Schools as Learning Communities

Professor Christopher Day

The School as Learning Community

• Learning must be situated in a critical community of inquirers who accept that knowledge is always partial and fallible and who support the enrichment of knowledge through sharing of meanings, interpretations, and learnings among all members of the community.

• The learning agenda of the school must be continually related to something intrinsically human - to the exploration of questions important to human individuals and social life.

• The learning agenda of the school must be related to the large cultural projects of our current era as well as to the cultural projects of our history. Thus, school learnings are connected to a significant discourse about the making of history.

• School meanings must be continuously related to students' experience of everyday life.

(Starratt, 1996, p. 70)

Learning Communities are Multi-Level

• Individual

focussing upon teacher efficacy i.e. "the extent to which the teacher believes he or she

has the capacity of affect student performance".

• Group the use of distributed intelligence (Gronn, 2000) clarity of goals collaboration norms encouragement of divergence of views

• Whole Organisation

professional community i.e. shared sense of purpose, collective focus on student learning,

reflective dialogue, de-privatised practice.

• Families (as much as 75% of the variables)

which co-produce conditions which foster student learning.

Qualities of Learning Communities

1. Caring

2. Inclusive

3. Trust

4. Empowerment

5. Commitment

Part 1

C.P.D.

The Need for C.P.D.

• Schools as Learning Communities

• Educators as Lifelong Learners

• Education

• Training

The Inquiring Teacher

• Reflection at the centre - what kinds?

• Working in communities - inside and outside school

• Learning to teach over a lifespan

• Being entitled to personal and professional support and challenge

• Systematic investigation: critiquing one’s own practice

Precepts for learning and capacity building include:

• Successful schools are learning communities for adults as well as children

• Teachers learn best when they participate actively in discussions about the content, processes and outcomes of their learning

• Successful learning requires time for critical reflection of different kinds, and action research is the most effective means of investigating practice

• Learning alone though one’s own experience will ultimately limit progress

• Successful learning requires collaboration with others from inside and outside the workplace

• Teacher learning and development are necessary for school improvement

• School leaders play a significant role in teacher learning and the School leaders play a significant role in teacher learning and the development of a school’s capacity to improve and cope with changedevelopment of a school’s capacity to improve and cope with change

• At its best, learning will have personal and professional significance for teachers

• Supported, sustained learning over time is likely to be more beneficial to the individual and organisation than short term learning

• If schools are to operate effectively in devolved systems, much reliance has to be placed on trust in professional judgement at school level

(Day and Hadfield, 2004)

The Nature of CPD: a definition

'Professional development consists of all natural learning experiences and those conscious and planned activities which are intended to be of direct or indirect benefit to the individual, group or school, and which contribute, through these, to the quality of education in the classroom. It is the process by which, alone and with others, teachers review, renew and extend their commitment as change agents to the moral purposes of teaching; and by which they acquire and develop critically the knowledge, skills and emotional intelligence essential to good professional thinking, understanding, planning and practice with children, young people and colleagues throughout each phase of their teaching lives.'

(Day, 1999, p 4).

C.P.D. at the centre: School Improvement Planning

CPD

PD

SIP

CDPM

PD: Personal DevelopmentCD: Curriculum DevelopmentCPD: Continuing Professional DevelopmentPM: Performance ManagementSIP: School Improvement Plan

‘Direct’ TeachingKnowledge update

Skill updateAwareness SessionsInitial ConversationsCharismatic Speakers

ConferencesCourses and Workshops

Consultants

Learning Out of SchoolNetworked Learning Communities

School/University PartnershipsSubject/Phase Networks

Study GroupsUniversity Courses

Learning in SchoolTeam TeachingPeer Coaching

Action ResearchProblem-Solving Groups

Reviews of StudentsAssessment DevelopmentCase Studies of Practice

Planning GroupsWriting for Professional

JournalsSchool Site Management

TeamsOn-line Conversations

Peer Reviews of PracticePerformance Management

Mentoring

Table 1 - Organising for Professional Development

CPD Settings

Based on Lieberman & Miller (1999, p 73)

Policy Organisational

Personal

The Three Orientations of CPD

Orientation of development

activityPersonal

Individual professional

(extended/long-term

career related)

Professional practitioner

(immediate classroom management/knowledge/

skills update/training

Organisational(role related

training/development)

Underlying view

of individual

Individual as Person

Individual as member of wider

community of professionals and educative leader

Individual as manager

of learning and achievement

Individual as

member of school

community

Kinds of ProfessionalDevelopment

Figure 1 Orientations of Career-Long Professional Development Planning

Change in Learning (Attitudes, Behaviour, Results)

• Evolutionary

• Incremental

• Transformative

Part 2

Evaluation

Evaluating CPD Effectiveness

1. Participants’ reactions

2. Participants’ learning from CPD (cognitive, affective, behavioural)

3. Organisational support and change

4. Participants’ use of new knowledge andskills

5. Student outcomes

Tom Guskey (2000)

Participants’ Reactions

Method of evaluation

• “Happy Sheet”

• Discussion

• Focus Groups/Interviews

• Departmental/Staff meetings

• Learning logs/reflective journals

“..we have two meetings a week, one’s just a standard meeting, and then what we call development meeting, it’s the same meeting of the previous, same topic, but it’s developmental work”

Participants’ Learning

Method of evaluation

• Interviews with teachers

• Documentary evidence

• Interim observation

• Informal Discussion

• Reflective logs

• PM

• Tests of knowledge

• Rating own learning

• Questionnaires

“But it’s the soft issues that are the most important ..a form might not be the right thing”

“You have to kind of have a feel about and pick up things through the leadership team as well”.

“…but the professional development part of the performance management cycle means that you can say: ‘How did that CPD affect you in the long term?”

Organisational Support and Change

“…I mean it’s not just CPD, it’s the

whole culture really…”

Method of evaluation

• Attainment of SIP targets

• Retention of staff

• External recognition (IIP, excellent school

list, etc.)

• Retention of staff in profession

• Observation (Shadowing)

• Interviews

• Questionnaires

“I think they feel they are working in a school that’s giving them a lot. I think

they feel they are working in a school where it is a

professional organisation

“The benefit for us is .. people to move on, fine we know that we’ve sent someone from here with the right tools to grow in their job and know how to run a department and spend the rest of their time developing it.”

Participants’ Use of New Knowledge and Skills

Method of evaluation

• Discussion

• Documentary evidence

• Return to happy sheet

• Interviews with students

• Interviews with teachers

• Reflective logs

• Observation

• PM

• Questionnaires

“They put in a sheet prior to the event... so then

when they come for their reviews we say, “Right, you went on such and such, have you felt it’s

been useful for you in the classroom?”

“…as part of performance review, they do a questionnaire on-line with their pupils. So they get feedback, we get the feedback into the whole system from pupils.”

“We ran inset …I did follow-up observations – to see if they were employing the strategies “

Student Learning Outcomes

“If you’re developing the teachers professionally it’s of benefit to the school and it’s of benefit to the children”.

Method of evaluation

• Interview

• Sats/GCSE/A/AS

• Scrutiny of work

• Discussion

• Immediate work

• Term/year evaluations/tests

• Pupil self assessment

• Performance assessment

• Portfolio assessment

“I wanted to see if the children were employing the strategies that the teachers had learned – when I went through the answers the children were employing the strategies I’d wanted the teachers to be teaching”.

“We have conferences with our students

twice a year to talk about the teaching...”

Part 3

Leadership & Support

Admin

Cover

Tracking

PM

PD

ReportingNetworks

Materials

Provision

Information

CPD Management Roles

Develop

PlanningIndividuals

NA whole school

NAindividuals

Use of analysis

Analysis

Networks

PlanningSchools

CPD Leadership Roles

Evaluation Methods

Supportive Culture

Leadership

Career long CPD planning

Reflection

S I P

Time & Resources

Co-ordinator's Role

Evaluation of Impact

Factors influencing school capacity and student achievement

Student Achievement

Instructional QualityCurriculum, Instruction, Assessment

School CapacityTeachers’ Knowledge, Skills, Dispositions

Professional Community - shared purpose, collaboration, reflective enquiry, influence

Program Coherence

Policy and Programs on

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENTby the

SchoolDistrict

StateIndependent Organisations