Transcript Leading learning through Professional Learning Communities

Leading Learning Through
Professional Learning Communities
Professor Louise Stoll
“Creating Capacity for Learning”
President
International Congress for
School Effectiveness and Improvement,
Visiting Professor: Institute of Education,
University of London
London Leadership Centre
email: [email protected]
Hertfordshire Secondary Heads and Deputy Heads
Wheathampstead Development Centre, 23 June 2004
Outline
Professional learning communities:
why now?
What are they?
What makes them effective?
How can you lead learning
through professional learning
communities?
Professional learning
communities: why all the
interest?
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 to
have happen and/or what you would like to
plan to happen
Beare (2001)
Three key change forces
influencing schools
1. Powerful industrial sector associated with new
technologies views education as a market place
2. Growing awareness of the need for new
approaches to learning and realisation that the
only genuinely marketable skill is that of
learning itself
3. ‘Child power’: children with increasingly less
regard for school as it lags behind the society
it serves
Papert (1996)
What do Teachers Need to Learn?
• Understanding
learning
• Content knowledge
• Pedagogical understanding
• Emotional understanding
• Fundamentals of change
• New professionalism
• Meta-learning
Stoll, Fink and Earl (2003)
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?
Learning community
. . . A group of people who take an
active, reflective, collaborative,
learning-oriented, and growthpromoting approach toward the
mysteries, problems and
perplexities of teaching and
learning
Mitchell and Sackney (2000)
Creating and Sustaining Effective
Professional Learning Communities
Project, 2001-2004
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.
Co-directors: Ray Bolam, Agnes McMahon,
Louise Stoll, Sally Thomas and Mike Wallace
What makes professional
learning communities
effective?
Question
What are the three most
distinguishing characteristics
of your effective professional
learning community/
communities?
An effective professional learning
community may have an impact on:
pupils’ learning process and progress,
attitudes, attendance
individual teachers’ and other staff’s
practice, morale, recruitment and retention
individual leadership practice
organisational learning practices among
groups or across the whole school
How can you lead learning
through professional
learning communities?
Three ways leaders handle pressures
of 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)
Focus of capacity building
•creating and maintaining the
necessary conditions, culture and
structures
•facilitating learning and skill-oriented
experiences and opportunities
•ensuring interrelationships and
synergy between all the component
parts
Stoll and Bolam (forthcoming)
Working
towards
sustainability
Ensuring
supportive
structures
Creating
and
transferring
knowledge
Growing a
learning
culture
Professional
learning
community
Making
connections
Nurturing
trust and
relationships
Offering
learning
opportunities
Promoting
inquiry
mindedness
Louise Stoll (2004)
Growing a
learning
culture
Professional
learning
community
How organisations work
when no-one is looking
Morgan (1998)
Task
Think about your school’s
ceremonies, rituals and
symbols. What do they say
about your school’s
focus? Is it on learning for
all?
Expectations - Quotes from Improving School
Effectiveness Project Teachers in Scotland
“Home background, deprivation, parental views
on education. Often survival is more important
than taking on board educational
opportunities”.
“Some children are never going to achieve very
much”.
“…there are no limitations. You can come in
this door and the world is your oyster… the
children will be encouraged. Nothing is
holding us back”.
Stoll et al (2001)
in MacBeath and Mortimore (eds)
Key Stage 3 Strategy Pilot – Year 8 Survey (2164 students)
% agree
I like work that challenges me
71
I have to think hard to do my work
65
My work is too easy
18
My work is too hard
14
I give up when work gets too hard
26
My teachers:
% all/most
Encourage me to do my best work
73
Help me to understand my work
73
Tell me how I can improve my work
70
Nurturing
trust and
relationships
Professional
learning
community
Invitational leadership
Leadership is about communicating
invitational messages to individuals and
groups with whom leaders interact in order
to build and act on a shared and evolving
vision of enhanced educational experiences
for pupils.
Inviting yourself personally
Inviting yourself professionally
Inviting others personally
Inviting others professionally
Stoll and Fink (1996)
Four Dimensions
of Relational Trust
1. Respect
2. Competence
3. Personal regard for others
4. Integrity
Bryk and Schneider (2002)
Professional
learning
community
Offering
learning
opportunities
High
C
H
A
L
L
E
N
G
E
S
Arousal
Flow
Anxiety
Worry
Control
Relaxation
Apathy
Boredom
Low
High
SKILLS
Csikszentmihalyi (1990)
Professional
learning
community
Promoting
inquiry
mindedness
‘A place of questioning
where you must ask the
question and the answer
questions you’.
Leaders in a
Data-Rich World
Develop an Inquiry Habit of Mind
Become Data Literate
Create a Culture of Inquiry
Earl and Katz (2002)
Leadership : comparison between
different levels of responsibility
Statements
% teachers
Pri
Sec
% middle managers
Pri
Sec
% SMTs
Pri
Sec
53
29
72
38
87
80
The SMT openly
48
recognises teachers
when they do things well
26
60
35
91
71
55
46
60
48
86
87
Staff participate in
important decision
making
There is effective
communication
between SMT
and teachers
McCall et al (2001) in MacBeath and Mortimore (eds)
What helps you to learn in school?
Clear learning objectives and explanations
I like to be clear what I am learning
93% agree
My teachers explain things clearly
63% all/most
Group work
I 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)
There is one touchstone question for
the critical friend, which is not too
far away from what a teacher would,
or should, ask in relation to the class
or individual learner: ‘Will this help
to develop independence, the
capacity to learn and to apply
learning more effectively over time?’
MacBeath (1998)
Professional
learning
community
Making
connections
A collection of parts that do
not connect is not a system. It
is a heap.
O’Connor and McDermott (1997)
Primary
Strategy
Curriculum
Teaching &
Learning
Parents, Community,
Partnerships
ICT
SEN
EAL
Professional
development
NLC
Every
Child
Matters
Foundation
Stage
Leading networking
“Scouting for talent”
Making connections
Inspiring people
Facilitating learning possibilities
Presenting new ideas using a model of
collective inquiry
Lieberman and Wood (2003)
Questions
What are your most effective networks
and partnerships and why?
How do they help develop and sustain
your own professional learning
community?
Professional
learning
community
Creating and
transferring
knowledge
Innovation and Best Practice Project
Probably the most important outcome of
the IBPP project was its lessons for
teacher learning. The most powerful
innovations incorporated teams of
teachers learning by ‘working’ with new
knowledge and, in the process,
enhancing their understanding of the
learning needs and capacities of their
students.
Cuttance and Stokes (2001)
Four key conditions
for creative learning
The need to be challenged
The elimination of negative stress
Feedback
The capacity to live with uncertainty
Lucas (2001)
Ensuring
supportive
structures
Professional
learning
community
Structural conditions that support
professional learning community
Time to meet and talk
Physical proximity
Interdependent teaching roles
Resources
Communication mechanisms
Planning
Coordination of professional development
Working
towards
sustainability
Professional
learning
community
Sustainable improvements are not
fleeting changes that disappear when
their champions have left. Sustainable
leadership is not achieved by
charismatic leaders whose shoes are
too big to fill. Instead, it spreads
beyond individuals in chains of
influence that connect the actions of
leaders to their predecessors and
successors.
Hargreaves and Fink (2004)
Working towards sustainability involves:
attending to the other dimensions in an
ongoing way
regularly revisiting the learning vision and
foci
inducting, inviting and involving new staff
embedding collaborative learning and
teaching initiatives into school planning
processes
systematically evaluating the process
Working
towards
sustainability
Ensuring
supportive
structures
Creating
and
transferring
knowledge
Growing a
learning
culture
Professional
learning
community
Making
connections
Nurturing
trust and
relationships
Offering
learning
opportunities
Promoting
inquiry
mindedness
Louise Stoll (2004)
. . . discover and
provide the conditions
under which people’s
learning curves go off
the chart.
Barth (2001)