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Miriam - November 15th 2008
• MIRIAM
DOG
Breed: German Shepard Mix
Size: Medium
Age: 3 years
Sex: Female
I.D. Number: 54089
• “Well, good afternoon! My silky smooth coat is as soft as a bed sheet! My
eyes twinkle like the North Star! I am a sweet little lady who loves to go on
walks and my, oh, my…you will be pleased with my excellent leash manners! I
love to be patted and I love to be brushed. My face is full of expression and
everyone says I am so, so cute! I get along well with EVERYBODY. Come meet
me today!”
•
Made with LOVE by Miss Warmouth’s Primary 2 students in Edinburgh,
Scotland!!!!
Developing a professional learning
community for All-through schools
The engine room for change and sustained
school improvement
Graham Thomson
Website and course information at:
www.scssa.ed.ac.uk
Professional Learning Communities
“Professional Learning Communities are places in
which teachers pursue clear, shared purposes for
student learning, engage in collaborative activities to
achieve their purposes, and take collective
responsibility for student learning”
Liebermann (1999)
“A Professional Learning Community is defined as a
school’s staff members who continuously seek
to find answers through inquiry and act on their
learning to improve student learning”
Astuto (2002)
parallel play
Barth
Turn to your shoulder partner.
Come up with some examples of where you
might see parallel play in an All-through school?
There is a new
generation emerging
that will change the
world as never
before.
Tapscott, Growing Up Digital
ICT Literacy…
What should you teach a five-year old so that
they will be ICT literate at the age of 20?
March 16
Chris Yapp
Core to the Problem?
• The hardware doesn’t yet exist
• The software hasn’t been written
• Some of the key companies don’t yet exist
So, who do you ask?
March 16
Chris Yapp
Gifted as a Team
Activity
What subject is this?
All-through schools need
to focus their energies on
nurturing multidisciplinary
problem solving teams
rather than simply
supporting talented
individuals.
“ If we create a GM rice
that is enriched with
Vitamin C, we could cut
scurvy.
Graham Thomson Nov 09
Can the West impose this
technology for their own
Chris Yapp
good?”
If the world were a village of 100 people...
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
57 Asians: 21 Europeans; 8 Africans
52 female; 48 male
70 non-white; 30 white
70 non-Christian; 30 Christian
The World Village
89 heterosexual; 11 homosexual
6 possess 59% of entire world’s wealth, and all 6 from the US
80 live in substandard housing
70 unable to read
50 suffer from malnutrition
1 near death; 1 near birth
1 with college education
1 computer owner
Harter (2000)
If your school is made up of 100 staff
members…..
What percentage would say…
•
There is a lot of collaboration in my subject department or stage
• There is a shared whole-school vision of where the school is going
• High levels of trust and respect exist in this school
• Staff development time is used effectively
• There is effective communication between teachers and senior
managers
• There is a lot of cross-departmental or stage collaboration in this
school
Key Stage 3 Strategy Pilot Evaluation
Teacher Survey Results
A%
• There is a lot of collaboration in
my subject department
• There is a shared whole-school
vision of where the school is
going
• High levels of trust and respect
exist in this school
• Staff development time is used
effectively
• There is effective communication
between teachers and senior
managers
• There is a lot of cross-departmental
48
collaboration in this school
26
80
53
47
41
•Internal capacity is the power to engage in and sustain
continuous learning of teachers and the school itself for
the purpose of enhancing pupil learning.
•Such a school can take charge of change, irrespective
of its source, and can thrive in a changing environment.
Turn to your shoulder partners
Why are some hospital doctors more innovative than
others?
What happens between people is more important
for innovation than what is within individuals
Are You Part of a Professional
Learning Community?
The idea of making classrooms into learning
communities for students will remain more rhetoric
than real unless schools also become learning
communities for teachers
Thomas Sergiovanni
Developing Professional Learning
Communities
Professional
Work that is grounded in the distinctive knowledge-base of learning and
teaching (pedagogy)
Learning
The constant desire to know more about how work in schools can be
better understood and improved
Community
Groups of people committed and working together with a common
aspiration of achievement for all pupils
Developing professional learning communities
http://www.edu.dudley.gov.uk/CPD/Documents/cpd_toolkit/CPD%20methods/Developing%20professional%20learning%20communities.pdf
Key factors for PLC
success
1.
members desire and capacity to improve
2.
shared vision
3.
a relentless focus on pupil learning
4.
collective responsibility is taken for pupil learning and success.
5.
enquiry-based learning.
6.
collaboration
7.
shared Leadership for learning
8.
clear working structures and conditions
9.
new learning opportunities for adults
10. good external links
Based on Developing professional learning communities
http://www.edu.dudley.gov.uk/CPD/Documents/cpd_toolkit/CPD%20meth
ods/Developing%20professional%20learning%20communities
Heart By-pass Death
Rate Drops 25%
When Surgeons
Share Know-How
23 practicing surgeons and their staff observed one another
in the operating room and shared their know-how.
“We didn’t invent anything new; we got better at doing
things we already do”, said one.
•
• 74
patients who were expected to die did not
In New England
Research conducted at Dartmouth Medical School
Lebanon, N.H.
March, 1996
Glow Groups are a
great way to:
•discuss and debate
practice,
•share ideas and
resources,
• or collaborate on
projects.
TRIOS
Learning
Rounds
Learning Rounds
• Going beyond normal boundaries; getting close to practice in
different contexts
• Not passive observers but a dialogue after observations
• Emphasis on central importance of Learning and Teaching to
school improvement
• Focus on observers’ learning
• Focus on ‘Next Steps’
• Approach to school improvement that can be duplicated
across a system
CREATIVITY
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Evaluation:
appraise, defend, predict
Synthesis:
compose, design, develop
Analysis:
compare, contrast, categorise
Application:
demonstrate, illustrate, solve

Comprehension:
describe, explain
Knowledge:
memorise, name,
recognise, recall
Light-up Shoes and Jelly
Fish Story
In the majority of classes we observed the
questioning used was:
•
lower order
•
teacher initiated
•
and with few pupil initiated questions
What will our PLC do now?
g.r.o.u.p. brainstorming
go for quantity
record every single idea
outlaw judgement
unleash crazy thoughts
period of incubation
Brainstorm
-go for quantity
-record every single idea
-outlaw judgement
-unleash crazy thoughts
-period of incubation
The Pacific power and light company had a
problem with ice forming on the electrical
wires after snow storms.
The ice had to be removed or over time the
weight of the ice may break the electrical
lines. The manual process to solve this
problem was slow, tedious and dangerous.
Come up with a sustainable and costeffective solution to the problem
Pacific Power and Light
So what should we teach a 5-year old
today?
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•
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•
•
•
Communication skills
Numeracy
Creativity
Citizenship
Love of learning
Personal knowledge/knowledge
•
March 16
?
Chris Yapp
45
Your PLC next steps………….
• What have you heard today that you might
use?
• If the answer is “nothing”, what will you do
instead?
• What have you started that you will continue?
• What will your first step be?