Module 6

Leading Professional Learning and Development

Learning Intentions

1. Understand the key findings of the Best Evidence of Professional Learning and Development (PLD).

2. Review your school practices in light of the evidence about effective PLD and commit to some actions that improve or enhance those practices.

Success Criteria

You are able to reflect on the evidence about effective PLD, and plan changes for the year ahead.

Conditions for effective PLD

Overview

Big Ideas

1.The research on the effective school-based provision of professional development is complex and nuanced. It points to some conditions being necessary to enable better adult learning:

Consistency with wider policy trends and research
Extended time for teachers to engage with new ideas and their implications for practice
External experts who can present ideas in ways that promote teacher engagement
Opportunities to engage in a range of learning activities
Participation in a learning community checks for impact on student outcomes from new practices

2. But these are not sufficient to promote the deep learning and a change in behaviour by themselves. Two other conditions are critical:

Being clear about the purpose of the PLD i.e., what problem is this trying to solve?
Developing pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) combined with the skills to inquire into the impact of one’s teaching. PCK is not generic teaching skills but rather "content-specific aspects of instruction" such as being able to anticipate what confusions students will typically make in a subject area.

3. We outline some of the key conditions in more depth below.

Clarity of purpose

Big Ideas

Purpose

1. If staff are to be motivated to engage with PLD, the purpose of it must be clear. It should be focused on your priority school goal and the reason for pursuing that goal should be based on the analysis of student achievement data. If that data shows underperformance compared to similar schools, for example, that can be an eye-opener for staff and illustrate that it is possible to get better results. It is the analysis of this gap between the current performance and the desired performance that motivates action.

2. A clear focus is greatly enabled if the school minimizes the number of foci for its PLD. While individual teachers may be given support in the classroom in a range of subjects, the school-wide or team effort to help teachers learn new content and practices is greatly enhanced by a narrow focus. Go narrow and deep.

Provide multiple opportunities

Multiple opportunities

Big Ideas

1. Going narrow and deep necessitates that staff have multiple opportunities to learn new material.

2. But teachers typically experience a disconnected series of events and are left to themselves to make sense of the material and to implement ideas (or not).

Collaborative approach

3. In the example above, a more productive approach, is illustrated. It involves having multiple opportunities to engage with the ideas both theoretically (through discussion with others) and practically (by trying new practices out and assessing the impact on students). Adults, like students, take time to learn new practices and if they are not convinced of the efficacy of new practices, they will not adopt them.

4. This points to the critical importance of embedding routines in schools where teachers can meet In teams and both share the changed practice they have trialled AND evidence of its impact on students. This is the heart of what is commonly referred to as an ‘inquiry’ approach.

Respond to teachers' existing theories

Big Ideas

1. Our beliefs (e.g., about what is good practice) drive our behaviours. If new learning does not help teachers to examine their core beliefs, it is unlikely to have any impact on practice.

2. Teachers frequently do not change, or do not change for long because

-it can be very risky to try something new. It challenges our level of competence and confidence.

-we can believe that what we do already is in fact the same as what is being advocated (over assimilation)

-we do not believe the new practice is effective.

3. It is only by trialling new ideas and checking for impact in a supportive group situation, that the impact of those new ideas can be checked. Thus, regular team meetings that help teachers reflect on how new ideas work in practice and the checking of impact data (e.g., artefacts that illustrate student learning), are central to effective PLD.

4. Skilled facilitators engage with the theories of teachers, they do not bypass (or ignore) them. Leaders or facilitators need to make teachers’ current theories of actions visible in order to engage with them. The questions below help to illustrate how to make theories of action visible.

Theory of action

Involve leaders and experts

Experts

Big Ideas

1. Leaders need to be able to engage with the new learning with their staff so that they can actively lead the improvement in their school. If they do not hear the same message as their teachers, they are unable to engage with the thinking of their teachers about the advocated changes.

2. They must also make the right resourcing and organizational decisions to support change. The right changes must be embedded into systems and only leaders have the mandate to make organisational changes and to implement new routines.

3. Further, leaders need to put into place ways of monitoring the impact. How do they know that teacher changes are being made and how do they know it is impacting positively on students.

4. External experts are also critical. They are well placed to challenge current beliefs and practices of teachers which can be difficult for internal experts. Where teachers receive only collegial support without external expertise to implement and understand changes, they may be unable to implement changed practices. Just providing time for teachers to meet and collaborate is unlikely to lead to improvements. Expert facilitation of group learning is required.

5. Internal expertise is also useful so long as it can provide that expert facilitation of teacher learning. Without the input and challenge from an expert, teachers may just ‘pool their ignorance’. Internal experts may already have trust of teachers and understand the current theory of action of many teachers and therefore know how to better guide them in using new or altered practices.

Conclusion

Effective PLD requires extended time for deep learning. New ideas need to be trialled by teachers and the efficacy of these ideas need to be tested by their impact on student outcomes. This means school-based meetings where artefacts of students' learning can be examined become the heart and soul of new learning.

Group Activity

Evaluate the effectiveness of your current process for PLD using the questions below to guide your discussion.

In less than 100 words, record your key takeaways and action points from the session. The questions below may assist you but you do not have to be constrained by them.

Questions to consider:

Do teachers understand why they are engaging with new ideas?

Do structured opportunities exist to repeatedly visit, and process, new ideas?

Are teachers existing theories engaged or bypassed?

How do leaders engage? What is the role of expertise - internal and external?