher after visiting New ZealandStoll (2005)

Bridging social capital – inclusive

Bonding social capital – exclusive

Gittel and Vidal (1998)

To bridge social capital requires that we transcend our social and political and professional identities to connect with people unlike ourselves.

Putnam (2000)

Three types of conversation

Instructional conversation – usually seen in classroom. Acquiring skill, guidance, knowledge external to ourselves

Learning conversation – closer to conversation where mutual growth is end result. Relationship and task get equal attention

Community conversation – vehicle for people to express and share diverse views, negotiate and reaffirm directions and vision and develop social capital

West-Burnham and Otero (2005)

Structural conditions that support professional learning community

Time to meet and talk

Use of space

Resources

Communication mechanisms

School development/improvement plans

Professional development coordination and planning

Staff deployment and hiring policies

Structure Questions

How do you find time and space for colleagues to reflect, engage in dialogue, observe other colleagues, network with other staff and generally deepen their practice?

How do you make regular time for your own reflection and development?

Chinese Bamboo

When you plant it nothing happens in the first year, nor in the second year or the third or the fourth years. You don’t even see a single green shoot. And yet, in the fifth year, in a space of just six weeks, the bamboo will grow 9 feet high. The question is, did it grow 9 feet in six weeks or in five years?

Dick (1992)

An effective professional learning community has the capacity to promote and sustain the learning of all professionals in the school community with the collective purpose of enhancing pupil learning.

Bolam et al (2005)

PDFs can be downloaded from:

http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/innovation-unit/collaboration/2127523/?version=1