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Teacher professional learning from the ‘inside out’: Studying the student experience as means to teacher action and new knowledge

Article for submission to a peer review journal David Hagen Cameron, Geneviève Gauthier, Rachel Ryerson and Judi Kokis July 26, 2011

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Abstract This article describes an initiative within a large-scale literacy and numeracy strategy for elementary schools in Ontario, Canada that uses a model of teacher collaborative inquiry as a framework for improved learning experiences of students across kindergarten to grade 6. The article examines a critical connection within this initiative between (1) knowledge and learning that is generated as a result of teacher collaborative inquiry and (2) theoretical knowledge of relevant instructional and assessment strategies drawn into the inquiry to inform and deepen the teacher inquiry process. Findings are drawn from a mixed method study which includes survey and interviews as well as document analysis across 50 case studies in over 250 elementary schools. For participating teachers, the process of studying their own classroom experiences with colleagues, allowed them to occupy a professional space in which ‘fluency’ of understanding between their instructional moves and the students’ responses to these moves deepened.

Introduction

Over the past 10 years a number of jurisdictions have made large scale attempts to improve school

and student learning. For example, both the US (NCLB) and the UK (The National Strategies) are

attempts at system reform. Where the US attempted to improve the educational provision state

wide by leveraging high stakes state assessments as a way to gain higher standards within schools

and classrooms, the UK used a pressure/support matrix that combined high stakes national

assessments with a district-based consultancy designed to support the implementation of key

instructional and assessment strategies within schools in order to achieve these results (e.g. Stobart

and Stoll, 2005 or Podgursky & Springer, 2007). While each approach had many differences, they

both more or less drew on the notion of central to local directed change. The strategies were

designed to enable movement and implementation of new ideas and techniques from central

institutions - central government and school districts- to individual schools and teachers.

This article explores a different approach to system change through a specific initiative, the Student

Work Study (SWS) Teacher Initiative. The initiative is one of several core school and district

initiatives that collectively make up an elementary school Literacy and Numeracy Strategy within a

system-wide improvement effort led by the Ministry of Education in the province of Ontario,

Canada. Ontario educational governance has a tri-level structure that consists of three types of

institutions, central-provincial, school district and schools. In Ontario there has just over 4000

elementary schools in 72 school districts that vary widely from extremely rural to very urban across

a large geographic space- about 1/10th the size of the US or California and Texas combined.

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The Literacy and Numeracy Strategy is led by the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat (LNS)- a

branch within the Ministry of Education, Ontario. The strategy is based on partnership and

collective or shared accountability for change and improvement between the central and the local-

province, school district and school (Fullan and Crevola, 2006). The partnership has begun to

generate emergent understanding in regards to notions of wide scale implementation and

dissemination within system improvement attempts. At the core of the partnership is dialogic

process- a dynamic and evolving connection- between (1) knowledge of practice gained through

school and teacher team inquiry-based processes and (2) researched-informed instructional and

assessment strategies generated at central or provincial levels and disseminated locally through

central support. In so doing, the strategy acknowledges that implementation when reduced to

single individuals, e.g. a teacher, is a continual process of personal mediation between existing

practice, school and classroom context and new pedagogic strategies (Coburn, 2004). Equally,

Datnow, Hubard and Mehan (2002) acknowledge the adaptive, co-constructed nature of education

reform implementation regardless of what is being implemented. Here, educational implementation

of policy, processes or products are not only directed to schools or districts but also mediated and

adapted by them (Datnow, et al., 2002).

This article will first discuss the theoretical perspective that informs the SWS Teacher Initiatives

theory of action generally, it will then move to a more detailed description of the initiative, before

moving to a discussion of the methods used to inform this article. From here the article will then

discuss the emergent processes and effects of this initiative within participating schools in three

general areas;

student learning, teacher collaborative relationships, professional learning for the teachers involved.

The article will examine the process by which teachers began making critical connections between

broader theoretical knowledge of instruction and assessment and how it looks/feels when

individually implemented. For participating teachers, the process of studying students experiences

in their classrooms with colleagues allowed them to occupy a professional space in which ‘fluency’

of understanding between their instructional moves and the students’ responses to these moves

deepened and progressed.

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TheoreticalPerspective

The initiative uses a co-learning model in which both SWS teachers and host teachers (mostly

voluntary participants) work together studying student responses to instruction within classrooms.

The focus of the initiative is student learning and activity as opposed to teacher instructional

activity. All conversation and potential actions within the study stem from what students are doing.

The initiative draws from a perspective or stance, which recognizes strengths and assets of students

and teachers in classrooms. Professional learning is most effective when it is based on the

assumption that teachers are ‘adaptive experts’ (Timperly, 2010), not individuals with professional

knowledge deficits that require ‘topping up’ (Webster-Wright, 2009). The point of action and

understanding for the study and all its participants is located through student strengths, developing

deeper understanding of students as learners in classrooms and using this information to inform

new actions/ responses. This perspective honours teachers’ calling to serve students within their

professional practice. It is what Goodlad (1991) and Sergiovanni (2007) thought of as teacher

stewardship. It is a stance within educational change that places student actions and learning as the

predominant rationale and motivation of and for teacher action, learning and change (Greenfield,

1991).

Within the SWS Teacher initiative, SWS teachers collaborate with classroom teachers in iterative

cycles of observation, documentation and analysis of the students’ responses as a means to build

new learning and action. These iterative phases of observation, documentation, discussion and

reflection were supported by LNS facilitation in order to the develop suppositions or conditional

statements about students’ learning, composed of two essential parts:

1. A general statement of student action (e.g., if students respond to specific oral feedback). 2. A conditional statement of student effect which happens as a result (e.g., they will show

deeper understandings of classroom tasks verbally or in writing).

This approach to action and refinement in classrooms closely aligns with education research in two

important areas of embedded research processes within teaching practice, Participant Observation

and Design Research (e.g. Woods, 1981 and Collins, Joseph and Bielaczyc, 2004). Both of which

follow what Denzin calls an ‘interpretive interactionist’ frame of reference in that the

interpretations of the phenomena, the immediate classroom experiences of students, come from

interacting with students during the lesson (Denzin, 2001, p. 34). Drawing from these perspectives

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added depth to ongoing teacher-based practices of observation, documentation and analysis of

student learning.

These interpretations then serve to inform, refine or introduce pedagogic actions. Differing from

design research as described by Collins, et. al. (2004), in this initiative the starting point of the

inquiry is not a pre-designed technique or instructional strategy, but rather it is the existing

classroom structures and pedagogic actions of the teachers. It is an important distinction. The

inquiry does not start with a planned pedagogic strategy but the immediate existing work of

teachers. In this way, new learning and actions stem from the tacit or existing knowledge of

individual teachers and move out to potential new actions and resulting expansion of professional

knowledge. The conduit for change is intricately woven into the existing, personal work of

teachers. This both constrains and enhances the potential professional learning experiences and the

depth of the inquiry itself for participants.

As mentioned earlier, Coburn (2004) argues, integration of new knowledge, beliefs and actions are

mediated by the existing personal understanding of practice and the context in which teachers

operate e.g. power and cultural relations within the school and district. Establishing a stance of

action that stems from personalized, specific practices allows for opportunities for teachers to

immediately deepen their fluency or understanding of the relationship between their actions and

beliefs and the responding student actions and learning. However, in locating the inquiry solely

within the actions of students rather than a potential new approach to pedagogy for classroom

teachers, the inquiry itself can become caged or limited by a teachers’ repertoire of practice. This

might especially be the case with teachers who were placed in this experience as a way to improve

rather than placing themselves in the experience out of personal, professional desire.

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The Student Work Study Teacher initiative is composed of a series of discrete collaborative inquiry

projects taking place across Ontario that focused on student learning and actions in response(s) to

instruction in classrooms. In the late fall of 2009, fifty Student Work Study (SWS) teachers were

hired by school districts in 19 districts and approximately 220 schools across Ontario were

involved in this initiative. Each SWS teacher was assigned 5 elementary schools by the districts to

operate as the ‘case’ in their study. SWS teachers were experienced classroom practitioners that

had been in either coaching/consultant roles or were classroom teachers prior to the initiative. They

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brought expertise evenly distributed across grade 1 to grade 6 with a smaller proportion of SWS

teachers bringing expertise in Kindergarten. Although the majority of SWS teachers reported

comfort with both literacy and numeracy, very few SWS teachers identified numeracy as their

strongest area of comfort in their teaching.

The SWS teachers begin the inquiry within their 5 schools by observing specific students

producing work that was assessed to be at a provincially established skill level of 2 in a 4-point

scale from 1 to 4. This is roughly equivalent to a “C” grade. As mentioned earlier, participating

classroom teachers from the 5 schools for the most part volunteered to be a part of the initiative,

however there was a lot of variation in terms of how and why they participated. Some were

assigned by school principals or district leaders, many joined out of interest while still others were

recruited by the SWS teacher as they began to work and build relationships with teachers in the

school. By observing and interacting with these students in classrooms, SWS teachers and

classroom teachers became exposed to the students’ own perspectives on their classroom learning

and their work. All the while, SWS teachers sought to build strong learning relationships with these

students, classroom teachers and the other students in the classrooms.

SWS teachers met for monthly regional meetings to share and discuss their work in two areas of

their study:

1. Building viable and sustainable collaborative relationships with teachers and principals. 2. Doing qualitative field research within classrooms that drew heavily from PO approaches

to social inquiry as discussed earlier.

The initiative organizers and facilitators were experienced school practitioners and leaders who

support the Literacy and Numeracy Strategy in consultant-like role within Literacy and Numeracy

Secretariat. An experienced researcher with expertise in qualitative research of schools and districts

also provided facilitation and capacity on a structured set of ethnographic and participant

observation research skills for the SWS teachers. The regional meetings were grounded in an

adaptive developmental stance that relies heavily on the needs and expertise of the SWS teachers

themselves, their roles in schools and the context of the schools involved in their specific study.

The content and foci of regional meetings were shaped and adapted to the SWS teachers’ emergent,

ongoing needs and issues as research-practitioners throughout the winter and spring of 2010. In

June, at the end of the school year, the SWS teachers wrote a formal report shared with their

teachers, schools, school districts and the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat. This report was

designed to unpack their learning. In the summer, a central team from the Literacy and Numeracy

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Secretariat that supported the initiative across the year and two researchers did an aggregate

analysis and aggregated the fifty reports. This analysis serves as a major data source of evidence

from which this article draws.

Methods

Data for this article draws from the 50 case studies written by the SWS teachers with contributions

from participating classroom teachers in the 220 elementary schools through a process that was just

described. Each case study used the same template to document observed student learning,

teachers’ collaborative processes, methods of data collection, and potential learning conditions that

might best support the student learning that they studied. From January to June 2010, SWS teachers

collected data on student learning in close to 1,000 classrooms for almost 17,000 hours. In addition,

the article uses evidence drawn from three focus groups of SWS teachers occurring over the course

of the initiative, survey data from the SWS teachers, survey data from a purposive sample of

classroom teachers, and a cross role evaluation of the program done by teachers, SWS teachers and

school principals. These data provide a description of the initiative, the kinds of student learning

explored, and the challenges and potential of this type of initiative as a professional learning model

nested within various other initiatives within the Literacy and Numeracy Strategy in Ontario.

In arriving at the core themes of the 50 SWS Teacher reports, the central research team

collaboratively marked or coded areas of the report in an iterative way while (re)reading the text.

The team moderated the codes and worked on generating common understandings of the key

themes through ongoing and intensive analysis over a period of months. Meetings served as check

in points and where understanding was refined and themes were modified. In this way, although

there is a degree of variation from one coder to the next, this was minimized and incorporated as a

part of the texture of the themes on an ongoing basis. The codes represent areas in which the SWS

teachers were telling about an experience and narrating or making meaning of this experience from

the work with students and teachers as well as the methods that each used in collecting and

analyzing the data with classroom teachers. Unlike Strauss’s (1987) detailed coding, this form of

analysis is more closely aligned to Lofland and Lofland’s (1995) discussion of emergent analysis in

which patterns and features that resonated through the analysis emerge and Denzin’s ideas about

‘locating the epiphany’ or the moments in which the SWS teachers were expressing what their

work meant to them through the stories they chose to tell (Denzin 2001, 37).

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The focus groups with the SWS teachers were semi-structured, recorded and transcribed. They

were co-constructed events in which the interviewer is a participant (Mishler 1991). They fit within

Holstein and Gubrium’s conceptions of ‘active interviewing’ in which meaning-making is a co-

constructed interpretive process that occurs within the process of the interview (Gubrium and

Holstein 1997, 120). The transcription was analyzed by one researcher who was also part of the

research team. Core themes and the associated transcription that articulate these themes were

brought to the larger team and used to build deeper contextual variations from the report. The

survey was a descriptive survey, which elicited background information about the SWS teachers,

their background and their comfort in aspects of teaching elementary schools. The final set of data

came from classroom teachers. Fifty classroom teachers each associated with a SWS teacher filled

out an evaluation of the initiative. The evaluation asked three open questions about participation. 1-

What was successful about participating in the initiative? 2- What did you learn as a result? And 3-

How did this influence actions in your class? These were analyzed by the team with the SWS

Teacher reports as just discussed.

The analysis from each data source was triangulated. They were used as different lens or angles

from which to view and interpret the initiative. Collectively, a set of themes around which the

experiences cluster was created. These themes created the final, specific and contextually located

set of themes, which focus on three central areas in the experience listed earlier; 1-the student

learning studied, 2- the dynamic nature of the SWS teacher-classroom teacher relationship and 3-

the experience as a professional learning experience for SWS teachers and classroom teachers. This

is the subject of the next sections of this article.

Although only 10 of the 50 SWS teacher voices are represented in this article, the set of excerpts

shared representations the SWS teachers within the case. These excerpts illustrate common features

and variance across the SWS Teachers’ workspaces. They are models or types of experiences that

best ‘coined’ moments, which were common to SWS Teachers within this study. The names used

for the excerpts are not real in order to preserve confidentiality while not depersonalizing their

voices. They are pieces of narratives joined together to create deeper meanings and anchor the

experience within discussion of the themes in the article.

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Findings

Influences or potential effects of the SWS Teacher Initiative can be discussed through three

different aspects of the experience:

Student Learning SWS Teacher-Teacher Relationship Professional Learning

Each aspect sheds different understanding, challenges and potential of this kind of approach within

wide scale school improvement attempts. Although the three main themes are presented discretely

for clarity and ease of organization in this article, they are interrelated and connected. Put another

way, they are different aspects of the same experience. As collaborative relationships focused on

student learning between SWS teacher and the classroom teachers deepened, the learning about the

integration of students’ learning in response to instructional strategies became enriched. All of

which enabled a deeper understanding of the learning themes explored by the co-learners (the SWS

teachers, the classroom teachers and the students). Figure 1 below is a diagram, which emphasises

the interrelationship of these three areas.

Figure 1. Organizing themes of the SWS teachers’ experience

Differing slightly from the purposes of research design approaches that seek to refine and perfect

products of inquiry e.g. pedagogic approaches in classrooms, the processes of doing the inquiry is

as important as resulting products or instructional actions that came out of the inquiry process

(Collin et. al., 2004). As Bereiter states in discussing Glaser and Chi’s (1988) work about expert

critical thinkers across various fields or professions:

Studies of expert problem solvers in various domains indicate they devote relatively more effort than non-experts do to understanding the problem and its constraints – to figuring out what makes it a problem and what kind of problem it is – before laying into its solution (Glaser and Chi, 1988). (Bereiter, 2002, pp. 348-349)

SWS Teacher-Teacher

Relationship

Student Learning

Professional Learning

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It is the processes of worrying over a problem collaboratively as well as the actual instructional and

assessment products or actions that resulted which seem to create the richness of this initiative in

terms of learning for many participants, students, SWS teachers and classroom teachers. Without

the puzzling, the product itself loses value as a tool for new actions and learning. Here the act of

generating new understanding is in a dialogic relationship with products that are being used to

generate this understanding. This notion frames an interesting problem for school change efforts.

What and how something is taught and how that action comes to be part of the personal repertoire

of a teacher are inextricably linked. The processes embedded in the teacher collaborative inquiry in

this initiative served to expand the tacit understandings of teachers and thus, the effectiveness of

any instructional or assessment design in much the same way as described by Earl and Hannay in

regards to the dynamic nature of personal or tacit knowledge of teaching practice (Earl and

Hannay, 2011). It is a far simpler proposition to disseminate products- instructional and assessment

techniques then to establish processes of collaborative inquiry and study that rely on many cultural

and structural conditions in schools and districts in order to for these processes influence classroom

experiences (e.g. Bruce and Ross, 2010, Perry and Lewis, 2010 or Borko, Wolf, Simone and

Uchiyama, 2003). Yet, without such processes, the products devolved from the processes in which

they were refined and established may lose value as tools that enhance student learning

experiences.

Student Learning

The SWS teachers’ reports detailed observations, analysis and learning about students producing

work at level 2 (equivalent to a ‘C’ grade). In this section, the main themes that emerged through

the analysis of their reports are presented. The student learning themes, which emerged from this

analysis of the 50 studies already appear in research literature and currently exist as core areas that

the Literacy and Numeracy Strategy has been promoting across Ontario. The work of the SWS

teachers, however, contributes to understanding how professionals construct and develop their own

understandings about student learning and, critically, how to foster the ongoing, progressive

development of student learning for different individuals in different contexts within their

classrooms. Teaching and learning concepts like assessment for learning (e.g. see Black and

Wiliam, 1998) or guided practice (e.g. see Pearson and Gallagher, 1983) became a part of

individually and locally owned knowledge through practice, experimentation and reflection. This

kind of personalized knowledge building often led to effective and differentiated use of such

strategies.

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The student learning described in the reports written by the SWS teachers exhibited interrelated

qualities in some important areas. The student experiences were student centred, allowed for and

were driven by student conversation and dialogue, were informed by ongoing use of formative

assessment and were scaffolded to meet student skills while continually moving them towards

ownership and independence as learners. Students showed progress in learning reading, writing and

mathematics when they had opportunities to participate in tasks or processes that exhibited the

listed qualities above. Often descriptions of student learning and progress included two, three or

even all four of these areas. Treating these areas as discrete or in isolation is artificial to how they

emerged within the individual studies. Thus, emphasizing the interrelatedness of these qualities is

important to keep mind in capturing a general understanding of the kinds of student experiences

that led to deep learning for students.

Student activity in classrooms often connected student experiences and existing perspectives of the

world to a more complex experience of the ‘larger’ world as a way to grow, adapt and construct

knowledge. That is to say the tasks in the classroom had a quality of connectedness to the student’s

experience and world view. When the student activity was relevant to the student’s life experiences

students became more engaged. SWS teacher reports often discussed the importance of building

engagement and interest through this connectedness. As one SWS teacher, Melanie, writes:

When math problems are authentic, students tend to be more engaged because the math is meaningful to real life and is not simply a worksheet to fill in or a textbook page to complete filled with numbers without context. I realize that when students are given the opportunity to build their own meaning and make their own discoveries, they are more likely to develop a sense of their ability to learn. They are also more likely to develop a willingness to explore and take risks. [Melanie]

Tasks which offered rich opportunities to learn often were associated with a problem solving

approach which was authentic or real and offered multiple entry points or possible strategies for

students to solve. They integrated qualities of choice and authorship for students to articulate their

understanding with the subject content of the lessons. Often such tasks also required student

discussion and voice as a relevant part of the material being studied.

Student talk in classrooms was a part of directed, on-task conversations that occurred in pairs,

small groups or whole class activities. Here, students had opportunities to share their ideas and

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thinking with others, co-construct their learning and build on their understanding of the task

through conversation. Conversation and dialogue allowed students to extend their understanding of

the situation and task. The importance of allowing opportunities for students to orally express their

ideas and thinking was noted in many SWS teacher reports. Student-driven discussions helped

build and establish student voice while it also served to inform lessons as well as support adaptive

and timely teaching. As another SWS teacher, Mark details:

In order for students to develop their capacity for high-order, critical thinking, students need frequent opportunities to ask and answer questions, participate in discussions and classify information. [Mark]

Here, questioning becomes a critical part of the learning experience. Student discussion and

critique were often included within some part of the student’s work in the classrooms and served to

allow students to bring their thinking out as part of the working curriculum in the class. Equally,

student talk was an instrumental part of ongoing assessment that informed teacher direction during

the lesson.

Formative assessment of student work for the purposes of this analysis refers to the continual

refinement and improvement of student work and student thinking. Improvements occurred as a

result of ongoing, incremental and timely assessment activities that were often co-constructed by

teachers and students. Such things as student self and peer assessment in which students had

opportunities to consider potential next steps as a result of specific feedback, oral or written.

Formative assessment often included some form of collaborative decision making between students

and teachers in regards to key components of tasks or student products. This co-creation of criteria

helped students map where they were and where they needed to go next to progress or deepen their

understanding of the content studied. All of which relied on detailed, specific oral and written

feedback that was timely and relevant to the students. Feedback for students was not reported as an

explicit event done with red ink but rather an ongoing, continuous, recurring process that

responded to students’ work in ways that provide a framework for their next potential step.

Equally, next steps were often integrated with organized graphic charts, pictures or symbols that

were devices, which guided students through a task, increased ownership of the work for students

and provided opportunities for differentiated entry points in terms of the task or project within the

lesson.

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Throughout the student learning process studied, activities were often set up in a series of

instructional moves that allowed students opportunities to gain independence as learners. Students

progressed towards independence through a balance of whole class, small group and individual

activities or tasks that created flexible and creative learning spaces for their growth.

This closely relates to common notions associated with differentiated instruction. Instruction was

scaffolded and moved towards a gradual release of responsibility for task and learning from teacher

to student. This approach to working with students provided appropriate amounts of support to

students based on their individual needs and included instances where teachers and SWS teachers

modelled activities and thinking explicitly as well as let students work through problems with peers

or independently. Michelle discusses the relationship between student inquiry and independence

within this process:

The inquiry allows for students to construct their own knowledge of a form of writing while the gradual release allows them to try a form of writing, moving from maximum support through to independence. [Michelle]

As the discussion on student learning and progression comes to an end, it is critical to emphasize

the interconnectedness of the areas of student learning and instruction discussed. As previously

mentioned, reports which detailed rich learning experiences for these students were experiences

that included a combination of these aspects in lessons. They were experiences that Luke (2007)

might consider as the ‘art’ of great teaching. The repertoire of multiple and ongoing teacher and

student movements from small group to whole class, from explicit skill based instruction to open

ended authentic problem solving.

Equally, the inquiry process – the ongoing collaborative work that focused on capturing student

learning in ‘situ’ - the immediate experiences of students within lessons- proved to be a powerful

professional learning experience for both the SWS teachers and the classroom teachers. As detailed

earlier, in this initiative quality of product, insights in student learning and instruction and the

quality of processes, in depth collaborative inquiry that used qualitative research techniques in

order promote and capture student learning experiences were connected. It was through the SWS

teachers’ and classroom teachers’ engagement in solving the ‘problem’ of student learning which

provided rich, personalized insights into the ways students responded to instruction and the ways

instruction responded to students. The depth of understanding about student learning described by

SWS teachers was dependent on the degree to which the dialogue and relationship between the

SWS teacher and classroom teacher was honest, critical, trusting and collaborative. The next few

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sections will discuss the process of the inquiry by first looking at the relationships between

classroom teachers and SWS teachers and then considering the experience as a professional

learning experience for teachers.

SWS Teacher-Teacher Relationship

As a SWS teacher, entering classrooms and schools required time, flexibility and adaptation in

order to establish roles and processes within the collaborative inquiry. The SWS teacher role is

essentially an ‘insider/outsider’ role in which SWS teachers reported feeling at times separate from

the school and, at other times, as a part of the school’s working membership or community

(Cameron, 2010). The diverse and flexible nature of this role is evident in the following comments

made by two different SWS teachers, Mary and Jane:

(The) classroom teacher was active in supporting classroom conditions relevant to (the) supposition (the study’s focus). The teacher actively collaborated on creating activities, topics, lessons, conducive to the supposition. We shared observations, co-constructed knowledge based on observations and work samples, and co-planned next steps. [Mary]

… two classroom teachers I was working with were each at a different place along the continuum in terms of their understanding of the problem-solving process in math. As a result, the work I did in the primary classroom was more of a co-learning partnership while the relationship with the junior teacher was more information sharing. Throughout my time in these classrooms, I shared with the teachers the observations and interactions I had with students on a regular basis. The teachers used this information to inform their instruction, and also shared their observations and reflections with me. [Jane]

Mary discusses an experience in which the teacher was actively co-constructing meaning within

her study to inform her potential actions in the classroom for all her students. In this instance,

Mary’s relationship with the classroom teacher helped to deepen the teacher’s own understanding

of her practice and actions in relation to the work Mary is doing with some of her students. Jane, on

the other hand, seemed to be working in two different kinds of relationships with teachers. One

seemed to fit into what Mary is describing while the other placed Jane as an outsider, providing

some information but not actively co-constructing the potential new meanings that may emerge as

a result of the collaboration.

Collectively these excerpts help define what ‘insider/outsider’ roles with teachers look like in the

SWS Teacher initiative. Insider roles with teachers were ones in which the SWS teacher acted/felt

like a member within the learning community, actively participating in the classroom. While in

outsider roles, the SWS teacher is a source of potential information that the teacher may or may not

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use in their ongoing work. They are not necessarily included as a member, co-constructing

meaning within the experience of the classroom.

The SWS teachers generally took on both of these roles within their work in schools. At times, they

moved from outsider to insider and at other times they did not. Often movement to a role as co-

learner and insider emerged from the work with students. As the SWS teachers built positive

learning relationships with students, which generated new understanding and more sophisticated

work from students, the classroom teachers became more engaged in the study itself and the

potential meanings that were emerging from it. When this occurred it often served as a critical

moment for many SWS teachers for their study’s findings about students, discussed in the last

section, and for the relationships they were establishing with teachers. The following two excerpts

from Julie and Tom highlight the importance of generating new learning for students within the

initiative:

I have witnessed the power of using student work to drive the decisions that we make in our classroom practice. It was fascinating to watch teacher efficacy improve as students meet success with their learning as a result of their teaching. [Julie]

That focused observation of student and really understand the varied ways that students try to tell and show us that they need help and they really want to be successful if you could just listen and show them strategies they can use to be more successful…slow down and listen and observe. [Tom]

Although not directly related to the dynamic growth of co-learning relationships in classrooms

between SWS teachers and classroom teachers, the emphasis on watching students and creating

new learning opportunities for students was central to the growth and depth of the co-learning

relationships that often did occur across the initiative. As opportunities and experiences occurred in

which students grew as learners, the co-learning relationships between SWS teachers and

classroom teachers also grew.

This form or stance for new actions and risk taking in classrooms may be an instrumental part of

effective professional learning and growth for teachers. It is closely associated with the sense of

student stewardship- discussed at the outset of the article- that forms a central motivation for

teachers to try new things and consider or reflect on their own beliefs about their students’ learning

(e.g. Goodlad, 1991, Sergiovanni, 2007 and Greenfield, 1991). Differing from policies that use

material motivators like increased pay or role recognition for measured performances of teachers

e.g. ‘Advanced Skills Teachers’ (e.g. TRB, 2001). Here, SWS teachers and classroom teachers are

moved to new action and learning through intrinsic desire to further help students. Critical to

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arguments presented in this article, the depth of risk taking, experimentation and new learning for

teachers was linked to evidence of change in student learning not material reward.

As detailed across this section, the ways SWS teachers worked with classroom teachers influenced

the depth of professional learning about the ways that students respond and engage in classrooms

for SWS teachers, classroom teachers and, even at times, teachers outside of the study. Building a

collaborative, critical relationship with classroom teachers was critical to the understandings and

new learning for both SWS teacher and classroom teacher. Although the initiative was an effective

approach to professional learning in general, when the relationships between SWS teachers and

classroom teachers were deeply collaborative, teachers began to more closely integrate their

understanding of students’ actions with their instructional approaches. One participating classroom

teacher described the increased integration of their instruction with their students’ actions as

‘becoming fluent’ in the connections between their instructional actions and the subsequent student

actions.

Professional Learning

As detailed throughout this article, for SWS teachers and classroom teachers, this initiative enabled

personal understanding about the challenges of students working at level 2 (equivalent to a ‘C’

grade) and potential strategies that were more likely to work for them. This occurred through

opportunities for teachers to observe students, assemble evidence and data from students’

performances in context, and discuss the potential meanings of these observations. As such, the

initiative builds on a model of professional learning that envisions teachers’ learning as an active

process of knowledge construction through problem-based situations that are anchored in

classroom settings. The SWST initiative is an example of an ‘asset’ model of professional learning

in that adult practice is not positioned as the subject of the initiative to be ‘fixed’ or modified.

Rather, student learning sits at the centre of all actions and practice. In so doing, teacher

professional practice becomes more precise, responsive and sophisticated. Understanding about

student learning and improvement deepens and progresses. An ongoing progressive understanding

of the connection between pedagogic technique and student learning becomes dynamic or evolving.

This entire process stemmed from the interactive work of the SWS teachers, the teachers and the

students as they engaged in study of learning and actions within classrooms. As the learning

experiences for students unfolded, the learning of all participants deepened. These inquiry

processes were often powerful learning experiences-student focused and pedagogically oriented.

As SWS teachers, Larry, Colleen and Sarah, reflect:

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I now realize that anchor charts are “working documents”. They need to be revised and changed as our learning evolves. This is a new insight I have gained and I can appreciate that learning and knowledge should not be stagnant, but continuously evolving. [Larry] One thing I want to keep in the forefront of my mind as I begin next September is the length of time it takes to build this success. We’ve always hear(d) the phrase “kids need time to write” and while I’ve always thought I was giving them time enough, I think my focus on the process of their writing this year, rather than their final product, has produced improvement in their final products. [Colleen] Although I had read in many professional resources on the value of working with peers, the opportunity to look closely at how this affects student learning has had a permanent effect on how I will teach for the remainder of my career. [Sarah]

What could be thought of as the ‘sub-text’ of these excerpts is the importance within professional

learning experiences to have opportunities to reconceptualise the nature of learning for students

through an informed, systematic reflection on personal teaching practices and students’ actions.

The initiative fostered communication between two or more professionals about genuine challenges

faced by their students in the context of the classrooms. In so doing, it promoted a co-construction

of knowledge and understanding about students’ learning.

But these processes may not have been as effective without central capacity building through the

monthly regional network opportunities for SWS teachers discussed earlier. The monthly meetings

were run by teams from the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat. They provided expert pedagogic

and research input in response to and dependent on the challenges and problems that the SWS

teachers brought to these sessions. At times discussions would focus on establishing quality

relationships within the schools at other times they offered resources that focused on areas of study

for the SWS teachers. As SWS teachers did not come with a qualitative research background, time

was regularly spent in building and understanding the research methods, which the SWS teachers

were using in their work with teachers. As Perry and Lewis (2010) have shown, the nature of

research use and ensuing knowledge building in school practice is usually a slow and iterative

process. But it does not happen in vacuum – devoid of context and personal ownership. It requires

interaction, communication and consolidation with peers facing similar challenges (Earl, 2010).

These central sessions took on this role. In so doing, the emergent nature of the SWS teacher role

in schools and its potential as a catalyst for professional learning became a core part of the learning

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for the central teams that were running the initiative allowing the initiative to take on an emergent

or adaptive design- changing as a function of needs coming from the SWS teachers.

The regional SWS teacher meetings also allowed opportunities to support capacity of school and

district leadership in understanding a co-learning stance in order to leverage the depth of the

learning process for schools and teachers. The ability of institutional hierarchies like schools and

districts to create and support emergent learning from classroom-based study while maintaining

coherence and strategic direction proved to be a significant challenge to this model locally. But

equally, a critical one for any kind of system expansion of processes which use collaborative

classroom study or inquiry.

Holistically, this initiative is an example of authentic learning happening in the workplace. As

teachers often define for their students the notion of learning as an active process of sense-making,

educators involved in school improvement across the education governance from central policy

design to local district and school improvement may also need to consider their own

understandings of professional learning for teachers. Instead of conceptualizing professional

learning as a series of sessions designed to disseminate and deliver instructional and assessment

techniques, effective professional learning within this initiative served to actively integrate new

understanding and knowledge into existing, personal understanding and appreciation of

professional practice. In so doing, the experience for participants developed what Bereiter calls the

‘problem space’. Here, the classroom is re-conceptualized as a problem space focused on

increasing student learning (Bereiter, 2002). Insights from this initiative suggest that it may not be

the amount or quality of theoretical knowledge, best practices or high yield pedagogic strategies

that need to be conveyed to teachers, but rather the processes in which teachers develop and apply

their emerging understandings of instruction and assessment to their students’ responses and

actions within their classrooms in iterative, ongoing and progressive ways.

Conclusion SWS teacher initiative’s approach sits firmly within what Coburn and Stein (2010) argue is a

conception of building knowledge of practice in which teachers learn professionally and adapt their

practice to meet the student needs in their classroom through opportunities to collaboratively

interrogate their own practice. It offers insights about the potential of collaborative practitioner

research as a tool to better understand conditions that foster learning for students through a

systematic inquiry of student voice and actions in classrooms. The development of hands-on and

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practical understanding about how specific students interact and learn in the classroom can inform

teaching practices of participants and enhance student learning.

Although the outcomes in terms of general findings about instructional and assessment technique

do not reveal new discoveries for practitioners; the process by which these findings were generated

and the ways teachers encode information about the reality of the classrooms provides a critical

connection between the broader theoretical knowledge and how it looks/feels when individually

implemented. Here, the dissonance between their instructional activities and subsequent student

activities became part of the material of their learning.

As detailed throughout this article, the initiative created an environment in which ‘new’

instructional techniques for participants were integrated with existing, prior or tacit understanding

of work as a practitioner. As and when this occurred, the professional learning of participants was

profound. In relation to understanding professional knowledge as a dynamic process that expands

through practice, reflection, inquiry and collaboration, the SWS Teacher Initiative maybe

contributing to establishing new understandings from which teacher professional learning can be

re-conceptualized and focused.

As influential as the SWS Teacher initiative has been for many district school boards and schools,

there remain core challenges within the initiative that are tricky to address given the political and

cultural context and structures of schools, districts and central governance in the following

potential ways. Explicit connections between the knowledge generated from individual studies of

the SWS teachers and existing theoretical knowledge that could inform the inquiry processes

requires expertise, support and time. All of which can be scarce in the ways that schools and

districts work. However, making connections between local inquiry and wider bodies of knowledge

could serve to deepen the understanding in the study as well as help develop further local examples

of connecting research to practice and practice to research.

Equally, important and challenging for the initiative was establishing opportunities for teachers to

do this kind of work within the daily demands of teaching. Developing local strategies for

furthering opportunities for teachers to meet outside of daily routines. Balancing the tension

between teaching, planning and participation in this kind of initiative could potentially create

instances of ‘burn out’ for teachers (Cameron, 2004). Here, service to students as teachers comes

into conflict with the time teachers need to spend with SWS Teachers on the inquiry processes.

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This maybe as much of a structural problem with schooling as it is a personal problem and requires

careful planning and thought. In some instances, the learning generated by the intensive work in

classrooms of the SWS teachers and the host classroom teachers informed the core areas on which

the participating schools were focusing in their improvement strategies. In these instances, outside

of class work in service of planning and school strategy was folded into the inquiry itself. For the

Literacy and Numeracy Strategy in general, sustainability and growth of this kind of approach to

professional learning might depend on finding the right balance for inquiry work in schools.

Viewed centrally within the Literacy and Numeracy Strategy in Ontario, the initiative has offered

many different insights about teacher and student learning. But these insights also may create a

productive tension between products of knowledge e.g. instructional strategy and processes from

which new knowledge is generated for teachers within school improvement attempts. A core part

of this challenge sits with gaining a deeper understanding of the local adaptations made in the

implementation of collaborative inquiry processes to inform central policy direction while

maintaining the authenticity of the collaborative inquiry process itself. If products of inquiry-

instructional and assessment strategy- are devolved from the inquiry process - the context from

which these strategies emerged- and are instead communicated as ‘solutions’ to the student

learning experience, the authenticity of the classroom as a ‘problem space’ maybe marginalized.

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