STANDARDS ASSESSMENT INVENTORY Recommendations: Learning Designs Standard
This resource brief is designed to support next actions for those educators who are using their
results from the Standards Assessment Inventory 2 to improve professional learning. This
brief includes an overview of the standard, next steps for continuous improvement in three
categories, and tools and readings that support improvement in each of those categories.
With support from
Standards Assessment Inventory Recommendations: Learning Designs Standard Learning Designs standard overview
Professional learning that increases educator effectiveness and results for all students
integrates theories, research, and models of human learning to achieve its intended
outcomes.
One of the most visible components of professional learning is the design of the learning
experience. Learning design is the “how” of professional learning. It is the way educators gain
knowledge, skills, dispositions, and practices and translate new practices into their daily work.
Professional learning research helps inform decisions about which learning designs are most
effective for different kinds of learning outcomes, learners, and situations. For example, a
book study is effective for gaining new knowledge, yet it is not particularly effective when
that knowledge needs to be transferred into new classroom practices. Helping educators
make strategic decisions about learning designs is the focus of this standard, which involves
three key ideas: (1) applying learning theories, research, and models; (2) selecting learning
designs; and (3) promoting active engagement.
Apply learning theories, research, and models. What are the best practices when it comes to
adult learning? What methods are most effective when learning new information? Are other
methods more effective when the desired outcome is putting that new knowledge into
practice? Just as a single model of instruction is not effective for all students at all times, the
same is true for adult learners. Those engaged in professional learning benefit from a variety
of learning designs tailed to the outcomes they want to achieve, their learning preferences,
and the context that surrounds their learning.
Research points to common characteristics of effective professional learning designs. They
involve:
•
Active engagement of the learner;
•
Modeling of new strategies;
•
Reflection on the use of new practices;
•
Application of new practices in the learner’s own classroom or work environment;
•
Effective and constructive feedback on the use of new practices;
•
Ongoing support and assistance, especially during implementation; and
Learning Forward 2 Standards Assessment Inventory Recommendations: Learning Designs Standard •
Formative and summative assessments of practice.
Learning designs come in many different configurations. Professional learning designs can
occur face-to-face, online, or as a hybrid of both. Learning designs can focus on individual,
team, schoolwide, or districtwide goals and can be formal or informal. The most effective
professional learning occurs close to the place of implementation, preferably as a part of the
regular workday. However, educators do learn after hours and in the summers as well. For
example, extended summer institutes and university coursework provide opportunities for
educator learning. Online learning programs, web-based resources, and online collaboration
offer additional learning opportunities. Multiple designs are typically used so that educators
can (1) gain new knowledge, (2) observe expert modeling of new practices, (3) engage in lowrisk practice and receive feedback about new classroom strategies, and (4) receive ongoing
support that assists educators to transfer new practices into their repertoire of instructional
strategies and techniques.
Learning designs seem to be most effective when they are job-embedded and collaborative.
Being job-embedded means “the learning is grounded in day-to-day teaching practice and is
designed to enhance teachers’ content-specific instructional practices with the intent of
improving student learning” (Darling-Hammond & McLaughlin, 1995; Hirsh, 2009). Jobembedded learning can take place in the classroom with students, such as in the case of an
instructional coach working side-by-side with a teacher to co-plan, co-teach, and co-debrief a
lesson. It might also include learning in the classroom without students, such as when a team
of teachers collaborates to develop common lessons to implement in their own classrooms
and then comes together to compare student results and the lesson’s usefulness to
accomplish its intended outcomes. Finally, job-embedded learning might take place at school
outside the classroom either when students are present or away from school. This form of
job-embedded learning focuses on issues of real-time classroom practices and occurs on
specific days set aside for professional learning or during schoolwide learning. Job-embedded
does not include learning activities that take place outside of school, away from students, and
that are removed from instructional issues and practices with content not immediately
applicable to the classroom. An example of non-job-embedded learning is attending a twoLearning Forward 3 Standards Assessment Inventory Recommendations: Learning Designs Standard week summer institute and practicing new strategies with summer school students whom
participants do not ordinarily teach.
Technology-supported learning designs are especially useful for enhancing and extending
opportunities for learning. Networks, online courses, blogs, interactive communities, Nings,
wikis, and videostreaming make sharing, constructing, and analyzing information about new
practices available to educators to fit their schedule. Technology expands the possibilities for
personalizing, differentiating, and expanding educator learning.
Select learning designs. All learning designs are not equally effective for all situations, people,
and goals. Many factors need to be considered when making a decision about which learning
design will be used to attain a specific goal. Clear and specific short- and long-term goals and
objectives or SMART goals are a prerequisite to selecting a learning design. The best learning
designs model the practices that are expected to occur after the learning. For example, if
teachers are expected to use an inquiry process during science instruction, their professional
learning should also integrate the use of an inquiry process in developing teachers’
understanding and use of inquiry. Multiple designs allow a progression through distinct levels
of learning—knowledge, initial application, routine implementation, and refined practice
over time. Change research has emphasized that adults benefit from multiple opportunities
to use, refine, and receive feedback until new practices become fully integrated as routine
practices.
Educators need to be involved in making decisions about the learning designs used for
individual, team, schoolwide, and districtwide professional learning. As a result, another set of
factors to consider when selecting learning designs involves educators’ experiences,
preferences, backgrounds, beliefs, motivations, interests, and levels of commitment. It is
important to build educators’ understanding of adult learning and change theory so that they
are able to make well-informed decisions about learning designs.
Promote active engagement. Active engagement, which requires educators to learn from and
with each other, is the hallmark of effective professional learning. It promotes deep
understanding and the realistic application of new learning in the classroom. For example, a
Learning Forward 4 Standards Assessment Inventory Recommendations: Learning Designs Standard learning goal may be to improve student reading comprehension within the content areas. A
learning team consisting of social studies teachers might begin by reading and discussing
chapters of a book on reading strategies, using a discussion protocol to frame their
conversation about the text. They then practice applying this information to the classroom by
developing common lessons in their content. Pairs draft lesson plans and request that their
learning team members help them refine and improve the lesson through the use of another
protocol such as the tuning protocol. After each pair’s lesson has been reviewed and refined,
the team asks their instructional coach to review the lessons. Then, while the coach works
with one classroom, the partners co-teach the lesson while the other team members observe.
Once the lesson has been completed, the partners plus the other team members share their
observations and revise the lesson again, if warranted. This process continues until the
members feel ready to write lessons independently and use them in the classroom. At this
point, the members bring student work to the team meetings, where it is analyzed to
determine the impact on student learning. This team-based learning includes multiple
designs that promote active engagement, allows educators to select their own learning
designs, and provides several opportunities for collegial collaboration.
Next steps for continuous improvement
There are a number of actions to take to improve the selection and use of designs for
professional learning designs. These strategies will be provided in three sections: (1)
Developing—Ideas for a school to begin identifying and implementing a variety of
professional learning designs, (2) Strengthening—ideas for a school to strengthen or
enhance the current use of professional learning designs, and (3) Comprehensive—ideas
that might be helpful to all schools concerning their designs for professional learning.
The tools listed under each strategy follow this narrative of actions and strategies and are included
in this packet.
Learning Forward 5 Standards Assessment Inventory Recommendations: Learning Designs Standard Developing
1.
Each school should tap the expertise of a school leadership team or a professional
learning committee to support its efforts to improve professional learning. If a team does
not exist, one should be formed that includes representatives from all departments or
grade levels. This team should become knowledgeable about high-quality professional
learning and the variety of professional learning designs available. The members will
serve as resources to individual learning teams as well as to the school as a whole about
the variety of ways staff members could learn—beyond the customary workshop format.
•
“Chapter 2: Process: Selecting the design that works with context and content.” (2008).
Powerful designs for professional learning, 2nd edition, Edited by Lois Brown Easton.
Oxford, OH: NSDC.
•
“Learning designs: Study, learn, design: Repeat as necessary,” by Bruce R. Joyce and
Emily F. Calhoun. (2011, August). JSD, 32 (4), 46-51, 69.
•
Powerful designs for professional learning, 2nd edition, Edited by Lois Brown Easton.
Oxford, OH: NSDC. Order the book online at
www.learningforward.org/bookstore/learning-designs-andfacilitation/2012/06/07/powerful-designs-for-professional-learning-2nd-edition or call
800-727-7288.
•
“Expanding your vision of professional development,” by Joan Richardson. (2005,
September). The Learning Principal, 5 (1), 4-5.
•
“Tap the power of peers,” by Lois Brown Easton. (2008, September). Teachers Teaching
Teachers, 4 (1), 1-4.
•
“Best practices for professional learning.” (2010). Change, lead, succeed: Building
capacity with school leadership teams, by Linda Munger and Valerie von Frank. Oxford,
OH: NSDC.
•
“Stop hanging fans—do the laundry!” by Parker McMullen. (2006, Winter). JSD, 27 (1),
80, 72.
Learning Forward 6 Standards Assessment Inventory Recommendations: Learning Designs Standard 2. Planning professional learning requires knowledge of not only various professional
learning designs but also the appropriate use of those designs. Many of the designs
require certain conditions and factors—such as a high level of trust among team
members or high and low structures for a protocol—to be effective. Decisions about
learning designs require an understanding of factors to consider when selecting designs.
Based on this review, the professional learning committee, school leadership team, or
collaborative learning teams determines which learning design might be most
appropriate to address the factors identified and educators’ learning outcomes. As
educators engage in the learning process, they provide formative and summative
feedback about their learning experiences and include information on the
appropriateness of the learning design to support their learning and achieve the
intended outcomes.
•
“Module 4: What will we do in our professional learning teams?” (2011). Minds in
motion: Creating a community of collaborative learners. Oxford, OH: Learning Forward
and Rochester City School District.
•
“Protocols: A facilitator’s best friend,” by Lois Brown Easton. (2009, February/March).
Tools for Schools, 12 (3), 1-3.
•
“Group wise: Strategies for examining student work together,” by Joan Richardson.
(2001, February/March). Tools for Schools, 4 (4), 1-2.
•
“Success analysis protocol.” (2009, February/March). Tools for Schools, 12 (3), 6-7.
•
“Peeling a standard.” (2006). Collaborative professional learning in school and beyond: A
tool kit for New Jersey educators, by Joellen Killion. Oxford, OH: NSDC and New Jersey
Department of Education.
•
“Keep an eye on the finish line,” by Joellen Killion. (2007, October). Teachers Teaching
Teachers, 3 (2), 6-8.
•
“Apply knowledge of learning,” by Joellen Killion. (2008, October). Teachers Teaching
Teachers, 4 (2), 7-9.
Learning Forward 7 Standards Assessment Inventory Recommendations: Learning Designs Standard Strengthening
1. There are many considerations when planning professional learning. School leadership
teams begin by assessing educator learning needs, current professional learning, and
school context. Analyzing student achievement data to determine student learning needs
is the first step of deciding the content of professional learning. It is also important to
consider educators’ backgrounds, experience, and preparation; school culture; leadership
capacity and style; and the change process. Many school leaders and staff have developed
expertise at launching new initiatives, which includes the beginning stages of professional
learning—namely, learning new information. To impact student learning, adult learning
needs to include both support for educators as they translate new practices into their
classrooms and strategies to build commitment and perseverance, two important
attitudes in change, so that educators consistently use the new practices. When school
administration and school leadership teams understand and use the Backmapping Model
for Planning Results-Based Professional Learning, they will be able to build into their
professional learning plan specific actions to develop knowledge and skills, foster
attitudes for change, and support implementation. After analyzing the learning needs of
students and educators, those planning professional learning consider other factors that
are likely to influence the selection of a learning design and the success of professional
learning. With this information in mind, they can weigh the pros and cons of specific
designs and determine which learning design or combination of designs will be most
useful to achieve the intended outcomes for change in educator practice and student
learning.
•
“Chapter 9: Planning effective professional learning.” (2009). Becoming a learning
school, by Joellen Killion and Patricia Roy. Oxford, OH: NSDC.
•
“Self-assessment of current planning for professional learning.” (2011). Minds in
motion: Creating a community of collaborative learners. Oxford, OH: Learning
Forward and Rochester City School District.
•
“Keep an eye on the finish line,” by Joellen Killion. (2007, October). Teachers
Teaching Teachers, 3 (2), 6-8. (Tool included in Developing section of this packet.)
Learning Forward 8 Standards Assessment Inventory Recommendations: Learning Designs Standard 2. School leadership teams explore the variety of professional learning designs available.
Once needs and context are clear, those planning professional learning can weigh the
pros and cons of specific designs to determine which learning design or combination of
designs will be most useful to achieve the intended outcomes for change in educator
practice and student learning. The best professional learning designs match the learning
needs and conditions prevalent within the school or learning team. The principal, school
leadership team (SLT), and instructional coach expand their repertoire of collaborative,
job-embedded strategies; protocols for examining student work; action research
strategies, and other forms of professional learning. Together the principal, SLT, and
coaches help the entire faculty understand how different learning designs work and
support them in choosing the designs that match most closely with individual, team, and
schoolwide professional learning goals.
•
“Ripe for the picking: Collection of 21 strategies satisfies a taste for context and
content,” by Lois Brown Easton. (2005, September). Teachers Teaching Teachers, 1
(1), 10-16.
•
“Expanding your vision of professional development,” by Joan Richardson. (2005,
September). The Learning Principal, 5 (1), 4-5. (Tool included in Developing section
of this packet.)
•
Tools for Schools. (2001, August/September). This issue is devoted to
designing learning teams to develop collaboration among teachers.
•
Tools for Schools. (2001, February/March). This issue is devoted to strategies for
teams to use in examining student work together.
•
“Tap the power of peers,” by Lois Brown Easton. (2008, September). Teachers
Teaching Teachers, 4 (1), 1-4.
•
The tuning protocol.” (2005, October). Teachers Teaching Teachers, 1 (2), 8.
Learning Forward 9 Standards Assessment Inventory Recommendations: Learning Designs Standard Comprehensive
1. Schools use external providers wisely. When contracting with an outside consultant,
school leaders should work with the consultant to be sure that he or she uses learning
designs that mirror instructional practices teachers are expected to use in their classroom
and that the content the consultant addresses aligns with student content standards and
educator performance standards and learning needs. For example, if the consultant
facilitates professional learning on differentiated instruction, the consultant should model
differentiation so that adult learners experiences the instructional strategies during
professional learning and understand more fully how the strategies can be implemented
in their classrooms.
•
“Weighing the workshop,” by Katherine A. Little and Kristina Ayers Paul. (2009,
December). JSD 30 (5), 26-30.
2. School and district leadership provide classroom- and school-based coaching. One of the
goals of a coach is supporting classroom implementation of new instructional strategies.
Instructional coaching provides individualized support to educators in their own
classrooms within teams of peers. Coaches support educators to apply new strategies in
practice and dramatically increase educators’ ability to use professional learning to solve
problems of practice and increase student achievement. Coaching is a fundamental
learning design to support individual, team, and schoolwide learning.
•
“Selecting coaches,” by Joellen Killion and Cindy Harrison. (2007, April). The Learning
System, 2 (7), 1, 6-7.
•
“Coaching: The key to translating research into practice lies in continuous, jobembedded learning with ongoing support,” by Jim Knight. (2009, Winter). JSD, 30 (1).
•
“How to be a wise consumer of coaching,” by David Yopp, Elizabeth A.
Burroughs,Jennifer Luebeck, Clare Heidema, Arlene Mitchell, and John Sutton. (2011,
February). JSD, 3 (21) 50-53.
•
“Five key points to building a coaching plan,” by Jim Knight. (2007, Winter). JSD 28 (1),
26-31.
•
“Tools: Clarify the coaching role & student achievement coach expectation.” (2011,
Learning Forward 10 Standards Assessment Inventory Recommendations: Learning Designs Standard February). The Leading Teacher, 6 (5), 5-6.
3. School leadership teams use Learning Forward’s Innovation Configuration maps. The IC
maps provide desired outcomes for every standard. The IC map for the SLT for Learning
Designs appears below (it is near the end of the packet of tools. Similar IC maps for
teachers, coaches, and principals are available from www.learningforward.org/bookstore.
The IC maps, such as the one for SLT, provides a way for educators to assess their current
practice and build an improvement plan by describing behaviors associated with more
advanced practice. While the IC map included focuses on SLT, other maps can assist
principals, coaches, and teachers understand what their responsibilities are related to
effective learning designs for professional learning.
•
Order Standards into practice: School-based roles. Innovation Configuration maps for
Standards for Professional Learning from Learning Forward (800-727-7288 or
www.learningforward.org/bookstore).
•
“Using the IC maps as a self-assessment.” (2012). Standards into practice: School-based
roles. Innovation Configuration maps for Standards for Professional Learning. Oxford, OH:
Learning Forward.
•
“School leadership team: Learning Designs.” (2012). Standards into practice: Schoolbased roles. Innovation Configuration maps for Standards for Professional Learning.
Oxford, OH: Learning Forward.
Learning Forward 11 STANDARDS ASSESSMENT INVENTORY Recommendations: Learning Designs Standard
Tools to support DEVELOPING strategies
Chapter 2 n Process
Process
Selecting the design that works with context and content
By Lois Bro wn Easton
I
magine a school that has, over years, created an environment conducive to professional learning — and
the environment for adults has paid off with increased
student learning. School staff know that they can
always improve on their learning — one sign that they
are truly a professional learning community. Other signs
are the clarity of staff members’ vision, a focus on student
results, and enthusiasm for collaborating. Teachers open
their classrooms to each other and share student work. This
school has the context for adult learning.
As part of their learning, the adults in this school routinely collect and analyze data from various sources. Data
help staff members know what their students need to know
and, therefore, what they need to learn so that their students
can learn better. Staff know the content they must study.
At the beginning of every school year, teachers analyze
their context and study the data for content needs. When
www.nsdc.org
they are clear on both, they address the processes they will
undertake for their learning — how they will learn. They
select strategies that will help them make the changes that
will improve student achievement. Then they begin their
own learning for the year, working together in various ways
and setting aside time in January and June to come together
to share what they have learned, take stock of their progress
(check the data), and plan for continuing or changing what
they are doing as adults in this professional learning community.
This chapter is about selecting the processes — professional learning strategies — that help adults learn. The strategies themselves are described in detail in the chapters in Part
II of this book. This chapter will help you determine which
strategies might fit a particular context and lead to teachers
learning the specific content to help students learn.
Let’s go back to that fictional school and imagine that
Powerful Designs for Professional Learning n 23
Chapter 2 n Process
staff there figured out that students need to improve their
reading skills in the content areas. The teachers want to learn
how to help students understand at a deep level the materials
they encounter in social studies and science, for example.
With help from a district administrator and support from
the principal, staff members seek resources that describe
powerful strategies for professional learning — such as this
book — and select a variety of processes to help them learn.
Some choose to work individually. Some work individually
and then get together in groups. Some work in groups.
For example, one teacher decides to access student voices
by having students talk about reading in focus groups. Other
teachers begin action research projects, mostly working alone
but getting together every other week to share their progress
and results. A small group of individuals begins a dialogue,
using important articles and a book about reading in the
content areas. A few content area teachers keep journals
about reading in their own classrooms. Some of these individuals create portfolios of the materials they use to help
students read difficult material. They reflect on the materials
they put into their portfolios and make plans to share them
with others. Another group conducts case discussions on
reading.
Several teachers, the principal, and associate principals
do classroom walk-throughs that focus on reading. Another
group reanalyzes the data that the school used to initiate
this professional learning cycle; this group wants to know
the details behind the scores that alarmed the staff about
reading in the content areas. The last group examines
classroom and district assessments for levels of questioning
about text.
Four months into their focus on reading in the content areas, they come together to share the results of their
learning through a template and visual dialogue. The staff
as a whole then creates a plan for action over the next four
months. The action research individuals and groups continue
their work, as do the journal writers and portfolio makers.
The assessment group expands its work. The whole faculty
continues to do classroom walk-throughs, becoming adept
at forming inquiry questions to use in their meetings. Other
groups begin to form. Some staff members begin meeting
in Critical Friends Groups and do tuning protocols around
student understanding of text. Some teachers locate videos
that show content-area teachers working with students on
24 n Powerful Designs for Professional Learning
their reading skills; they invite the rest of the faculty to analyze these videos with them. A small group decides to shadow
students in another school known for its focus on critical
thinking skills. The district provides several content-area
teachers with a part-time literacy coach who uses strategies
that appeal to their learning styles.
At the end of the year, staff members gather again
to share their learning. This time, they have lots of data
to review, data that show students are making progress.
They are better able to read materials in the content areas
— deeply — and contribute to and even lead higher-level
discussions. Yes, student test scores are better, but what
counts in this school is the satisfaction staff feel when
interacting with students who are reading, understanding,
and thinking better in the content areas and, therefore,
learning at higher levels.
They make plans for next year’s learning. Some want to
do lesson study related to reading in science classes. Another
group decides to look at assignments through the Standards
in Practice process. Finally, the staff decides to ask the district
to provide a school coach to help them focus on schoolwide
changes they believe will help students learn. One thing they
are adamant about is having mentors for new teachers next
year, teachers who won’t have had the experiences they have
had.
All the teachers in our fictional school focused on how
to improve students’ skills in reading across the curriculum
through a variety of professional learning activities.
Chapter 1 discusses context, the environment that
makes it possible for adults to learn and grow. The context
for adult learning in this school continued to improve as all
staff took responsibility for the reading skills of all students
in all content areas.
Chapter 3 focuses on content — using data about student achievement to decide what needs to be improved.
In the school description above, teachers shared what
they learned on these different pathways and made plans to
implement changes and continue learning. At the end of the
year, they reassembled to share results and to set learning
goals for themselves for the next year. The context of their
work improved as a result of their professional learning
experiences, and the content of their work continued to be
reading, but the processes — the professional learning strategies they used — changed.
National Staff Development Council
Chapter 2 n Process
NSDC’s Process standards
Process is an important consideration for those designing and participating in professional learning that makes a
difference. In fact, process is so important that the National
Staff Development Council made it one of the three organizers for its standards (NSDC, 2001).
According to NSDC’s Process standards, staff development that improves the learning of all students:
• Uses disaggregated student data to determine adult
learning priorities, monitor progress, and help sustain continuous improvement. (Data-Driven).
In the school described at the beginning of this chapter,
staff consulted data before choosing designs, then again during
the year and at the end of the year.
• Uses multiple sources of information to guide improvement and demonstrate its impact. (Evaluation).
You may also have noticed how the school dug deeply into
information to learn, from using articles and books to summaries of classroom walk-throughs. What a rich collection of
information they had upon which to base decisions about their
own learning!
• Prepares educators to apply research to decision making. (Research-Based).
Staff in this school consulted the traditional forms of research by reading articles and books. They worked with a literacy
coach who was current on the research, and they also used their
own, site-based research to help them make decisions.
• Uses learning strategies appropriate to the intended
goal. (Design).
Rather than use just one learning strategy to help them
move toward their intended goal, the educators at this school
used many appropriate learning strategies.
• Applies knowledge about human learning and change.
(Learning).
Early in the process of becoming a learning community,
school staff asked the district director of professional development
to help them learn about adult change, focusing on CBAM
(Hord, Rutherford, Huling-Austin, & Hall, 1987) and other
appropriate strategies. As a result, the context of the school made
it possible for staff to engage in such a diverse set of learning
opportunities.
• Provides educators with the knowledge and skills to
collaborate. (Collaboration).
www.nsdc.org
As part of his work with this school’s staff, the district director of professional development shared some basics about collaboration with the staff, but staff members regularly examined
themselves as a learning community, using a survey they found
on the NSDC web site (Wagner & Masden-Copas, 2002).
RELATING CONTEXT, Process, AND Content
This chapter provides a way educators can achieve
NSDC’s Process standards to improve the learning of all
students. The processes are described individually in detail
in Part II.
To begin to determine which processes might work best
for you, analyze the school’s context and content needs using the tools on the CD-ROM that accompanies this book.
Consider:
• Chapter 1: Survey based on NSDC’s Context standards
• Chapter 1: Survey based on a school improvement
model
• Chapter 1: Rubric based on a systems approach
• Chapter 3: Six-step backward planning process for
professional learning
Involve as many people as possible in using the tools,
especially those who will be affected by the professional
learning experiences that result from them. Summarize important information from the tools related to context and
content. (See Handout 1 in the Chapter 2-Process file on the
CD-ROM to help choose a professional learning design.)
DETERMINING OVERALL DESIGN
One factor in selecting a design is considering how it
may fit with other processes. Some designs are “container”
designs that can include multiple strategies, and others can
fit anywhere they are needed.
Container processes
Some powerful professional learning processes can be
considered container processes — they provide an overall
framework that can include other designs. The study groups
process that Carlene Murphy and Mike Murphy describe in
Chapter 22 is a good example of a container process because
this design might include accessing student voices, case
discussions, data analysis, journaling — whatever is necessary or helpful as part of the study group process. Critical
Powerful Designs for Professional Learning n 25
Chapter 2 n Process
Friends Groups is another container design. Participants in
these groups might engage in dialogue, shadowing, tuning
protocols, or video.
Mentoring, differentiated coaching, training the trainer,
and school coaching also can be considered container designs
because participants might engage in other designs while
using these strategies, such as tuning protocols or visual
dialogue.
Stand-alone processes
Some strategies are independent of other designs. These
may take a year of focused work to affect professionals’ learning. Lesson study, for example, is described in cycles of learning and focused on looking at lessons. Immersing teachers in
practice is at least a yearlong project and focused on improving
teachers’ understanding of a traditional content area, such
as writing, mathematics, or science. Standards in Practice
similarly is at least a yearlong effort focused on looking at assignments. Assessment as professional learning and curriculum
design are likely to be multi-year professional learning efforts,
focused on crafting curriculum and assessments.
While participants in curriculum design, lesson study,
Standards in Practice, and assessment as professional learning might engage learners in other processes, such as using
tuning protocols to look at student work, the focus of the
professional learning remains on lessons, assignments, and
assessments.
Variable processes
Many designs described in this book are variable — they
can be used alone, within a container design, or with other
designs. Faculties can decide, for example, to access student
voices anytime during a school year, or as part of what they
do as a study group. They can engage in action research
anytime, just as they can do a dialogue whenever they deem
it helpful. Case discussions, classroom walk-throughs, data
analysis, journaling, portfolios for educators, shadowing,
tuning protocols, video, and visual dialogue — these are very
versatile designs, useful alone or as part of another design.
A developmental point of view
Designs can also be considered from a developmental
point of view. Some designs might be somewhat formidable
in a school that has not worked toward becoming a profes-
26 n Powerful Designs for Professional Learning
sional learning community. For example, teachers who are
not accustomed to being in each others’ classrooms or sharing student work might find tuning protocols a bit threatening. They might also have concerns about lesson study or
Standards in Practice. Perhaps novice professional learning
communities can start with a design that is somewhat outside their own work. Perhaps they can begin with dialogue,
for example. Or, they can interview students or hold focus
groups. They can begin, as Victoria L. Bernhardt suggests,
with another school’s data (provided on the CD-ROM file
for Chapter 11). At some point, however, novice learning
communities need to venture into the more personal of the
designs. Perhaps more experienced staff members or facilitators can introduce the design using their own work as an
example — sharing a lesson, providing student work or an
example of professional practice, submitting an assignment
for review. Then, when others see that the process is safe, they
can be encouraged to share their own work. By no means,
however, should novice schools wait until they have reached
some designated level of becoming a professional learning
community to use the designs in this book. Engaging in
the designs will help a faculty move closer to becoming a
learning community.
Continuous processes
In a professional learning community, the designs can
follow one another easily. For example, a dialogue group
might decide that the next step to take is examining student
work using tuning protocols. Then the teachers might want
to look at curriculum design. Using the video design might
lead them to use data analysis plus assessment as professional
learning. Visual dialogue might make apparent to a faculty
that they need to use accessing student voices. Action research might lead to lesson study or looking at assignments
through the Standards in Practice design.
SELECTING THE RIGHT PEOPLE
Choosing who is involved in professional learning at a
school is simple — everyone (including paraprofessionals,
office staff, custodians, lunchroom workers, bus drivers, etc.)
should be involved in some kind of professional learning
on a regular basis. Specifically, the people to involve in any
experience should be those who are likely to be affected by
the results of professional learning, as well as those who have
National Staff Development Council
Chapter 2 n Process
something to contribute.
All of the professional learning designs in this book work
well with classroom teachers. Many also work well with
administrators at the building and district levels — and,
indeed, administrators should be at least supportive of any
professional learning activity, even when their involvement
is not required. For example, Critical Friends Groups, differentiated coaching, lesson study, and training the trainer
do not require participation of administrators but still need
their support.
Some designs that might involve university or college
staff include: action research, assessment as professional
learning, curriculum design, data analysis, lesson study,
school coaching, Standards in Practice, study groups, training the trainer, and tuning protocols. University and college faculty can contribute to school professional learning
experiences, and they also can learn from them, especially
as they prepare future teachers or administrators for work
in schools.
Involve more people in selecting a design
The most critical aspect of choosing processes or
designs is involving those who will be engaged in the
designs and who will be affected by the outcomes.
Those involved need to know about the various
designs available to them — such as the ideas within
this book — so they can choose a strategy. They need
information. A few points to emphasize:
• As much as possible, involve administrators —
and not just for support. Changes that schools
and districts need to make may become apparent
when administrators participate fully in faculty
learning opportunities. Administrators can directly support staff changes if they know what
faculty have experienced. They can lead school
staff to resources.
• As much as possible, involve students in a design.
Students’ voices are the least heard in reform that
affects them.
• Regardless of who is involved in professional
learning, always ask, “Who else needs to be
here?”
www.nsdc.org
Designs that might involve community, parents,
policy makers, or students are: accessing student voices,
curriculum design, data analysis, school coaching, shadowing, Standards in Practice, and study groups. As with the
other types of participants, these populations are likely to
have much to contribute; what they learn can make a difference in passing a bond or drafting favorable policy.
Students often are left out of the professional learning the
adults in their schools experience. Of all stakeholders, however, they have the most to gain in school improvement. Not
only do their voices need to be heard, but their ideas need
to be seriously considered. And, they will benefit in terms
of their participation in a civic process.
CONNECTING PURPOSES FOR PROFESSIONAL
LEARNING WITH SPECIFIC DESIGNS
The reasons for engaging in professional learning are
included in the introduction to this book. At school and
district levels, educators need to ask:
• Is what we are accomplishing good enough? Do we like
the results we are getting?
• Could we get better results?
• Do we want better results?
• How can we get better results? What do we need to
do? Gather data, study, do action research, something
else? Specific purposes can be promoted through certain
designs. These more specific purposes take the form of
questions.
1. Which designs are most useful for gathering and
using information from within the school or district
about learning? See these chapters: Accessing Student
Voices, Action Research, Classroom Walk-Throughs, Data
Analysis, Lesson Study, Portfolios for Educators, Shadowing,
Standards in Practice, Video, and Visual Dialogue.
2. Which designs are most likely to use outside
resources to inform the work? See these chapters: Action
Research, Case Discussions, Differentiated Coaching (an
outside coach), Lesson Study, School Coaching (an outside
coach), Shadowing, Study Groups, Training the Trainer,
and Visual Dialogue.
3. Which designs are especially useful in creating a
learning community? Although all of the designs essentially
help a group become a learning community, these chapters
are especially focused on that end: Action Research, Assess-
Powerful Designs for Professional Learning n 27
Chapter 2 n Process
ment as Professional Learning, Classroom Walk-Throughs,
Critical Friends Groups, Dialogue, Lesson Study, Mentoring, Standards in Practice, Study Groups, Tuning Protocols,
Video, and Visual Dialogue.
4. Which designs focus most on standards, curriculum, and assessment? See these chapters: Assessment as
Professional Learning, Case Discussions, Classroom WalkThroughs, Critical Friends Groups, Curriculum Design,
Dialogue, Immersing Teachers in Practice, Lesson Study,
Standards in Practice, Study Groups, Training the Trainer,
Video, and Visual Dialogue.
5. Which designs focus most on practice or pedagogy? See these chapters: Action Research, , Case Discussions, Classroom Walk-Throughs, Critical Friends Groups,
Dialogue, Differentiated Coaching, Immersing Teachers in
Practice, Journaling, Lesson Study, Mentoring, Portfolios
for Educators, Standards in Practice, Training the Trainer,
Tuning Protocols, and Video.
6. Which designs are most useful for looking at
classrooms? See these chapters: Action Research, Classroom
Walk-Throughs, Critical Friends Groups, Lesson Study,
Mentoring, Portfolios for Educators, Shadowing, Tuning
Protocols, and Video.
7. Which designs focus on the whole school and/
or beyond? See these chapters: Accessing Student Voices,
Curriculum Design, Data Analysis, Dialogue, Immersing
Teachers in Practice, School Coaching, Standards in Practice,
Study Groups, Video, Visual Dialogue.
8. Which designs are particularly reflective? See these
chapters: Action Research, Assessment as Professional Learning, Classroom Walk-Throughs, Critical Friends Groups,
Dialogue, Journaling, Lesson Study, Mentoring, Portfolios
for Educators, Standards in Practice, and Video.
9. Which designs look at student work or involve
students in some way? See these chapters: Accessing Student Voices, Action Research, Assessment as Professional
Learning, Case Discussions, Critical Friends Groups, Lesson
Study, Mentoring, Portfolios for Educators, Shadowing,
Standards in Practice, Tuning Protocols, and Video.
10. Which designs are best for bringing others (other
than teachers or administrators) into the school improvement effort? See these chapters: Accessing Student Voices,
Action Research, Critical Friends Groups, Dialogue, School
Coaching, Shadowing (other schools), Study Groups, Video,
28 n Powerful Designs for Professional Learning
and Visual Dialogue.
11. Which designs can be used to address specific
problems and seek solutions? See these chapters: Accessing
Student Voices, Action Research, Case Discussions, Critical Friends Groups, Data Analysis, Dialogue, Mentoring,
Portfolios for Educators, School Coaching, Study Groups,
Video, and Visual Dialogue.
12. Which designs result in a concrete product? See
these chapters: Assessment as Professional Learning, Curriculum Design, Lesson Study, Portfolios for Educators,
Standards in Practice, Training the Trainer, and Video.
13. Which designs are the most experiential? See these
chapters: Action Research, Dialogue, Immersing Teachers in
Practice, Journaling, Lesson Study, Mentoring, Shadowing,
Video, and Visual Dialogue.
14. Which designs might involve modeling? See these
chapters: Differentiated Coaching, Immersing Teachers in
Practice, Lesson Study, Mentoring, Training the Trainer, and
Video.
CONSIDERING TIME REQUIREMENTS
No design should be implemented only once a year.
These designs are meant to be continuous over a period of
time and include an assumption that teachers will commit
no less than a year’s effort.
With the group designing the professional learning
(and, therefore, likely to be affected by it), select a promising
design based on the factors above and look at how frequently
participants in that professional learning strategy need to
engage in the design and the expected length of each session.
Consider the real time required for the design and how much
time is currently available. If the design’s time requirements
do not match reality, seek creative ways to expand time to
fit the design.
The best way of providing that time is building it into
the school day in the form of embedded professional learning. The next best is providing stipends for work outside the
school day. After that is providing substitutes to release educators for professional learning during the day. Few teachers
like having substitutes because they would rather be in their
own classes and because of the amount of preparation time
(and sometimes follow-up time) that having a substitute requires. Some fear the loss of learning that might occur when
the teacher is not working with the students. The chief way
National Staff Development Council
Chapter 2 n Process
a district or school shows support for professional learning
is by providing and protecting time to learn.
Frequency
Some designs can be implemented in three to six sessions a year. See these chapters: Accessing Student Voices,
Assessment as Professional Learning (perhaps a multiyear
project), Curriculum Design, Data Analysis, Dialogue, Lesson Study (consisting of two cycles a year, each 10 hours or
more), Shadowing, Study Groups, Training the Trainer, and
Visual Dialogue.
Chapters detailing strategies that require at least
monthly meetings are: Action Research (group sharing),
Case Discussions, Critical Friends Groups, Differentiated
Coaching, Immersing Teachers in Practice, School Coaching, Tuning Protocols, and Video.
These chapters have designs that include at least weekly
collaboration: Classroom Walk-Throughs, Mentoring, Portfolios for Educators, and Standards in Practice.
Journaling should happen daily.
Duration
Some strategies that require groups to meet less than
once a month may take three hours or more for each session.
See these chapters: Accessing Student Voices, Assessment
as Professional Learning, Critical Friends Groups (may be
two to three hours each time), Curriculum Design, Data
Analysis, Shadowing, Study Groups, Training the Trainer,
and Visual Dialogue.
Most monthly and some weekly sessions require one
to two hours per session. See these chapters: Case Discussions, Critical Friends Groups (two to three hours usually),
Dialogue, Differentiated Coaching, Immersing Teachers
in Practice, Lesson Study, School Coaching, and Tuning
Protocols.
Individual work (that may result in group sharing)
might require an hour or less. See these chapters: Action
Research, Classroom Walk-Throughs, Journaling, Mentoring, Portfolios for Educators, Standards in Practice, and
Video.
HOW DESIGNS ARE IMPLEMENTED
With the group, consider these questions.
1. Does the design connect with other designs? All
www.nsdc.org
On the CD-ROM
The handout for this chapter is available on the
CD-ROM that accompanies this book.
1. Choosing the best professional learning design
designs in this book can be used with other designs to explore
the same content, with the exception of differentiated coaching and training the trainer. As the vignette at the beginning
of this chapter illustrates, using a variety of adult learning
strategies oriented toward the same content need can enrich
the results considerably.
2. Does the design accommodate individual learners, learners in small, concurrent groups, or learners in
one large group? A few designs can be accomplished individually at first and then in groups. See these chapters:
Accessing Student Voices, Classroom Walk-Throughs, Differentiated Coaching, Journaling, Portfolios for Educators,
Shadowing, and Training the Trainer. The chapters on each
of these designs will clarify the process from individual to
group participation. Chapters that outline designs useful
in working in pairs are: Classroom Walk-Throughs and
Mentoring. All other designs can be done in large groups
or concurrent small groups.
3. Does the design require a facilitator? A facilitator is needed in all large group designs, if only to keep
time and keep the process on track. Facilitators can
be external or people within a school or district who
know the design well (such as readers of this book).
However, some designs do not need a facilitator. See
these chapters: Classroom Walk-Throughs, Differentiated
Coaching (the coach is the facilitator), Journaling, Lesson
Study, Portfolios for Educators, and Training the Trainer.
Some designs need a facilitator at first (after some experience with the design, one of the group can serve that function). See these chapters: Critical Friends Groups, Dialogue,
Mentoring, Standards in Practice, Study Groups, and Tuning
Protocols.
Some groups need a facilitator (external or internal)
throughout the process. See these chapters: Accessing
Powerful Designs for Professional Learning n 29
Chapter 2 n Process
Student Voices, Action Research, Assessment as Professional Learning, Case Discussions, Curriculum Design, Data
Analysis, Immersing Teachers in Practice, School Coaching
(usually the coach herself ), Shadowing, Video, and Visual
Dialogue.
4. Which designs require administrators to be
involved? Most designs require at least some degree of administrator support that includes sponsoring or approving
the design and allocating time, money, and resources. See
these chapters: Accessing Student Voices, Action Research,
Case Discussions, Critical Friends Groups, Curriculum
Design, Data Analysis, Dialogue, Differentiated Coaching,
Immersing Teachers in Practice, Journaling, Lesson Study,
Mentoring, Portfolios for Educators, School Coaching,
Shadowing, Study Groups, Training the Trainer, Tuning
Protocols, and Visual Dialogue.
Some designs require some kind of participation from
administrators (indicating a level of support). Participation is
essential for the designs in these chapters: Assessment as Professional Learning, Classroom Walk-Throughs, Curriculum
Design, Data Analysis, Journaling, Portfolios for Educators,
School Coaching, Shadowing, Standards in Practice, Study
Groups, Video, and Visual Dialogue.
Other designs do not require administrator participation, but administrator participation is helpful (and indicates
support). See these chapters: Accessing Student Voices, Case
Discussions, Dialogue, Immersing Teachers in Practice,
Mentoring, and Tuning Protocols.
5. Which designs work best when school is in session?
The designs in these chapters work best when students are
present: Accessing Student Voices, Action Research, Assessment as Professional Learning, Classroom Walk-Throughs,
Critical Friends Groups, Dialogue, Differentiated Coaching,
Immersing Teachers in Practice, Journaling, Lesson Study,
Mentoring, Portfolios for Educators, School Coaching,
Shadowing, Standards in Practice, Study Groups, Tuning
Protocols, Video, and Visual Dialogue.
Some designs are best implemented with some sustained
time — time that usually is more available during the summer when students are not in school (although they also
can be implemented during school). See these chapters:
Action Research, Assessment as Professional Learning, Case
Discussions, Curriculum Design, Data Analysis, Immersing
Teachers in Practice, and Training the Trainer.
30 n Powerful Designs for Professional Learning
6. Which designs cost the most? Some designs require few resources. Journaling, for example, requires little
time or money. Others require outside experts, such as an
individual or school coach. All the designs cost, especially
in terms of time — the time that educators put into planning, participating in the design, and implementing changes
in practice. Time requires spending money for substitute
teachers or stipends. A cost-benefit analysis quickly shows,
however, that these designs — although they may cost as
much as or more than hiring external speakers or paying
tuition for university classes — result in a huge benefit: application of learning in classrooms and schools. The focus
on improving practice, curriculum, assessment, and school
culture ultimately results in increased student achievement
(Richardson, 2003; Darling-Hammond, Ancess, & Ort,
2002; Barnes, Miller, & Dennis, 2001; Clark, 2001; French,
2001; Garet, et al., 2001; Ladson-Billings & Gomez, 2001;
Lieberman & Miller, 2001; Goddard, Hoy, & Hoy, 2000;
Langer, 2000; Wenglinsky, 2000; Killion, 1999; Richardson,
1998; Richardson, 1997).
These factors affect cost:
• Number of educators involved (stipends/substitutes);
• Degree to which an activity is embedded in the school
day (journaling or portfolios for educators, for example)
or outside the day requiring stipends to support the
extra work;
• Time required (frequency and duration);
• Degree to which an activity involves individuals or a
group;
• Need for travel (shadowing, for example);
• Production costs (such as those required for publishing
a curriculum or assessments); and
• Need for an external facilitator or outside expertise.
These chapters offer professional learning designs that
are less costly than others: Accessing Student Voices, Classroom Walk-Throughs, Critical Friends Groups, Dialogue,
Journaling, Lesson Study, Portfolios for Educators, Standards
in Practice, and Training the Trainer.
Others are somewhat more costly because they require
some time for groups outside of class (and some cost in other
areas, such as an honorarium for a coach outside the school or
district). See these chapters: Action Research, Assessment as
Professional Learning, Case Discussions, Data Analysis, Differentiated Coaching, Mentoring, Shadowing, Study Groups,
National Staff Development Council
Chapter 2 n Process
Tuning Protocols, and Video.
Some have higher costs, particularly due to significant
time outside class, or need an outside expert. See these chapters: Curriculum Design, Immersing Teachers in Practice,
School Coaching, and Visual Dialogue.
(See Handout 1 in the Chapter 2-Process file on the
CD-ROM to determine what professional learning processes
are needed.)
POWERFUL DESIGNS LEAD TO STUDENT SUCCESS
Educators must believe that their own learning is
important enough to the success of students to engage in
something more than sit-and-get professional development.
Professional learning takes a commitment to the risky business of learning. Professional learning almost always leads
to change, and change for most people is a somewhat scary
process. To be able to embark on such a change process and
to help students achieve more, educators must believe that
what they do makes a difference. Students will succeed when
educators create and continue to improve the context for
professional learning, deliberately focus content of professional learning on student improvement needs, and choose
processes that help teachers address those needs.
While some designs might seem more formidable to a
staff of teachers who have not worked toward becoming a
learning community, other strategies included in this book
can help even the novice begin the adventure of engaging in
more powerful professional learning. None of us can afford
to wait to engage in the designs presented here.
The effect of our professional learning will go far beyond
any one educator. It is our work that we are working on, and
the outcome will be improved learning for all of us and our
students.
References
Barnes, F., Miller, M., & Dennis, R. (2001, Fall). Face
to face. Journal of Staff Development, 22(4), 42-43, 47.
Clark, C.M. (Ed). (2001). Talking shop: Authentic
conversation and teacher learning. New York: Teachers College Press.
Darling-Hammond, L., Ancess, J., & Ort, S.W.
(2002, Fall). Reinventing high school: Outcomes of the
Coalition Campus Schools project. American Educational
www.nsdc.org
Research Journal, 39(3), 639-673.
French, R. (2001, Fall). Great job, now do it better.
Journal of Staff Development, 22(4), 27-28.
Garet, M.S., Porter, A.C., Desimone, L., Birman,
B.F., & Yoon, K.S. (2001, Winter). What makes professional development effective? Results from a national sample
of teachers. American Educational Research Journal, 38(4),
915-946.
Goddard, R.D., Hoy, W.K., & Hoy, A.W. (2000,
Summer). Collective teacher efficacy: Its meaning, measure,
and impact on student achievement. American Educational
Research Journal, 37(2), 479-507.
Hord, S.M., Rutherford, W.L., Huling-Austin, L., &
Hall, G. (1987). Taking charge of change. Alexandria: VA:
ASCD.
Killion, J. (1999). What works in the middle: Resultsbased staff development for the middle grades. Oxford, OH:
NSDC.
Ladson-Billings, G. & Gomez, M.L. (2001, May).
Just showing up: Supporting early literacy through teachers’ professional communities. Phi Delta Kappan, 82(9),
675-680.
Langer, J.A. (2000, Summer). Excellence in English
in middle and high school: How teachers’ professional lives
support student achievement. American Educational Research
Journal, 37(2), 397-439.
Lieberman, A. & Miller, L. (Eds.). (2001). Teachers
caught in action: Professional development that matters. New
York: Teachers College Press.
National Staff Development Council. (2001). NSDC’s
standards for staff development. Oxford: OH: Author.
Richardson, J. (2003, February). The secrets of “cando” schools: Louisiana team uncovers traits of high poverty,
high-performing schools. Results, 1, 6.
Richardson, J. (1998, April). California study links
student learning to teacher learning. Results, 1, 6.
Richardson, J. (1997, September). Focus on data leads
to improvements in Oak Park. Results, 1, 6.
Wagner, C. & Masden-Copas, P. (2002, Summer).
An audit of the culture starts with two handy tools. Journal
of Staff Development, 23(3), 42-53.
Wenglinsky, H. (2000). How teaching matters: Bringing
the classroom back into discussions of teacher quality. Princeton,
NJ: Educational Testing Service.
Powerful Designs for Professional Learning n 31
Chapter 2 n Process
Chart 1
WHO SHOULD BE INVOLVED?
POWERFUL
DESIGN
University or
college staff
Individuals or groups?
Community,
parents, policy
makers, students
Individuals
at first, then
groups
X
X
Large
groups/
concurrent
small groups
Classroom
teachers
Administrators
Accessing Student
Voices
X
X
Action Research
X
X
X
X
Assessment as
Professional
Learning
X
X
X
X
Case Discussions
X
X
Classroom
Walk-Throughs
X
X
Critical Friends
Groups
X
Curriculum Design
X
X
X
Data Analysis
X
X
X
Dialogue
X
X
Differentiated
Coaching
X
Immersing Teachers
in Practice
X
X
Journaling
X
X
Lesson Study
X
Mentoring
X
X
Portfolios for
Educators
X
X
School Coaching
X
X
Shadowing
X
X
Standards in Practice
X
X
X
X
X
Study Groups
X
X
X
X
X
Training the Trainer
X
Tuning Protocols
X
X
Video
X
X
Visual Dialogue
X
X
Pairs
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
32 n Powerful Designs for Professional Learning
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
National Staff Development Council
Chapter 2 n Process
Chart 2
WHEN? (Assumes no less than 1-year commitment)
POWERFUL
DESIGN
FREQUENCY
3 – 6 times
a year
Accessing Student
Voices
At least
weekly
Daily
X
Action Research
Assessment as
Professional
Learning
At least
monthly
DURATION
Each session
Each
Each session
is 3 hours
session is
is an hour
or more
1 to 2 hours
or less
X
X
X
X1
Case Discussions
X
X
Classroom
Walk-Throughs
X
X
Critical Friends
Groups
X
X
X2
Curriculum Design
X4
X
Data Analysis
X
X
Dialogue
X
X3
X
Differentiated
Coaching
X
X
Immersing Teachers
in Practice
X
X
Journaling
Lesson Study
X
X
X
X
5
Mentoring
X
X
Portfolios for
Educators
X
X
School Coaching
Shadowing
X
X
X
X
Standards in Practice
X
X
Study Groups
X
X
Training the Trainer
X
X
Tuning Protocols
X
Video
Visual Dialogue
X
X
X
X
X
1 - Likely to be multi-year. 2 - Two to three hours. 3 - Two to three hours. 4 - Likely to be multi-year. 5 - Usually two cycles per year, each cycle 10
hours long, weekly sessions.
www.nsdc.org
Powerful Designs for Professional Learning n 33
Chapter 2 n Process
Chart 3
WHAT AND WHY?
POWERFUL
DESIGN
Useful for
gathering
data in a
school
Accessing Student
Voices
X
Action Research
X
Involves
gathering
information
from external
sources
X
X
X
Critical Friends
Groups
Curriculum Design
Data Analysis
X
X
Case Discussions
Looks at
standards,
curriculum,
assessment
X
Involves
looking
at whole
school/
beyond
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Differentiated
Coaching
X
X
X
X
X
Immersing Teachers
in Practice
X
Journaling
X
X
X
X
X
Mentoring
Portfolios for
Educators
Involves
looking at
classrooms
X
X
Dialogue
Lesson Study
Focuses on
pedagogy
and
teaching
X
Assessment as
Professional
Learning
Classroom
Walk-Throughs
Particularly
helpful in
creating a
learning
community
X
X
X
X
School Coaching
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Shadowing
X
Standards in Practice
X
X
X
Study Groups
X
Training the Trainer
X
Tuning Protocols
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Video
X
Visual Dialogue
X
X
34 n Powerful Designs for Professional Learning
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
National Staff Development Council
Chapter 2 n Process
Chart 3 (cont.)
POWERFUL
DESIGN
WHAT AND WHY?
Is particularly Involves
reflective
looking at
student work
or students
Accessing Student
Voices
X
X
X
X
X
X
Assessment as
Professional
Learning
X
X
X
Critical Friends
Groups
X
X
Is
experiential
X
X
X
X
Data Analysis
X
X
X
X
X
Differentiated
Coaching
X
Immersing Teachers
in Practice
X
Journaling
X
Lesson Study
X
X
Mentoring
X
X
X
Portfolios for
Educators
X
X
X
X
X
Shadowing
X
X
Visual Dialogue
www.nsdc.org
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Training the Trainer
Video
X
X
X
Study Groups
X
Tuning Protocols
X
X
School Coaching
Standards in Practice
Involves
modeling
X
Curriculum Design
Dialogue
Results in
a concrete
product
X
X
Classroom
Walk-Throughs
Good for
problem
solving
X
Action Research
Case Discussions
Good for
involving
others
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Powerful Designs for Professional Learning n 35
Chapter 2 n Process
Chart 4
HOW?
POWERFUL
DESIGN
Connect with
other designs?
Yes
No
Individuals or groups?
Individuals
first, then
groups
Pairs
Large groups/
Concurrent
small groups
Facilitator needed?
Participation
No
At first
Yes
Support
X
X
X
Assessing Student
Voices
X
Action Research
X
X
X
Assessment as
Professional
Learning
X
X
X
Case Discussions
X
X
X
Classroom
Walk-Throughs
X
Critical Friends
Groups
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Dialogue
X
X
X
X
Journaling
X
Lesson Study
X
Mentoring
X
Portfolios for
Educators
X
School Coaching
X
Shadowing
X
Standards in Practice
X
X
X
Study Groups
X
X
X
Training the Trainer
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Tuning Protocols
X
X
Video
X
X
X
Visual Dialogue
X
X
X
36 n Powerful Designs for Professional Learning
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Immersing Teachers
in Practice
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Helpful
X
Curriculum Design
X
Essential
X
X
Data Analysis
Differentiated
Coaching
Administrator involvement?
X
X
X
X
X
X
National Staff Development Council
Chapter 2 n Process
Chart 4 (cont.)
HOW?
POWERFUL
DESIGN
School in/out?
In
Out
Cost?
Low
Medium
Accessing Student
Voices
X
Action Research
X
X
X
Assessment as
Professional
Learning
X
X
X
X
X
Case Discussions
High
X
Classroom
Walk-Throughs
X
X
Critical Friends
Groups
X
X
Curriculum Design
X
Data Analysis
X
X
X
Dialogue
X
X
Differentiated
Coaching
X
Immersing Teachers
in Practice
X
Journaling
X
X
Lesson Study
X
X
Mentoring
X
Portfolios for
Educators
X
School Coaching
X
Shadowing
X
Standards in Practice
X
Study Groups
X
Training the Trainer
X
Tuning Protocols
X
X
Video
X
X
Visual Dialogue
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X*
X
* if the trainer is in-house
www.nsdc.org
Powerful Designs for Professional Learning n 37
theme STANDARDS FOR PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
LEARNING
DESIGNS
Study, learn, design;
repeat as necessary
By Bruce R. Joyce and Emily F. Calhoun
D
esigners reside mostly in school
districts and schools and can have
primary assignments of all sorts. In
many districts, central office personnel are most visible on design committees, but teachers, principals,
and superintendents are included.
Members of professional learning communities can design
their own processes, and individual teachers can, too. States
do also. National organizations and commercial companies
are increasingly designing distance courses (Ross, 2011).
Learning Forward asked us to write about design referring to the new Standards for Professional Learning and
drawing on research. We needed to synthesize a considerable quantity of research, opinion, and experience into a
few principles of design that will have practical applications.
We organized this essay around a scenario that begins
46 JSD | www.learningforward.org
when a group of promising professional development providers from several school districts in a small state organize
themselves to study design. They want to learn to build and
implement programs for the districts that employ them.
Let’s call them the professional development design team.
Such groups have existed. Just in our own work with
our primary colleagues, we organize teams whose members
study design and make decisions and implement them, becoming providers in the process. Those teams are made
up of teachers, principals, central office personnel, and superintendents and their deputies. Some groups have been
intact for many years, helping each other to study and improve design (Joyce & Calhoun, 2010, pp.84-94).
The scenario moves through phases as our design team
members experience the professional development that
enables them to learn how to build effective and positive
components of staff development. The program for the de-
August 2011
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Vol. 32 No. 4
Professional learning that increases
educator effectiveness and results
for all students integrates theories,
research, and models of human
learning to achieve its intended
outcomes.
sign team is built from an inquiry perspective. Members are
asked to test ideas, including standards. For example, if a
standard recommends a given procedure, the design team
will examine the literature behind it. The scenario works its
way through three overlapping phases.
PHASE ONE: Study the learning capacity of people,
educators, and students.
The first element of design is a stance toward learning
capacity. How educators think about learning capacity will
hugely influence the kinds of learning experiences they are
likely to design.
Our design team looks at research on the general human capacity to learn and on conceptual flexibility (Joyce
& Calhoun, 2010, in press). They will discover that the research on human learning leads to a positive view of the rich
panoply of human abilities and the heroic efforts that have
provided the knowledge that the present generations build
on. Our team members will discover that people have considerable capacity to learn a vast variety of things. Humans
have adapted and invented. They have mastered ideas and
created new ones and have done so in all cultures. Several recent neuroscientific studies have been wonderfully affirming.
They will find that, in our culture, there are differences
in integrative complexity (Hunt & Sullivan, 1974). That
is, some folks hold on to ideas grimly while others welcome
and integrate new information. As they think of the children being born today, they will note that virtually all these
children can learn the culture and how to function in it,
August 2011
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Vol. 32 No. 4
and all will find a place if loved and educated. The average
bear is a smart bear. The design team will test our belief
that teachers are wonderful learners. Nearly all can master
just about any model of teaching that has been invented by
other teachers and researchers, and do so to the extent that
they can teach their students how to learn from those models
and achieve their objectives. If educators believe this thesis,
they approach design from the perspective that teachers are
intelligent, capable beings. If not, they can find themselves
designing training for persons they consider second-class
learners.
A second belief is that professional teachers have the
capacity to adapt to and change circumstances, making
things work for them. Our design team needs to study this
question carefully, for there are educators who see teachers
as rigid and resistant.
Finally, our team will examine a major hypothesis
about student learning capacity. A decent place to begin
is the reader-friendly but broad and well-grounded How
People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999).
We believe that all students have considerable learning
capacity. Our team will learn that to design effective curriculums, educators have to give up the belief that students’
socioeconomic backgrounds are the determining factor in
achievement and embrace the belief that curriculum and
instruction are the major factors in school learning. People
who think that kids are impaired create curriculums for
the impaired with predictable consequences — they im-
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JSD 47
theme STANDARDS FOR PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
Schoolwide focus needs all, including parents
By Shirnetha Stinson
As told to Valerie von Frank
A
s instructional facilitator and assistant principal,
I worked with my principal to develop a
vision of sustained, ongoing professional
development. We had to change from a “sprayand-pray” model — spray it out there and pray the
teachers go back in the classroom and implement it
— to professional development on campus involving
everyone in our school. Now, we purposefully plan
and execute professional development. We have
eliminated faculty meetings. If we meet, we meet for a
learning purpose.
We have a school leadership team that includes
representatives from each
grade level, the special
Clinton Elementary School
education department, and
Lancaster, S.C.
the special areas, as well
Grades: Pre-K-5
as the assistant principal,
Enrollment: 400
and principal. The team
Staff: 44
Racial/ethnic mix:
meets six times throughout
White:
4%
the year, beginning with a
Black:
95%
leadership planning meeting
Hispanic:
1%
in the summer. We look at
Asian/Pacific Islander: 0%
performance expectations
Native American:
0%
using state standards, federal
Other:
0%
Limited English proficient: 0%
Adequate Yearly Progress goals,
Free/reduced lunch: 99.5%
and at our trends across the
Contact: Shirnetha Stinson,
school to decide which areas to
assistant principal
focus on. From there, we select
Email: sstinson@lcsd.k12.sc.us
professional development
needs that align with our
school improvement goals. We also get teacher input
through a survey as an additional data point.
We have shifted our professional development to
work more with one another. We have book studies
based around student needs and teacher interests.
I facilitate study groups in which we analyze the
data and research instructional strategies. I work
with teachers to develop their abilities to lead these
48 JSD | www.learningforward.org
groups. We hire substitutes to
allow us to do peer observations,
co-teach, or observe model
lessons, and then we have
dialogue about what we observe
and have consultants or coaches
work with us to follow up. The
district also offers daylong or
half-day sessions that grade-level Stinson
teams use in their studies.
We periodically evaluate ourselves as a form of
reflection, either individually or as a learning team.
These are not performance evaluations. We use
Innovation Configuration maps for teachers to decide
at what level they are performing and to set goals for
themselves.
We have a schoolwide focus. Everyone in the
school, from paraprofessionals to office secretary to
principal, takes part in professional learning around
the topic. We also involve parents.
For example, we discovered students were
struggling with figurative language and not
understanding metaphors, similes, and idioms. Parents
use idioms a lot in everyday language. So teachers
would point out whenever a child used an idiom; we
asked parents to explain the meaning of the idioms
they used; and even the bus driver had students on
the bus sharing idioms with him to see whether he
knew what they meant. Sometimes it’s not all looking
at data, but having everybody aware of the strategies
that are in place.
Our teachers are really teaching as one unit,
teaching our children what they need to know
according to the standards and the learning goals we
have.
•
Shirnetha Stinson (sstinson@lcsd.k12.sc.us) is
assistant principal of Clinton Elementary School in
Lancaster, S.C. Valerie von Frank (valerievonfrank@
aol.com) is an education writer and editor of
Learning Forward’s books.
August 2011
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Vol. 32 No. 4
Learning Designs
pair them. As our team studies this issue, they will find many
or in new territory?
cases where schools generated outstanding achievement for
Here are some items the design team will find on its journey.
students because the faculties believed their students were capable; whereas other faculties others regarded their students as
A BIT OF NEW REPERTOIRE CLOSE TO THE RANGE OF
DEVELOPED SKILLS
hard to teach. Reality gradually matched the beliefs — schools
where beliefs were positive generated high achievement, and
Let’s imagine that a school faculty learns that having worklow achievement occurred in schools with low expectations.
ing in-class libraries gives students greater access and proximity
A study by Harkreader and Weathersby (1998)
to books, and that access has a positive effect on
that used data from all Georgia schools to build
students learning to read (McGill-Franzen, AlThe content of
a sample found that some schools in the low solington, Yokoi, & Brooks, 1999). So the faculty
professional
cioeconomic bracket outranked many of those in
decides to obtain the resources to ensure that their
development
the high socioeconomic bracket. Our team will
classroom collections contain 400 to 600 books,
will be muted
examine the Iowa Association of School Boards
and they do so without depleting their school liif designers
(2007) study indicating that a positive ethos in
brary. Then, another facet of the McGill-Franzen
treat student
both districts and schools was associated with the
et al. studies kicks in. Without some professional
learning as
exceptional performance of schools in the low
development, many teachers have difficulty getenvironmentally
socioeconomic bracket. As Ron Edmonds said,
ting new books into students’ hands on a regular
determined
“How many effective schools would you have to
basis. Some new repertoire is apparently required.
rather than as
see … ,” referring to schools that refused to be
However, only about 10 hours of professional
an outcome of
defeated by the negative rhetoric about socioecodevelopment (say, five two-hour sessions) were
professional
nomic status (Edmonds, 1979, p. 22).
needed to help teachers learn to use the collecfunction.
A part of giving up the student background
tions productively. For this initiative that inthesis is recognizing that in schools populated by
creases student learning in reading and writing,
middle and high socioeconomic status students,
some training is needed, but only a little.
an average of 20% of the students fail to learn to read and write
Our design team decides that it needs to learn whether iniadequately. Essentially, favorable socioeconomic status does not
tiatives by school faculties, professional learning communities,
override poor curriculum.
and districts ask for additions in repertoire that are just out of
Let’s summarize what our design team has learned in Phase
the range of the educators who are trying to learn to use them
and therefore require a only a modest amount of professional
One of its study:
development to achieve implementation.
• Teachers have fine learning capacity.
• Teachers have considerable flexibility — enough to understand their own individuality and modify professional
A LARGER NEED
development participation to help themselves have success.
Another faculty decides to study student learning in reading
• All students can learn, and the negative socioeconomic using performance-based measures. They discover the Gray Oral
hypotheses are now passé. Socioeconomic status does not
Reading Test and the Gunning procedure for assessing levels of
predict achievement — curriculum does.
competence when students are beginning to learn to read: It is
These three affirmative theses are the foundations of design
very useful up to about a high end of grade 2 level.
for professional development. Under the negative alternatives,
They obtain the manuals for the Gray Oral Reading Test
teachers can be treated as mediocre and inflexible learners. Just
and begin by administering it to a few students. They find that
as bad, the content of professional development will be muted if
assigning the levels in it is not easy and that miscue analysis is a
designers treat student learning as environmentally determined lot more complicated than they thought. The Gunning procerather than as an outcome of professional function.
dures require finding books that require a range of competencies
from students. This is not as easy as expected.
PHASE TWO: How teachers learn new repertoire when they
They end up finding an experienced consultant from their
need to do so.
intermediate service agency and spend about two hours per week
Our design team now proceeds to study how teachers learn. with her for about 10 weeks, practicing all the while. Part of
They will find that the concept of repertoire is very important
their time is face-to-face, and part is on Skype. They also make
to how educators learn. Most teachers have good control over and share videos of assessments, both for discussion and learning
some teaching strategies and less control over others. For profor themselves and for potential resources for teaching others.
fessional development design, the important consideration is
The movement toward performance measurement was just
how close the new content is to the developed repertoire of the a little too far out of their repertoire and needed more help than
teachers who are involved. Is it very close, a bit farther away,
faculty had anticipated.
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|
JSD 49
theme STANDARDS FOR PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
Again, our design team has discovered that they need to
learn how to help clients (schools, professional learning communities, districts, individuals) assess whether an initiative requires
knowledge and skills that are significantly outside the current
repertoire of the majority of the staff.
NEW REPERTOIRE
Now our design team approaches initiatives where most
participants need to learn ways of teaching that are really new
to them. When that happens, what kind of design do participants need?
Our designers turn to an example of a learning community
that realizes that its students are not receiving a top level of
instruction in writing. Members of the community find they
have much to learn, including:
• How to assess competence in writing much more precisely
than in the past;
• How to understand the nature of writing and how it develops;
• How to demonstrate writing — showing students aspects
of composition;
• How to develop stimuli to elicit writing from students; and
• How to help students assess and improve their writing.
Learning to demonstrate writing is a key here, and is seriously new repertoire for most teachers (Joyce, Calhoun, Newlove, & Jutras, 2006).
As the design team looks at the literature, they will find that
really new repertoire needs the following:
• The in-depth study of rationale of what is to be added to
the repertoire.
• Demonstrations: They need to see many demonstrations.
• Practice: As they study rationale and observe demonstraNEW COMPONENT
A new component of professional learning is being generated by
the need to integrate information and communication technologies
into core curriculum areas of the school. While many teachers are
reaching out to the web and using the library resources being
developed, the core curriculum areas need to be redeveloped into
what my colleagues and I call hybrid courses (the term blending is
often used), where the familiar campus course is augmented by
technology resources. Components of distance courses can also
be integrated into campus courses and curriculum areas from
kindergarten through grade 12. The teachers who take this on will
need support through serious professional development. Professional
development to help them to learn to generate online components
for their courses is currently available, often online itself. We should
soon enter a new era of research on how to design the online and
offline professional development on integrating this technology into
core areas.
50 JSD | www.learningforward.org
tions, they need to build lessons together and practice them,
alternating demonstrations and practice.
• Study of student response and learning: As the teachers
practice, they learn to examine student behavior — what
they understand and what they produce — by studying
student writing samples. The formative study of student
learning is extremely important when new practices are
implemented. While teaching, teachers observe evidence
of learning and then decide if instruction needs to change.
Our design team begins to realize that it cannot offer professional development without mastering the content of
the innovation. In this case, the team cannot teach others
methods for teaching writing without mastering them first.
Let’s summarize what our team learned during Phase Two
of its exploration:
• The design changes depending on whether the objective is
close to familiar repertoire, is somewhat different repertoire,
or is significantly new repertoire.
• For new repertoire, there may be other approaches that will
work, but we know that teachers learn through studying rationale, analyzing demonstrations, practicing, and studying
student response (Joyce & Calhoun, 2010). The study of
student response is immediate and focuses on performance.
• The design team now knows something about how teachers
learn new repertoire. They can judge whether the goal of the
professional development involves learning things that fit
more or less easily into the current developed repertoire and
can adjust the complexity of the professional development
process accordingly.
• A related bit of learning: Our design team learns that the first
year of an initiative in professional development is critical.
During that first year, if there is a decent level of implementation but minimal effects on teacher repertoire, a decision
needs to be made about whether to continue the initiative. The
content or design may be weak. Energy for implementation
may be weak. In most cases, it should be discontinued, because
initiatives that have little effect in the first year usually have
no better effects in subsequent years unless the content of the
professional development is improved, the design is improved,
or the energy for implementation increases. The hopeful belief
that it takes several years to see if something works has not
proven out in practice. The practical rule is if educators have
good content and a good design that will get them good implementation, they will see the effects in year one. If not, they need
to go back to the drawing boards and redesign content, process,
or the organizational approach to implementation.
PHASE THREE: Design in field contexts.
Our team needs to work with projects in schools and districts as tem members continue their studies. Sometimes they
will be asked to design projects and sometimes asked to see if
they can improve existing ones.
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Learning Designs
AN ENTRY-LEVEL PROJECT
One district asks the design team to initiate a better program for assessing competence in reading.
The team needs to learn what the district has been using,
who administers the tests, who analyzes the results, and what
are the findings. The team finds that the district has been trying to use norm-referenced tests to measure growth and that its
analysis is very hard to follow. The team recommends that the
district learn to use tests of performance and to interpret the
results. The design team needs to organize a district assessment
team, prepare the assessment team to use the Grey and Gunning procedures as mentioned above (or similar performancemeasuring tools), and shepherd the assessment team through
the process of testing, analyzing, and interpreting. The district
is then positioned to make an initiative. Note that the design
team prepares a cadre. The design team or other consultants
can provide professional development to the cadre, but without in-district providers, the district would be dependent on
external help.
A MORE COMPLEX PROJECT
Another district asks the design team to assess its K-2 literacy coach program and see if the design team can improve it.
Generally, the K-2 achievement in literacy is modest.
As in every case, the design team needs to get a picture of
the program design, its administration, professional development that has been provided, and degrees of implementation.
The design team needs to obtain opinions by personnel in all
roles about the program’s impact and success and estimates of
the skills possessed by the current coaches (e.g their repertoire).
They also need to assess the literacy-teaching repertoire of a
sample of the K-2 teachers.
The design team soon learns why it was asked in. The team
finds that coaches were selected from volunteers whose competence was attested to by the opinion of their principals. These
volunteers were then relieved from classroom duties and assigned as coaches in schools other than their own. They were
asked to introduce themselves to the principal and the faculty
and to begin a process of finding teachers who might want their
services. Few did, and the coaches occupied themselves with
those friendly faces.
The study of repertoire proved to be most telling. Our
design team concluded that the coaches and grade 1-2 teachers generally teach reading and writing very similarly. Thus,
the coaching program would generally duplicate the teaching
processes in schools where many students are not learning to
read and write capably. None of the coaches were kindergarten
teachers, and they had to study the kindergarten classes to get
some idea about what was going on while knowing that they
were probably not going to be in a position to help.
Our design team decided not to address problems stemming
from poor administrative processes, but to recommend to the
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district that it consider developing a renovated K-2 curriculum,
one with a good chance of improving student learning, and
then determining the degree that it would require serious new
learning by the staff, followed up by designing the professional
development to achieve it. Essentially, coaches from failing
schools had been sent to other failing schools with a terrible
administrative interface but with little to teach. However, experiencing a new and successful curriculum will probably result
in a new generation of coaches with much to teach.
A YET MORE COMPLEX PROJECT
The regional Title I organizers ask our design team to see if
the team can improve the Title I reading program. The organizers want the team to concentrate on several schools where they
believe student learning is unusually low.
Our design team begins by studying student achievement
and current instructional practice in the schools starting with
1st grade. They will interview the teachers
and principals to try to get their perspective
The practical rule
on the school, parents, and the picture of
is if educators
achievement. Because Title I schools have
have good
such heavy supplementary funding — about
content and a
$1,100 per qualifying student — they need
good design
to learn how that money is used.
that will get
Judging from district tests, the average
them good
achievement in one of the schools is awful
implementation,
— at the end of the year, 1st-grade scores
they will see the
approximate those normally achieved after
effects in year
three months of school. The design team’s
one. If not, they
second school is similar to the first. It has six
need to go back
1st-grade classrooms, three with virtually no
to the drawing
achievement, three with respectable achieveboards and
ment, a faculty divided between those who
redesign content,
think that low socioeconomic status is the
process, or the
major cause of low achievement and those
organizational
who think that curriculum plays the major
approach to
role.
implementation.
After just their 1st-grade experience,
our design team knows that designing professional development at this stage is not a
worthwhile activity. The Title I organizers need to develop a
team of their own to focus on general school improvement.
The school cultures have to be changed, learning communities organized, and leadership needs to be renovated seriously.
When the district has made progress on these fronts, it can turn
to the design team again, if it chooses. This is an optimal time
to redo the budget, including providing laptops for all students,
interactive boards for all classrooms, and professional development for all teachers.
Let’s summarize what our team members are learning from
their Phase Three field experiences:
Continued on p. 69
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JSD 51
Learning Designs
Continued from p. 51
• In a given setting, planning a new professional development
•
program or revising an ongoing program involves the study
of the organization, the states of learning of students, the
curriculum and instruction used by the instructors, and the
professional social climate of a sample of the schools.
A local design team needs to be organized and legitimized
by the district officials and needs to include a healthy sample
of teachers, principals, and district organizers.
DESIGN AND ALTERNATIVE MODELS OF PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
Here we draw directly from our formulation of five models of professional development and underline how our design
team might relate to them. Each model can be the design core
of a professional development component (Joyce & Calhoun,
2010).
Support for individuals: The most common form is stipends and brief leaves for individual teachers. The objective is
to enable individuals to create their own learning opportunity.
Their judgment determines goals, and their energy and good
scouting ability generate the processes. Can our design team
organize school district personnel, including policymakers, to
build a component around this model? Yes, it can.
Personal and professional service models, such as coaching and mentoring programs, have been written about by so
many others that we will simply urge our design team to look
into them carefully.
Collegial study models (usually in the form of professional
learning communities) also have a huge literature for our design
team to explore.
Curriculum implementation models are important because curriculum improvement depends on professional development. Our design team finds that the concept of repertoire
and the knowledge about how people learn new repertoire are
at the core of those models.
DESIGN REQUIRES LEARNING
We will not try to summarize this short piece here, but
rather to commend the organization for attempting to build
standards to guide its constituency. We have read the Hall &
Hord (2011) article in this issue on implementation (p. 52), and
one of the authors’ most important points is that implementation requires new learning. That is true of design as well. This
may be the most important message from the latest version of
the standards.
Ron Edmonds’ fine statement makes the issue clear: “We
can, whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all
children whose schooling is of interest to us. We already know
more than we need to do that. Whether or not we do it must
finally depend on how we feel about the fact that we haven’t
so far” (1979).
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REFERENCES
Bransford, J., Brown, A., & Cocking, R. (1999). How
people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington,
DC: National Academy Press.
Edmonds, R. (1979, October). Effective schools for the
urban poor. Educational Leadership, 37(1), 15-24.
Hall, G. & Hord, S. (2011, August). Learning builds the
bridge between research and practice. JSD, 32(4).
Harkreader, S. & Weathersby, J. (1998). Staff
development and student achievement: Making the connection
in Georgia’s schools. Atlanta, GA: Council for School
Performance, Georgia State University.
Hunt, D. & Sullivan, E. (1974). Between psychology and
education. Hinsdale, IL: Dryden.
Iowa Association of School Boards.
Curriculum
(2007). Leadership for student learning. Des
implementation
Moines, IA: Author.
models are
Joyce, B. & Calhoun, E. (2010).
important
Models of professional development.
because
Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
curriculum
Joyce, B. & Calhoun, E. (in press).
improvement
Realizing the promise of 21st century
depends on
education: An owners’ manual. Thousand
professional
Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
development.
Joyce, B., Calhoun, E., Newlove,
K., & Jutras, J. (2006, November).
Scaling up: The results of a literacy program
implemented in an entire education authority. A paper delivered
to the Asian Pacific Educational Research Association, Hong
Kong.
McGill-Franzen, A., Allington, R., Yokoi, L., &
Brooks, G. (1999, November-December). Putting books
in the classroom seems necessary but not sufficient. Journal of
Educational Research, 93(2), 67-74.
Ross, J. (2011). Online professional development.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
•
Bruce R. Joyce (brucejoyce40@gmail.com) taught
in the schools of Delaware and was a professor at the
University of Delaware, University of Chicago, and
Teachers College, Columbia University. His work focuses
on models of teaching and professional development.
Emily F. Calhoun (efcphoenix@aol.com) focuses on
school improvement and professional development in
her research, writing, and consulting. Her recent books
cover action research, models of teaching, and assessing
reading programs. Together they have written Models
of Professional Development (2010) and Realizing the
Promise of 21st-Century Education (in press). They reside
in St. Simons Island, Ga. ■
www.learningforward.org
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JSD 69
NSDC TOOL
W H AT A S C H O O L L E A D E R N E E D S T O K N O W A B O U T . . .
E-x-p-a-n-d-i-n-g your vision of
B Y
J O A N
R I C H A R D S O N
I
Learn more about
effective staff
development
designs. Order
NSDC’s book,
Powerful Designs
for Professional
Learning, edited by
Lois Brown Easton.
Available at http://
store.nsdc.org
4
f the school board in your district suddenly
announced that it would no longer fund
half-day “inservices” in which teachers sat
and listened to “motivational speakers,” what
would you do?
Leaping for joy might be one response.
Suddenly, you could turn your back on staff
development that produces no changes in student
learning and focus on
strategies that would benefit
both teachers and students.
As you try to move
your staff out of its inservice
rut and into a mode of
powerful professional
learning, ask teachers to
consider these eight ideas for
not-a-workshop professional
development:
1. Form action
research teams. Madison,
Wisc. staff developer Cathy Caro-Bruce begins
her action research work with teachers by asking
them, “What keeps you awake at night? What
are you curious about? What question would you
like to have answered about your students?” In
action research, teachers select questions whose
answers matter to them and then collect data to
uncover an answer.
2. Enlist teachers to shadow students in
their school in order to gain perspective on how
school looks from the student’s vantage point.
Lois Brown Easton editor of Powerful Designs
for Professional Learning (NSDC, 2004),calls
shadowing an eye-opening experience that
enables adults to better understand what it is like
to be a student in a particular school. “Shadowing students often can result in changed plans …
because the experience injects reality into the
proceedings of a committee or a task force,” she
says.
National Staff Development Council I (800) 727-7288 I www.nsdc.org
3. Do regular classroom walk-throughs.
These four- to five-minute regular visits to
classrooms provide principals with snapshots of
“classroom environments, learning experiences,
and student perspectives,” says consultant and
author Margery Ginsberg. When several
observers do walk-throughs, the principal can
quickly gain an overview of what is occurring
on a given day. That, in turn, can suggest areas
worth celebrating and those that need more
attention.
4. Buy journals for each teacher and invite
them to begin keeping a journal about their
daily work. As Joellen Killion puts it,
“journaling is the process of thinking in writing.
It is a way to construct meaning visibly and to
reflect on experiences.” If you have requirements for the length and frequency of journaling,
make sure teachers know about them in advance.
5. Construct a curriculum map. Ask a
team of teachers to create a chart showing how
the lessons they teach address each of the
curriculum standards and benchmarks for one of
their subject areas. Is their instruction logically
organized? Are they teaching to the standards
identified by your state and your district? Are
they teaching lessons that have little to no
relationship to the intended goals for that class
or course? “Curriculum design helps teachers
see the connections, find resources, and make
multidisciplinary curricula happen in their own
classroom,” says Linda Fitzharris who has
worked extensively with curriculum design
teams in the Carolinas.
6. Ask teachers to assemble professional
portfolios of examples of work they and their
students have produced. Portfolio consultant
Mary Dietz says a portfolio can be a notebook
with structured journal responses or any container that includes artifacts, work samples,
videotapes of a class and any other items that
SEPTEMBER 2005 I The Learning Principal
NSDC TOOL
professional development
illustrate and demonstrate the teacher’s learning.
She believes discussions that teachers have with
their peers about their portfolios help focus and
create powerful collegial discussions.
7. Examine student work using a tuning
protocol. Teachers voluntarily present products
that students have created as the result of assignments and ask their colleagues to follow a structured plan for critiquing the student work as a way
of understanding how to improve instruction.
8. Explore the Japanese concept of lesson
study in which teachers design, observe, and
revise “research lessons.” In lesson study,
teachers work together to form goals for student
I F
1. Conducting action
research projects
2. Analyzing teaching
cases
3. Attending awareness-level seminars
4. Joining a cadre of inhouse trainers
5. Planning lessons
with a teaching
colleague
6. Consulting an expert
7. Examining student
data
8. Being coached by a
peer or an expert
9. Leading a book study
10. Making a field trip to
another school or
district
11. Writing assessments
with a colleague
N O T
A
learning, collaboratively plan a lesson, teach and
observe the lesson, discuss evidence collected
during the observation and then revise the lesson
as needed to make it more effective. Lesson
study advocate Catherine Lewis believes lesson
study is a way to “slow down the act of teaching
in order to learn more about students, subject
matter and their own teaching.”
Every one of these strategies could be
introduced into any school. Each of them has the
power to shift a school’s culture so teachers are
more involved in their own learning and so their
professional learning will benefit student
achievement.
W O R K S H O P,
12. Participating in a
study or support
group
13. Doing a classroom
walk-through
14. Giving presentations
at conferences
15. Researching on the
Internet
16. Leading a
schoolwide
committee or
project
17. Developing displays,
bulletin boards
18. Shadowing students
19. Coaching a colleague
20. Being a mentor —
being mentored
21. Joining a professional network
SEPTEMBER 2005 I The Learning Principal
T H E N
22. Using a tuning
protocol to examine
student work
23. Attending an indepth institute in a
content area
24. Writing an article
about your work
25. Observing model
lessons
26. Reading journals,
educational
magazines, books
27. Participating in a
critical friends group
28. Doing a selfassessment
29. Shadowing another
teacher or professional in the field
30. Keeping a reflective
log or journal
NSDC members
have permission to
reproduce this list
of options in
school or district
newsletters or on
web sites if they
use the following
source line:
Source: National
Staff Development
Council,
www.nsdc.org. All
rights reserved.
W H A T ?
31. Analyzing the
expectations of your
statewide assessments
32. Enrolling in a
university course
33. Viewing educational
videos
34. Maintaining a
professional
portfolio
35. Studying content
standards for your
state
36. Observing other
teachers teach
37. Listening to video/
audio recordings
38. Participating in a
videoconference or
conference calls with
experts
39. Visiting model
schools/programs
40. Developing
curriculum
41. Doing school
improvement
planning
42. Examining new
technological
resources to
supplement lessons
43. Being observed and
receiving feedback
from another
teacher or principal
44. Engaging in lesson
study
45. Working on a
strategic planning
team
National Staff Development Council I (800) 727-7288 I www.nsdc.org
5
t
3
F O R
A
DY N A M I C
F
Vol. 4, No. 1
September 2008
Lessons from a
coach
TEACHERS
TEACHING
TEACHERS
CO M M U N I T Y
O F
T E A C H E R
™
L E A D E R S
Tap the power of peers
By Lois Brown Easton
irst-year teacher Francine
Gillespie waited in the 3rdgrade office for her
colleagues. She had brought
student work to share — a
science report she’d chosen randomly
from her students’ reports on the galaxy.
She couldn’t wait for her colleagues’
What’s
inside
feedback and suggestions on the quality
of the work and their ideas for her to
improve her teaching of this unit.
Two miles away, four teachers stood
in Bud Collier’s room, jotting notes on
clipboards as Bud taught a mathematics
lesson they had created together. One
watched a particular student;
Peer-to-peer
another scanned
professional
learning takes a
the room every
variety of powerful
60 seconds; a
forms
third noted the
work of a pair of
students in the back of the room. Later,
they would meet for a colloquium. Bud
would describe how he had felt teaching
the group-created lesson; the others would
chime in with the data they had collected.
In the high school across from Bud
Collier’s middle school, Enrique Chama
summarized his research for the social
studies staff. He described why he chose
to research the effect of higher-level questioning. He had documented that students
resist venturing outside their comfort zone
with analysis and synthesis questions and
shared what he had done to make higher-
Work on
language, assume
positive
intentions when
coaching, says
Amber Jones.
Page 5
Voice of a
teacher leader
Bill Ferriter
believes that
compassionate
colleagues can
solve the
retention
problem.
Page 6
Focus on NSDC’s
standards
To be useful,
data need a
strenuous
workout.
Page 7
Direct instruction
in writing helps
students learn.
Research brief
Page 9
Assess how your
group is
implementing
NSDC’s Context
standards.
NSDC tool
ns
dc
Page 11
National Staff
Development
Council
800-727-7288
www.nsdc.org
NSDC’s purpose: Every educator engages in effective professional learning every day so every student achieves.
t
3 TEACHERS TEACHING TEACHERS
CHARACTERISTICS OF POWERFUL
PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
Powerful professional learning:
•
Begins with what will really help young
people learn. It results in application in
the classroom.
•
Requires collecting, analyzing, and presenting real data. Because it is about
what happens in the classroom, it is
content-rich. It may never formally end;
as classroom situations change, new
questions arise leading to new answers
and more new questions.
•
Honors the staff’s professionalism,
expertise, experiences, and skills.
Although they may work alone on some
aspects of professional learning, such as
Chama’s action research project, powerful professional learning is collaborative
or has collaborative aspects to it. Faculty
are more likely to buy in to professional
learning because they understand the
need and respond to it by learning and
helping each other implement changes.
•
Establishes a culture of quality. The conversation in the hallways, faculty
lounge, and meetings changes.
•
Slows the pace of schooling. Each professional learning activity requires
reflection, as well as sharing thoughts
and ideas. Many educators organize
themselves into professional learning
communities to ensure that they have
regularly scheduled time to continue
their own learning, help others learn,
and make sense of what’s going on in
school.
PAGE 2
order questions a regular feature of class discussions. His data, collected over four months, were
impressive, and his colleagues agreed to try variations of his processes in their own classes if he
would coach them.
These teachers (their names have been
changed) were engaged in peer-to-peer professional learning. Gillespie had brought student
work to be examined using a tuning protocol at a
grade-level meeting. Her colleagues had taken
care of other business online beforehand so they
could devote this meeting to professional learning. Anyone from Collier’s vertical learning community could have taught the lesson he taught;
the team had worked on it as part of lesson study
which brought together district mathematics
teachers from 6th through 10th grades. Chama
was sharing the results of an action research project with his professional learning community.
Professional learning is the learning that
teachers do themselves and with each other.
Professional development, although valuable,
usually involves outsiders who develop and train
people. Professional development is sometimes
the best way a faculty can learn something new,
and most of us would prefer to be trained in
something like lifesaving. The problem is that
professional development often is a one-shot situation, and after the speaker or trainer departs or
the university course ends, although teachers
have the best intentions, they are unable to
implement what they learned. They may have no
support so that when there are problems, they
have no one to turn to. They may find it easier to
keep doing what is familiar, despite initial excitement about change.
In addition to the professional learning activities Gillespie, Collier, and Chama engaged in,
consider these:
• Building assessments or rubrics together;
• Analyzing and revising curriculum;
• Conducting focus groups with students to get
student voices;
• Analyzing videotapes of teaching;
• Participating in a book or article study;
• Using any of the protocols described by the
National School Reform Faculty;
Other professional learning activities
National Staff Development Council • 800-727-7288 • www.nsdc.org
TAP THE POWER
OF PEERS
A simple three-part
definition of
professional learning
communities is:
• A group of
educators who
meet regularly to
engage in
professional
learning ...
• To enhance their
own practice as
educators ...
• In order to help all
students succeed
as learners.
GET THE POWER
Read about 23
successful
professional learning
strategies in Powerful
Designs for
Professional Learning.
The expanded second
edition introduces
new chapters on
classroom walkthroughs,
differentiated
coaching, dialogue,
and video. Available
through
store.nsdc.org.
SEPTEMBER 2008
t
3 TEACHERS TEACHING TEACHERS
•
Developing and analyzing case studies, or
using those available online;
• Analyzing assignments (Standards in
Practice);
• Developing portfolios to share;
• Keeping journals and discussing key experiences with each other; or
• Shadowing students (or adults) in one’s own
or another school.
These and other strategies are fully described
in Powerful Designs for Professional Learning
(NSDC, 2008).
Professional learning starts in many schools
by forming professional learning communities.
However, unless teachers engage in professional
learning, professional learning communities risk
becoming just business as usual, rather than a
time for professional learning. Beware the statement, “Oh, we do professional learning communities” in a school that may merely have renamed
faculty, grade-level, or department meetings. A
simple three-part definition of professional learning communities is:
• A group of educators who meet regularly to
engage in professional learning ...
• To enhance their own practice as
educators ...
• In order to help all students succeed as
learners.
To be a true professional learning community, all three parts must be in place. Professional
learning is not a business-as-usual agenda full of
items to be decided or announcements to be
made. Some characteristics of professional learning communities are variable, however, such as:
How to get started
The earliest form of a professional learning
community was probably a Critical Friends
Group. A group can call itself a professional
learning community if it is really engaged in all
three parts of the definition.
•
WHAT THE GROUP CALLS ITSELF
Sometimes two or three close colleagues
form a professional learning community.
Sometimes a whole faculty participates in a sin•
THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE IN THE GROUP
PAGE 3
gle professional learning community. There’s no
perfect number, except as participants consider
“air time.” In a group of 10 or more, meeting for
an hour or so, participants may become frustrated
because they do not have time to talk. At the other end of the range, a group of three to four may
lack diversity. Go for eight to 10 members and
adjust as necessary by adding more groups.
Some professional learning strategies can be
accomplished in 30 minutes; some take a few
hours or more. Some require weekly meetings;
some require monthly meetings. Some are better
done when school is in session; others are better
done after school or during breaks (with the
teachers receiving compensation). The meeting
time can vary according to what members want;
however, professional learning communities
should be scheduled ahead of time so that they
have a regular place on the calendar.
The best way to get started is to start. Find
someone who would also like to engage in professional learning. Decide when and where to
meet. Informally share what you’re learning.
(“Joe and I looked at student portfolios the other
day.”) Be sure to share information with the
school administrator and ask for time to share
formally during a faculty meeting. Gradually
invite other teachers to join you or start their own
groups.
The impetus to start professional learning
communities and engage in professional learning
can come from teachers themselves or be
launched by administrators, preferably with the
help of a design team composed of those teachers
most interested in participating. Professional
learning communities, like most collaborative
efforts, are unlikely to survive an executive mandate: “You, you, and you — be a professional
learning community.” It’s OK to start small with
two or three people sharing their professional
practice, their students’ work, and the questions,
dilemmas, and problems that inevitably arise.
Professional learning can be contagious.
When teachers talk about what they are learning,
they infect others around them, who (because
learning is natural) may then spread learning to
their colleagues.
•
National Staff Development Council • 800-727-7288 • www.nsdc.org
HOW LONG THE GROUP MEETS
TAP THE POWER
OF PEERS
START WITH
YOURSELF
Ask colleagues to
help you examine
a piece of student
work or an aspect
of your
professional
practice; have a
peer serve as
facilitator and
timer for the
process.
Take an article to
a faculty meeting
and ask if other
faculty members
want to form an
ad hoc discussion
group.
Ask colleagues for
help writing an
assignment.
Develop a case
study about a
student who is
bewildering you
and ask others to
study it with you.
SEPTEMBER 2008
t
3 TEACHERS TEACHING TEACHERS
Don’t let excuses delay professional learning. If you wait until the school culture is perfect
and collegial trust is rampant, you will never
begin. Professional learning activities themselves
often foster trust, and team-building exercises
don’t mean much unless they happen when people work on real problems using a professional
learning strategy such as a tuning protocol.
Start with yourself. Ask colleagues to help
you examine a piece of student work or an aspect
of your professional practice; have a peer serve
as facilitator and timer for the process. Or bring
an article to a faculty meeting and ask if other
faculty members want to form an ad hoc discussion group. Ask colleagues for help writing an
assignment. Develop a case study about a student
who is bewildering you and ask others to study it
with you.
What Gillespie, Collier, and Chama do in the
classroom is better because they have peer support — their students reap the benefits of their
Conclusion
PAGE 4
teachers’ professional learning. Gillespie, Collier,
and Chama also affect the work of colleagues
who hear about what they are doing and want to
know more. As their colleagues begin their own
journeys into professional learning, they begin to
affect the learning of their students. Soon the
school as a whole is improving. As more schools
sponsor professional learning and the mechanism
by which teachers learn (the professional learning
community or whatever the learning group may
call itself), they turn to the districts for support.
Districts become professional learning communities, too. Peer-to-peer professional learning, then,
is a powerful way to make change in a system
that otherwise seems to resist change.
TAP THE POWER
OF PEERS
Don’t let excuses
delay professional
learning. If you wait
until the school
culture is perfect and
collegial trust is
rampant, you will
never begin.
Easton, L.B. (Ed.). (2008). Powerful
designs for professional learning, 2nd Ed.
Oxford, OH: NSDC.
Ginsberg, M. (2004). Context, in Easton,
L.B., (Ed.), Powerful Designs for Professional
Learning. Oxford, OH: NSDC. N
References
National Staff Development Council • 800-727-7288 • www.nsdc.org
SEPTEMBER 2008
Tool 3.5
Chapter 3: Planning School-Based Professional Learning
Best practices for professional learning
Purpose: To strengthen understanding of best practices for professional learning in order to improve
learning plan designs.
Time: 30 to 45 minutes.
Materials: A copy of handout for each participant.
Directions
1. Ask team members to review each of the guiding principles and compare the principals to current school
practice.
2. Ask team members to decide whether to work on the chart item-by-item as a team or to work individually
and then discuss.
3. Have each participant check the column he or she thinks best matches the school’s need.
4. Aggregate and discuss the outcomes.
5. Alternatively, fill in the chart together, discussing during the process.
6. Determine how to adapt items the team decided needed adapting.
7. For each item the team checked as wanting to adopt, work together to write a short statement describing
that action in practice. Decide on next steps for moving that item to the “in practice” column. For
example, a team might identify “Reflect best available research and practice in teaching, learning, and
leadership” as an item to adopt. The statement might read, “At least once a month, each team member
will bring a professional reading to the group for discussion. The reading will focus on current research or
best practice in the area of _________ .”
8. Periodically repeat the exercise to identify progress.
Change, lead, succeed: Building Capacity With School Leadership TeamsNational Staff Development Council l www.nsdc.org
Tool 3.5
Chapter 3: Planning School-Based Professional Learning
Best practices for Professional learning
PRINCIPLE
Professional learning opportunities:
IN PRACTICE
ADOPT
ADAPT
1. Focus on teachers as central to student
learning, yet include all other members
of the school community.
2. Focus on individual, collegial, and
organizational improvement.
3. Respect and nurture the intellectual
and leadership capacity of teachers,
principals, and others in the school
community.
4. Reflect best available research and
practice in teaching, learning, and
leadership.
5. Enable teachers to develop further
experience in subject content, teaching
strategies, use of technologies, and
other essential elements in teaching to
high standards.
6. Promote continuous inquiry and
improvement embedded in the
school’s daily life.
7. Are planned collaboratively by those
who will participate in and facilitate
that development.
8. Require substantial time and other
resources.
9. Are driven by a coherent long-term
plan.
10. Are evaluated based on impact on
teacher effectiveness and student
learning; and this assessment guides
subsequent professional development
efforts.
Source: Adapted from www.nwrel.org/request/june98/articles5.html.
Change, lead, succeed: Building Capacity With School Leadership TeamsNational Staff Development Council l www.nsdc.org
forum /
PARKER McMULLEN
Stop hanging fans —
do the laundry!
s a mostly retired educator with a wife who is
working harder than ever, it became incumbent
upon me to run the household by taking over the
normal chores. So one of my new guises became Mr.
Laundry. (Superhero titles help maintain my self-image.)
For the first year or so, I found this particular activity
maddening in its continuous nature. I finally reconciled
myself to the concept that laundry isn’t something that
you get done, but rather is ongoing.
The ongoing nature of the laundry process is in direct
opposition to many of the activities I had been accustomed to doing around the house in my past life as active
breadwinner. For example, now that we live in Arizona, I
am quite expert at hanging ceiling fans. I regard this as a
very satisfying activity. The parts come out of the carton,
and, depending on the complexity of the fan, within minutes or maybe hours, you have a functioning
fan and the job is complete. If it is a quality
fan and a good installation, this job may never
have to be revisited — unlike the dreaded
laundry and sundry other household activities
such as dusting, vacuuming, dishwashing,
window cleaning, etc. As a matter of fact, if
you step back and look, most of the homemaker’s hard work falls into the ongoing,
never finished category. This may contribute
Parker McMullen
to the lack of respect that homemakers have
had to endure over the years. They work and work and
work, and yet nothing is ever finished.
At a recent coaching session involving my work with a
local charter school, we began discussing the emerging
image of professional development as an ongoing, sustained, job-embedded process. Immediately in my mind’s
eye, I saw the connection. I blurted out, “We’ve got to
stop hanging fans and start doing laundry.” Naturally,
everyone looked at me as if I had once again lost my
mind. This is not an infrequent occurrence, as anyone who
works with me for any length of time knows. My wife says
A
PARKER McMULLEN is a retired educator and consultant. You can
contact him at 2723 S. Rincon Drive, Chandler, AZ 85249, (480) 6990755 (phone and fax), e-mail: pmcmullen1@cox.net.
80
JSD
WINTER 2006
VOL. 27, NO. 1
it stems from my unfortunate habit of having the first part
of a conversation in my head with myself and then suddenly including everyone else in the middle as if they had
been participating all along.
The transition the educational community is making
in professional development is as simple as the difference
between hanging fans and doing the laundry. And the
implications of this transition are complex and far-reaching. If one examines the historical model of professional
development in education, the one-shot workshop disconnected from all other contexts dominates the scene.
Unfortunately, even today in the age of the No Child Left
Behind Act, the one-time workshop still may be the prevalent approach to trying to assist teachers, administrators,
and other educators in their work to improve student
achievement. The analogy to hanging a fan is readily
apparent. In fact, many workshop presentations even come
in a virtual box. All of us have attended some workshop or
another presented by a consultant who has a packaged
delivery that plays the same in Des Moines as it does in
Berkeley. You just pick up the presenter at the airport and
put her or him in front of the recipients. And the underlying assumption of the organizers of these events is that if
the presenter does a good install, the job won’t have to be
revisited for years. We will be done.
The recently revised NSDC Standards for Staff
Development present a very different view of the complexity and necessity of changing our approach to improving
educator practice so that we raise the level of student
achievement. And the standards resemble to a great degree
the mindset and the process required for doing laundry.
Effective professional development is ongoing.
Given the rapidly changing nature of our culture, professional development must be never-ending to be truly effective. You know well that as soon as that laundry basket is
finally empty, someone is going to throw a pair of jeans
and a T-shirt in there. So it is with data-driven, researchbased professional development. As soon as you get a firm
handle on things, you’ll find something new to consider.
Effective professional development is jobembedded. Now I know that students of overdrawn
analogies immediately are going to say, “What about laundromats? They’re not in the house. They’re not job-embedded.” Neither is graduate school. But, like the homemaker
Continued on p. 72
WWW.NSDC.ORG
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
forum / PARKER McMULLEN
Continued from p. 80
(or Mr. Laundry), doing the laundry is part of the work
that goes on in the context of the house, along with paying
bills, washing dishes, cleaning, hanging fans, and so on.
Effective professional development is sustained
over time. It is not done in one-shot workshops, and it is
not done using the same method every time. Just like youknow-what. Different temperatures, load sizes, additives. It
changes each time. You know the old saw, “Insanity is
doing the same thing over and over and expecting different
results.” Unfortunately, that has been our approach to
changing teaching practices for most of recent history. It’s
embarrassing that we hadn’t noticed its ineffectiveness long
ago. Actually, a few people did. It’s just taken about 30
years for enough of us to notice the research and do something about it.
So those of you engaged in trying to change practice to
improve the achievement of students should take note of
NSDC’s Standards for Staff Development, study the
research on personal and organizational change, stop planning one-shot workshops decontextualized from the needs
of your students and teachers, and stop pulling folks away
from their other work. Stop hanging fans, and start doing
the laundry! n
taking measure / ROBBY CHAMPION
Continued from p. 70
Cawelti, G. (2001, Fall). Six districts, one goal of excellence. JSD,
22(4), 31-35.
Champion. R. (2000, Summer). Got a minute. Journal of Staff
Development 21(3), 57-60.
Champion, R. (2002, Winter). Sampling can produce solid findings.
Journal of Staff Development, 23(1), 62-63.
Deojay, T.R. & Novak, D.S. (2004, Winter). Blended data. JSD,
25(1), 32-36.
French, R. (2001, Fall). Great job, do it better. JSD, 22(4), 26-29.
Heller, J.I., Daehler, K.R., & Shinohara, M. (2003, Fall).
Connecting all the pieces. JSD, 24(4), 36-41.
Nevills, P. (2003, Winter). Cruising the cerebral superhighway. JSD,
24(1), 20-23.
Norton, J. (2001, Fall). A storybook breakthrough. JSD, 22(4), 22-25.
Pardini, P. (2004, Winter). Valley cultivates comprehensive process.
JSD, 25(1), 42-45.
Reddell, P. (2004, Spring). Coaching can benefit children who have a
higher hill to climb. JSD, 25(2), 20-26.
Schmoker, M. (2002, Spring). Up and away. JSD, 23(2), 10-13.
Sparks, D. (2003, Winter). Change agent. JSD, 24(1), 55-58. n
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VOL. 27, NO. 1
STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT,
AND CIRCULATION (Required by 39 USC 3685)
1. Publication title: JSD
2. Publication number: ISSN 0276-928X
3. Filing date: Nov. 1, 2005
4. Issue frequency: Quarterly
5. Number of issues published annually: Four (4)
6. Annual subscription price: $69.00
7. Complete mailing address of known office of publication:
7 Josephine Drive, Wheelersburg, OH 45694. Contact person: Leslie
Miller. Telephone: (513) 523-6029
8. Complete mailing address of headquarters or general business
office: 5995 Fairfield Road, #4, Oxford, OH 45056
9. Full name or complete mailing address of publisher, editor, and
managing editor:
Publisher: National Staff Development Council, 5995 Fairfield Road,
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Editor: Joan Richardson, 1128 Nottingham Road, Grosse Pointe Park,
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NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
Module 4 • WHAT WILL WE DO IN OUR COLLABORATIVE PROFESSIONAL LEARNING TEAMS?
T
his resource guide started with the
idea that effective professional learning
results in changes in teacher practice
and improved student learning. One
of the clear goals of collaborative learning is building educator knowledge and skills while expecting
and supporting classroom implementation of new
practices. Collaboration is a crucial component of
this learning. Collaborative professional learning can
be rewarding and productive as well as informative
and enriching.
What collaborative professional learning looks
like will differ among schools. Size, length of tenure
of a staff, culture, leadership, and experience with
collaboration are some factors influencing variations. Schools of different sizes will have different
opportunities for collaboration. In larger schools,
grade-level, department, or course teams may be
possible. In smaller schools, cross-grade-level or
department teams may make more sense. Size and
experience with collaboration will influence the role
of the principal and teacher leaders. If staff members
have limited experience working collaboratively, the
principal may take a more prominent role in struc-
4-4
Rochester City School District
turing teams and building a culture of collaboration.
When there are more teams at a school, coordination
and communication among teams, often led by the
principal, will be more important.
The school’s goals and student achievement
needs, as well as its size, may affect how teams are
configured. Teachers may serve on one or more
teams: grade-level, content-specific, course-specific,
or topic-focused teams. Some teams may be crosslevel or interdisciplinary teams. A 5th-grade teacher
may be a member of his grade-level team and the
school’s literacy vertical team. An algebra teacher
at the high school may be a member of the math
department team and an algebra team. Both teachers may also serve on their school’s team focused on
increasing student engagement in the classroom.
How teams are formed, how many teams a
teacher serves on, and the focus of the teams grows
out of the needs of each school and its goals for
improving student learning and building strong
collaborative culture among professionals. Tool 4.1
is an article that describes collaboration as a critical
component of professional learning and illustrates a
variety of forms that collaboration can take.
MINDS IN MOTION: CREATING A COMMUNITY OF COLLABORATIVE LEARNERS
WHAT WILL WE DO IN OUR COLLABORATIVE PROFESSIONAL LEARNING TEAMS? • Module 4
Collaborative learning and collegial work,
whether in small or large schools, can be messy and
challenging, yet professionally rewarding and personally satisfying. Team-based learning requires team
members to make joint decisions about their common student and professional learning goals, create
strategies for working together, and plan how to use
their collaborative time. Collaborative time will be
used effectively when team members understand that
there is a wide range of learning designs they can use
to accomplish their goals. The purpose of Module 4
is to provide information about a variety of designs
and purposes for collaborative learning.
LEARNING TEAM DECISIONS: CYCLE OF
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
The cycle of continuous improvement describes
the numerous decisions required to implement
effective collaborative learning (see Figure 4.1).
Once the team has been formed, members analyze
student learning, teacher, and school data to determine students’ learning needs. The team develops its
professional learning goal, which aligns with student
needs and uses the components of a SMART goal: It
is specific, measurable, attainable, results-based, and
time-bound. A professional learning goal will involve
building knowledge, developing skills, examining
assumptions and beliefs, putting new skills into practice, and reflecting on results. Next, team members
decide how they will learn and work together to attain their goal. Professional development designs are
identified. These designs are selected purposefully to
help the team accomplish its learning goals.
A school might set a goal of increasing student
achievement by implementing differentiated instruction to meet the needs of all students. Grade-level or
content-based teams might break the goal into four
components: 1) learning about the purpose of and
strategies for differentiating instruction; 2) developing skills such as diagnosing student needs or design-
FIGURE 4.1: CYCLE OF CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
• Analyzing student, teacher, and school data to identify educator learning needs;
• Identifying specific educator learning goals based on the analysis of data;
• Improving educator effectiveness by implementing sustained, evidence-based learning
strategies;
• Transferring new instructional strategies into the classroom by engaging in job-embedded
coaching and classroom assistance;
• Assessing professional learning continuously to determine the effectiveness of activities and
strategies in achieving identified learning goals;
• Adjusting teachers’ efforts and practices based on continuous assessment of student and
teacher learning; and
• Involving external assistance when appropriate to help teachers accomplish their goals.
Source: Hirsh, 2009.
MINDS IN MOTION: CREATING A COMMUNITY OF COLLABORATIVE LEARNERS
Rochester City School District
4-5
Module 4 • WHAT WILL WE DO IN OUR COLLABORATIVE PROFESSIONAL LEARNING TEAMS?
ing differentiated lessons for students; 3) implementing those strategies consistently during instruction;
and 4) evaluating the effects of their efforts. Each
of these elements will most likely require different
learning designs. Book study or a distance-learning
course might be used to build knowledge, developing lesson plans could be accomplished through
lesson study or co-planning lessons with grade-level
teams or by participating in a coaching session, and
implementation can be supported through co-teaching, coaching, or peer observation. One of the team’s
decisions is to identify which professional learning
design will help all members reach their common
goal. Tool 4.2 provides a list of possible professional
learning designs that could be used to support a
variety of learning goals. In addition, an article is
included that provides a rationale for why different
designs are needed to accomplish different kinds of
professional learning goals.
TEAM DECISION: DESIGN
Teams should carefully consider when to use
various learning designs to ensure that members
feel comfortable in the collaborative process and
that the learning outcomes are achieved efficiently
and effectively. When the staff is new to collaborative professional learning, designs that have greater
structure, explicit expectations, and processes for
team members offer more personal and professional
safety because they are likely to be less intrusive into
teachers’ practice. When a school’s culture supports
collaboration and teachers are more familiar with
collaborative learning processes, they might select
designs that require more disclosure, less structure,
and a greater focus on classroom practices.
In addition to members’ level of comfort with
collaboration, a team’s stage of development matters.
If a team is in the forming stage, it is better to use
more structured designs for professional learning that
offer members a greater sense of safety. When a team
progresses to the performing stage, members are more
likely to choose designs that challenge their beliefs and
routine practices. Table 4.1 summarizes the stages of
team development and the safety and structure levels
recommended for each stage. Safety refers to the level
of risk that members might feel. A high level of safety
means a need for low levels of risk. Tool 4.3 provides
additional information about the stages of group
development. It also includes a quick assessment to
determine a team’s current stage of development.
Table 4.2 summarizes the safety and structure
levels of the learning designs and protocols included
in Module 4. This summary can help teams decide
which professional development designs to use to
TABLE 4.1: STAGES OF TEAM DEVELOPMENT BY SAFETY AND STRUCTURE LEVEL
Stage of development
Recommended safety level
Recommended structure level
Forming
High
High
Storming/Norming
High
Mid
Performing
Low
Low
Source: Killion & Roy, 2009, p. 122.
4-6
Rochester City School District
MINDS IN MOTION: CREATING A COMMUNITY OF COLLABORATIVE LEARNERS
WHAT WILL WE DO IN OUR COLLABORATIVE PROFESSIONAL LEARNING TEAMS? • Module 4
TABLE 4.2: PROFESSIONAL LEARNING DESIGNS BY SAFETY AND STRUCTURE LEVEL
Designs for professional learning
Safety level
Structure level
Wagon wheel
High
High
3 levels of text
High
High
Say something protocol
High
High
Author assumptions
Mid
Mid
Tuning protocol
Mid
High
Collaborative assessment conference
Mid
High
Standards in Practice
Low
Mid
Descriptive review
Mid
Mid
Success analysis
Low
High
Peel a standard
High
Mid
Planning
Mid
Mid
Co-teaching
Low
Low
Peer observation
Low
Low
Lesson study
Low
Mid
Action research
Low
Mid
Source: Adapted from Killion & Roy, 2009, p. 123.
accomplish their learning goals.
Whether or not a team is new to collaborative
learning and work, teachers have the majority voice
in designing their own learning process. Coaches and
principals may offer advice or guidance. Teachers,
though, are ultimately responsible for their learning
and have the final decision. This also means that each
team might create a different goal and use different
designs to accomplish its goal. Tables 4.3a and 4.3b
describe characteristics of the designs from the module, which can help the learning team make decisions
about which designs to use to support their learning.
BUILDING COMMUNICATION, CONSISTENCY,
COLLABORATION, AND COACHING
Because faculty members have worked alongside
each other for years and have developed congenial
relationships, they may believe team work will be
easy. But collaborative professional learning requires
a different set of communication and decisionmaking processes. Teams need to identify a common
goal and then identify learning designs that will help
them attain those goals. The first set of collaborative learning designs included in this tool kit focuses
on high-structure, high-safety processes. Tool 4.4
MINDS IN MOTION: CREATING A COMMUNITY OF COLLABORATIVE LEARNERS
Rochester City School District
4-7
Module 4 • WHAT WILL WE DO IN OUR COLLABORATIVE PROFESSIONAL LEARNING TEAMS?
TABLE 4.3A: PURPOSE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT DESIGNS
Designs for
professional
learning
High
High
X
X
3 levels of text
High
High
X
X
Say something
protocol
High
High
X
X
Author
assumptions
Mid
Mid
X
X
Tuning protocol
Mid
High
X
X
Collaborative
assessment
conference
Mid
High
Standards in
Practice
Low
Mid
Descriptive review
Mid
Success analysis
Looks at
standards,
curriculum,
assessments
Builds
knowledge
Particularly
helpful in
creating a
learning
community
Structure
level
Wagon wheel
Develops
skills
Safety
level
Supports
implementation
Purpose and characteristics of professional development designs
X
X
X
X
Mid
X
X
Low
High
X
Peel a standard
High
Mid
X
Planning
instruction
Mid
Mid
X
X
Co-teaching
Low
Low
X
X
Peer observation
Low
Low
X
Lesson study
Low
Mid
X
Action research
Low
Mid
X
Coaching
Low
Low
Mentoring
Low
Low
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Source: Easton, 2008.
4-8
Rochester City School District
MINDS IN MOTION: CREATING A COMMUNITY OF COLLABORATIVE LEARNERS
WHAT WILL WE DO IN OUR COLLABORATIVE PROFESSIONAL LEARNING TEAMS? • Module 4
TABLE 4.3B: PURPOSE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT DESIGNS
Collaborative
assessment
conference
X
X
Standards in
Practice
X
Involves
modeling
X
Is experiential
X
Results in
a concrete
product
X
Is particularly
reflective
Tuning protocol
Focuses on
pedagogy and
teaching
Helpful in
problem solving
Purpose and characteristics of professional development designs
Involves looking
at student work
or students
Designs for
professional
learning
X
X
X
X
X
X
Wagon wheel
3 levels of text
X
Say something
protocol
Author
assumptions
Descriptive review
X
X
X
X
X
Success analysis
X
X
Peel a standard
X
X
Planning
instruction
X
X
Co-teaching
X
Peer observation
X
X
X
Lesson study
X
X
X
Action research
X
X
X
X
X
Coaching
X
X
X
X
X
Mentoring
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Source: Easton, 2008.
MINDS IN MOTION: CREATING A COMMUNITY OF COLLABORATIVE LEARNERS
Rochester City School District
4-9
Module 4 • WHAT WILL WE DO IN OUR COLLABORATIVE PROFESSIONAL LEARNING TEAMS?
provides an overview of protocols, an agreed-upon
set of guidelines for conversations about teaching
and learning. Most protocols ensure that everyone
has an opportunity to talk and to listen. When teams
follow protocol structures, off-task or one-memberdominated
For more protocols on
conversations are
a variety of purposes,
less likely to ocsee the National School
cur. These highly
Reform website:
structured conwww.nsrfharmony.org.
versations are the
building blocks
for collaborative work and begin processes and routines that help
build trust, safety, and risk taking. Tools 4.5 and 4.6
are additional protocols that engage team members
in deepening their understanding of text.
EXAMINING STUDENT WORK
Examining student work helps teachers better
understand what individual or groups of students
have learned. It can also be used to help a team of
teachers calibrate its expectations for student learning for greater consistency classroom to classroom.
Teachers can learn a tremendous amount by looking at a teacher’s assignment and the student work
that resulted from the assignment. Tool 4.7 is a
brief article that overviews the process of looking at
student work. The process typically involves teachers
bringing one or more samples of student work and
creating a focus question about that work for the
group to discuss. These protocols help teachers make
the connection between their instruction, assignments, and student learning results. Tool 4.8 is a
success analysis protocol, which helps a team identify
4-10
Rochester City School District
successful classroom practices that contribute to
student learning.
These processes are a starting point for teams
with little or no experience working together; they
also help build a collaborative culture. Team members can add more complex protocols that call for
critical feedback after they are comfortable with one
another and with publicly sharing their own and
their students’ work.
PLANNING INSTRUCTION
One of the primary functions of a learning team
is to determine what students are expected to learn at
each grade level or within each content area. Many
districts and states have developed content standards
or have adopted the common core standards to help
teachers and curriculum developers understand
expected student learning outcomes. Team members
review, study, and analyze these content standards
along with the district curriculum to identify essential student learning. Tool 4.9 outlines a process for
determining the specific content and skills embedded within the standards. With this information and
an assessment of students’ current understanding,
teachers can decide what to teach, in what sequence,
and to what depth and scope.
CO-TEACHING
Learning from the experiences within special
education, co-teaching has become a new collaborative partnership between general education teachers
and specialists from literacy, English language learners, math, and gifted/talented areas, as well as among
peers. Co-teachers can provide short minilessons for
small groups of students or can serve as instructional
MINDS IN MOTION: CREATING A COMMUNITY OF COLLABORATIVE LEARNERS
WHAT WILL WE DO IN OUR COLLABORATIVE PROFESSIONAL LEARNING TEAMS? • Module 4
partners during whole-class instruction. Co-teachers
can also modify or adapt lesson materials, scaffold
assignments, develop alternative assessments, and
support and remediate student learning by differentiating instruction for students with varied learning
needs. Co-teachers provide side-by-side coaching,
tap into individual expertise to benefit all students,
and work in partnership with the classroom teacher.
Tool 4.10 describes co-teaching strategies with
English language learner specialists. It identifies five
co-teaching models that can be adapted to create a
collaborative partnership between classroom teachers
and specialists.
PEER OBSERVATION
Many teachers feel that one of the disadvantages of more traditional professional development
is that it focuses primarily on building knowledge
of new practices. What many teachers want is to see
what new instructional strategies actually look like
in operation with students. They want to see how
the strategies are set up, how other teachers integrate new practices, and how to prevent some of the
potential pitfalls. Peer or collegial observation is a
collaborative professional learning design that helps
colleagues understand how to translate knowledge
into practice. Peer observation is not for remediation
but rather for practical experience. It is focused on
specific aspects of instruction. It is confidential, it includes an agreement to be observed, and it involves
reflection. When done effectively, it can be a powerful collaborative strategy among team members, between grade-level or content-area teachers, or within
a whole school. Tool 4.11 is an article that describes
the components of peer observation and includes a
tool for planning the focus of an observation. Tool
4.12 provides a sample invitation, a preliminary
plan, debriefing questions, and potential focus areas
for peer visits. Tool 4.13 describes peer learning labs,
another way to incorporate peer observation and assistance into a school’s professional learning.
LESSON STUDY
Lesson study is another powerful design for collaborative learning. In lesson study, teachers collaboratively design a lesson, observe one team member
teaching that lesson, debrief, revise the lesson based
on their observations, and repeat the cycle. Lesson
study makes public the work teachers do each day in
isolation. Through the lesson-study process, teachers develop a deeper understanding of content and
pedagogy. They gain new understanding about how
students learn and about how their instructional decisions influence student success. Lesson study helps
teachers learn not only what to improve but how to
improve. Tool 4.14 provides a useful resource to help
teachers conduct lesson study. During the observed
teaching and revising phases of lesson study, members
of a lesson-study team depend on a high level of safety
among team members to work openly with a focus on
student learning. Through the process, they develop a
new appreciation for the complex decisions involved
in lesson planning and instruction.
ACTION RESEARCH
Learning from the results of actual classroom
practice is the goal of action research. Action research involves teachers designing and conducting a
systematic research study of their work in their own
classrooms and schools. Action research can be car-
MINDS IN MOTION: CREATING A COMMUNITY OF COLLABORATIVE LEARNERS
Rochester City School District
4-11
Module 4 • WHAT WILL WE DO IN OUR COLLABORATIVE PROFESSIONAL LEARNING TEAMS?
ried out by individuals but is an especially powerful
strategy for a collaborative team. The process begins
with identifying a research question that interests
or perplexes a team. A team of teachers might want
to know if its differentiated instruction is actually resulting in higher levels of student learning
or whether a positive classroom relationship with
the teacher results in higher levels of learning for
underperforming students. Then the group decides
what classroom data to collect, analyzes the data, and
makes decisions about the implication of the results
for members’ practice. Teachers who have participated in action research report how the process has
energized their work and built positive professional
relationships with other teachers. Tool 4.15 outlines
the action research process and provides tools for
conducting action research in the classroom.
SUPPORTING IMPLEMENTATION
Supporting implementation of new practices
is an essential component of effective professional
learning. We cannot merely expect staff to use new
practices once they have learned about them. There
must be active and intentional support for teachers
as they learn to use new practices in the classroom.
One of the most powerful strategies for supporting
implementation is to provide classroom coaching.
Research has shown that when teachers work in collaborative teams, they are just as effective as external
experts in supporting each other’s implementation.
Follow-up to professional learning is another
4-12
Rochester City School District
kind of support. Follow-up can take many forms and
includes conversations that help bridge the knowingdoing gap. Tool 4.16 describes the importance of
follow-up, as well as some tools that can provide
assistance to teachers as they transfer knowledge into
classroom practice. Tool 4.17 provides a rationale
for follow-up and provides ideas for a variety of
follow-up strategies.
Teachers who have committed to work in
communities of learners report that getting started
requires an investment of time and effort, but the
rewards are significant. They say that their work is
more satisfying, that they save time because they are
sharing responsibilities with peers, that their work is
more focused, and that they would not return to the
way they previously worked on their own. Schools
in which teachers work in collaborative teams make
steady progress toward improvement goals, have
clear focus, share goals, and produce results for their
students in new ways. This approach to professional
learning and working is worthy of their time and
effort.
REFERENCES
Easton, L. (2008). Powerful designs for
professional learning (2nd ed.). Oxford, OH:
NSDC.
Hirsh, S. (2009). Ensuring great teaching for
every student. Policy Points, 1(2), 1-4.
Killion, J. & Roy, P. (2009). Becoming a
learning school. Oxford, OH: NSDC.
MINDS IN MOTION: CREATING A COMMUNITY OF COLLABORATIVE LEARNERS
WHAT WILL WE DO IN OUR COLLABORATIVE PROFESSIONAL LEARNING TEAMS? • Module 4
Reflections
1. What assumptions do school administrators and teachers have about teachers’ ability to choose
their own designs for professional learning?
2. Of the designs described in this chapter, which are the most appropriate for accomplishing our
team’s learning goals? Which are inappropriate? Explain why.
3. What are our predictions about how staff members will respond to the expectation for and
support of the implementation of new professional practices? What conditions, policies, or
practices already exist that will support implementation? What conditions, policies, or practices
exist that will make support for implementation difficult?
4. What are our biggest hopes and primary fears concerning implementing collaborative
professional learning at our school?
5. Of the designs described in this chapter, which are the most appropriate for accomplishing our
team’s learning goals? Which are inappropriate? Which might we not be ready to use yet? Explain
why.
MINDS IN MOTION: CREATING A COMMUNITY OF COLLABORATIVE LEARNERS
Rochester City School District
4-13
Tools
Vol. 12, No. 3
February/March 2009
Wagon Wheel
Examine a text
with different
partners to
generate ideas
for your next
steps.
Page 4
FOR SCHOOLS
FOR A DYNAMIC COMMUNITY OF LEARNERS AND LEADERS
Protocols:
A facilitator’s best friend
P
Challenging conversations
The National School Reform Faculty
(NSRF), whose members developed, refined, and
share many of the protocols in use today, says
that the structure of a protocol permits “a certain
Three Levels
of Text
Go deeper
into your
understanding
by homing in on
key sentences,
phrases, and
words.
Page 5
Success
Analysis
Protocol
Develop and
share your
ideas for highly
effective
professional
learning that
is based on
research.
Pages 6-7
B y L o i s B r o w n E as t o n
rotocol. Hearing the word makes
some people think of formal dinners
or White House etiquette. Others
might think of the Kyoto Protocol
and treaties among countries. For
scientists, the term describes an exact procedure,
for physicians, a practice they follow. In the field
of education, protocols are simply an agreed
upon set of guidelines for conversation. They are
a code of behavior, a modus operandi, for groups
to use when exploring ideas.
Educating students for a complex world
requires powerful professional learning, such as
action research, lesson study, and tuning protocols
(Easton, 2008), that helps educators reach the next
level of excellence in their practice. Used within
collaborative groups, protocols can help educators
change the culture of school so that all adults and
students improve their learning.
WHAT’S
INSIDE
kind of conversation ... which people are not in
the habit of having” (www.nsrfharmony.org).
By following accepted parameters for conversation, group members can have very focused
conversations. Protocols help educators look at
student work, artifacts of educator practice, texts
relating to education, or problems and issues that
surface during educators’ day-to-day lives. The
result of using protocols to structure the dialogue
within these parameters is an increased and
shared understanding among group members that
can lead to deeper understanding and action.
Protocols also may push people into places they
Continued on p. 2
National Staff
Development
Council
800-727-7288
www.nsdc.org
NSDC’s purpose: Every educator engages in effective professional learning every day so every student achieves.
COVER STORY
Protocols: A facilitator’s best friend
to agree to a set of common assumptions. For
have avoided: real issues that, resolved, can make
example, some groups might agree that:
the difference between a school that succeeds and
• We all want to get better in the work we do
a school that fails the students it serves.
as educators.
The newly released “Professional Learning
• We all want to be kind and courteous, and to
in the Learning Profession: A Status Report on
accomplish this, we also need to be thoughtTeacher Professional Development in the U.S. and
ful, insightful, and provocative.
Abroad,” by Linda Darling-Hammond and a team
• We need to remember that we are “in this
of researchers at Stanford University’s Educatogether.” Although we may be focusing on
tional Leadership Institute, says that teachers need
one teacher’s work, what we are doing will
in-depth, sustained, coherent, high-quality profesreach far beyond that one classroom and the
sional development to be able to address the daily
work that teacher is sharing. We are explorchallenges of teaching and improve
ing our work as educators, and the
student learning. The study points
outcome will be improved learning
NSDC’s Belief
out that teachers in nations whose
for all of us and our students.
Sustainable learning
students consistently outperform the
These assumptions lead to
cultures require
U.S. on international standardized
specific behaviors participants agree
skillful leadership.
exams routinely engage in profeson so that members do not feel
sional learning that requires them
attacked and the conversation is
to collaborate to create and review
substantive and provocative without
lessons together, observe one another teaching,
being hurtful to any individual.
offer each other feedback, and assist in selecting
Protocols allow groups to have a professional
and developing curriculum and assessments.
conversation, one that might go awry if allowed to
The study from the Stanford team is the
proceed either through inconsequential meanderfirst phase of NSDC’s “Multiyear Study of the
ings (Aunt Felicity used to do that very thing
State of Professional Learning in the U.S.,”
when she was a teacher — was that in Ohio or
supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates FoundaIowa? What a character she was!) or unfocused
tion, the MetLife Foundation, and The Wallace
battles where one person’s comment is met by
Foundation. The study’s purpose is to challenge
another’s objection. What ensues is a verbal pro
educators to find ways to improve their profesand con, attack and counterattack, argument and
sional learning. Protocols can be tools that allow
counterargument. No one else can get a word in
educators to do just that.
— nor, after awhile, do they want to. The conversation literally derails, with wreckage everywhere,
Out of the cave
particularly the ideas of those who never got to
Protocols can help bring teachers out of isospeak. Deep understanding seldom occurs when a
lation. Accustomed to their side-by-side caves,
conversation turns into a wreck.
many fear exposing to peers their classroom
Some educators may prefer professional
practices by sharing strategies and student work.
development in the form of “show ’n’ tell” sharProtocols help such educators feel enlightened
ing, “make ’n’ takes” for their next class activity,
by providing the structures and support for difor speakers with thrilling ideas that may not ever
ficult conversations.
make it to practice. Protocols are effective tools
Most protocols are facilitated in some way,
for deepening the conversation so more meaneither by an outsider or a group member. Group
ingful professional learning can occur, resulting
members also may share facilitator responsibiliin changes in practice so that all students learn.
ties. The facilitator often structures the conversa
As the study by the Stanford team tells us,
tion so that discussion deepens as participants
meaningful collaboration among teachers is the
take turns listening and speaking.
key to higher student achievement. Protocols
Effective protocols call upon participants
give form to educator collaboration. n
Continued from p. 1
For a complete
copy of the report
“Professional
Learning in
the Learning
Profession: A
Status Report
on Teacher
Development
in the U.S. and
Abroad,” see
www.nsdc.org/
stateproflearning.
cfm.
2
National Staff Development Council l 800-727-7288 l www.nsdc.org
February/march 2009 l Tools For Schools
COVER STORY
Learn more about
NSDC’s purpose
at www.nsdc.
org/connect/
NSDCpurpose.
cfm and NSDC’s
Standards for Staff
Development at
Some basics of protocols
Who: Job-alike groups (grade levels, for
example) or mixed-job groups (cross-disciplinary
groups) can engage in protocols, as can administrators when on equal footing with other participants. Groups can meet regularly, such as in
professional learning communities, or form just
for a protocol. Groups need a facilitator in early
stages; mature groups can facilitate themselves.
What: The protocols in this issue help
groups look at a text, such as “Professional Learning in the Learning Profession: A Status Report
on Teacher Development in the U.S. and Abroad.”
They also may be used to examine student work
and educators’ practices or to understand problems or issues.
When and where: Most protocols
require about an hour. Protocols, like other forms
of powerful professional learning, are best when
school-based, but can also bring together teachers from throughout a district or across districts.
Why: Protocols can help individuals calibrate notions of quality, learn new strategies for
teaching, become better learners themselves,
february/march 2009 l Tools For Schools and plan and revise the work they do. Protocols
can help schools focus on excellence, address
issues and problems, and improve both the daily
work of learning and long-term work related to
vision and mission.
How: Consider time already set aside
for professional learning or meetings, such as
faculty, grade-level, or department meetings. Use
other means to convey information about traditional business items. Use protocols for learning
during district-allotted professional development
days, or shorten or extend the school day for professional development time. The study revealed
that teachers in high-performing countries have
regular time each day for such collaboration.
To begin: As with most innovations, start
small. Start with people who are “early adopters,”
the ones who are like scouts for a wagon train,
forging new trails. Invite them to read the study,
for example, and to react to it using one of the
protocols in this newsletter. Provide or ask someone to provide refreshments. Let others know
what you are doing, and ask for time to share
what your group is learning.
www.nsdc.org/
standards/index.
cfm. Use NSDC
tools to help you
advance the quality
of professional
development in
your school.
NSDC’s web site
(www.nsdc.org)
provides additional
information and
resources for highquality professional
development.
National Staff Development Council l 800-727-7288 l www.nsdc.org
3
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2001
Tools For Schools
TM
INSIDE
A bi-monthly
publication
supporting student
and staff learning
through school
improvement
3
4
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
www.nsdc.org
5
6
7
8
Tuning Protocol
Collaborative Assessment
Conference
Standards in Practice
Descriptive Review
Resources
Ask Dr. Developer
Group
Wise
Strategies for examining student work together
By Joan Richardson
E
xamining student work has always been part of a teacher’s job. But, in
recent years, that practice has moved from being a solitary activity to being
a more collaborative effort in which teachers learn about their practice by
sharing with and listening to colleagues.
In the hierarchy of professional development practices, examining student work
would rank near the top because of the way that teachers work together to sharpen
their practice to improve student learning.
Select a strategy for examining
student work.
As various organizations have become interested in the strategy of examining student work,
different protocols have been developed to guide
that work. A protocol is simply a structure and guide
for a group’s conversation regarding a piece of student work. The protocols are designed to provide a
safe place for teachers to share their students’ work
while also encouraging an honest exchange among
participants.
Every protocol has been designed to emphasize a different aspect of evaluation. Some, like the
Collaborative Assessment Conference, emphasize
describing the student work. Others, like the Coalition of Essential Schools’ Tuning Protocol, em-
phasize evaluative feedback from participants. Selecting a design that fits the culture of a school is a
crucial factor in successfully using that design.
The tools on Pages 3, 4, 5, and 6 provide various options for examining student work. School
teams may want to practice several options before
identifying one that best fits their school. Schools
may also discover that one strategy works best for
one team while another team prefers a different
strategy.
To learn more about practical options, visit the
Learning About Student Work web site maintained
by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform
(www.lasw.org). That web site includes a synopsis of about a dozen strategies for examining stuContinued on Page 2
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
Tools For Schools
Strategies for examining student work together
Continued from Page One
dent work and links to learn more about
each of them.
Opt for anonymity.
To introduce the process and to help
teachers become comfortable with the
concept, consider doing one or two practice sessions.
Bring in student work that does not
belong to any of the participants. Visit the
Learning about Student Work web site
(www.lasw.org) and look for samples of
student work that could be used for this
practice session. Or, tap colleagues at another school for samples of student work.
“Teachers are often quite shy about
bringing their own student work to the
table. They feel very apologetic. They feel
that others might castigate them for the
errors, for work that’s not perfectly done,”
said Lois Easton, director of professional
development at the Eagle Rock School and
Professional Development Center in Estes
Park, Colo. Easton does extensive work
with tuning protocols developed by the
Coalition of Essential schools.
Practicing on student work in which
they have no investment can help teachers feel more comfortable about the conversations they might hear regarding the
work of their students.
Select a project, task, or assessment
that addresses one of the schoolwide
goals for student performance.
The task should require that students
produce something that demonstrates what
they have learned. This could be a longterm project or a short-term task. Whatever the final result, the student product
or performance should be something
significant, not a worksheet, quiz, or test.
Geneva City Schools in Geneva,
N.Y., wanted students to do more writing
in math as a way to improve their ability
to explain how they solved math problems. So teachers assembled by grade
February/March 2001
level to study students’ math journals, said
Jody Hoch, now director of mathematics
for the Rush-Henrietta Central School
District in upstate New York.
particularly useful for very young children
who haven’t yet acquired adequate written communication skills.
Collect documents that will help
the study group participants
understand the project or task.
Watch the details.
These might include the initial assignment, scoring/grading criteria (or rubrics),
objectives of the assignments, exemplars,
models, timelines, checklists, etc. Think
about other key information participants
will need to understand the project or task
and that can be shared succinctly.
The presenting teacher should be prepared to briefly describe the context of the
student work. The documents listed above
would be used to illustrate his or her points
during that presentation.
Select samples of student work that
demonstrate authentic student
responses to the project or task.
Choose two or three samples to provide contrast. Teachers often find that a
sample of work that shows promise but is
not a stellar response to the assignment
provides the best basis for feedback. Work
selected may include final products, drafts,
reflections, etc.
The Annenberg Institute for School
Reform suggests a variety of ways to select student work samples:
n Written work (or artwork) from several students in response to the same assignment.
n Several pieces of work from one student in response to different assignments.
n One piece of work from a student who
completed the assignment successfully
and one piece from a student who was not
able to complete the assignment successfully (same assignment for both).
n Work done by students working in
groups (include work of at least two groups
that were given the same assignment).
n Videotape, audio tape, and/or photographs of students working, performing,
or presenting their work. This might be
PAGE 2
If possible, remove student names
from the samples.
Make enough copies of the student
work so that each participant has his or
her own copy. Ensure that the facilitator
knows in advance about any unique types
of student work, such as sculpture or an
entire portfolio of work, that are not easily duplicated. That will enable the facilitator to adapt the format accordingly.
If the student work is a video, a fiveminute clip is usually sufficient to demonstrate the work.
Prepare a focusing question.
The presenting teacher should prepare
a “focusing question” about the work that
addresses a real interest or concern. Questions typically focus on either inputs (the
assignment, teacher’s support of student
performance) or outputs (quality of student
work, teacher’s assessment of the work).
A broader question may elicit a wide
range of feedback — and this may be desirable. For example: How can I support
higher quality presentations? (input) What
are the strengths and weaknesses you see
in the student presentations? (output)
A narrower question might provide
the kinds of feedback the teacher finds
most useful. For example: How can my
prompt bring out more creativity in the
students’ work? (input) What evidence is
there in the student work of mathematical
problem solving? (output)
Remember, even with a narrower focus question, participants will offer a range
of feedback — on and off the question.
See the February 2001 issue of
Results to read about the use of
“tuning protocols,” one strategy
for examining student work.
NSDC TOOL
Success Analysis Protocol
Purpose: To examine professional practice to gain an understanding of the reasons behind successes
related to professional learning and then to examine these successes with the research report,
“Professional Learning in the Learning Profession: A Status Report on Teacher Development in the U.S.
and Abroad” to improve and apply strategies to future work.
Time: 2 hours to 4 hours, depending on number of participants.
Materials: Chart paper; markers; tape; notepads; pens or pencils; the study, available at www.nsdc.org/
stateproflearning.cfm.
Preparation (15 minutes)
Share with participants a definition of success: a process that was highly effective in achieving its
intended outcome. Ask each participant to prepare a “case” by reflecting on something he or she has
done right. The case should specify the facts of what the participant did as well as reflection about
what might have contributed to the success.
Directions
1. Divide into groups (about 5 minutes)
• Divide into equal groups of three to four (or more in each group if there is time, as each person
will present in the group). Groups can be self-selected, randomly assigned through numbering,
job-alike, or purposefully diverse.
2. Sharing (about 5 minutes)
• One participant in each group agrees to go first, sharing his or her case orally as well as in writing
(if available). Other participants are silent and take notes.
3. Clarifying questions (about 5 minutes)
• Others in the small group ask clarifying questions to understand the case being presented.
Clarifying questions are those that can be answered by facts.
4. Analysis and discussion (about 10 minutes)
• The presenter of the case listens and takes notes as the others discuss the case, surfacing their
insights about why the practice was successful. Participants discuss what the presenter did to
make the situation successful, as well as other contributing factors. They may want to describe
how what was done is different from typical practice.
5. Reflection (about 10 minutes)
• The presenter reflects aloud on what colleagues said to pinpoint reasons the practice was
successful. Other group members silently take notes. Before going on to the next case,
participants should take a moment to appreciate the success of the presenter.
Continued on p. 7
6
National Staff Development Council l 800-727-7288 l www.nsdc.org
February/march 2009 l Tools For Schools
NSDC TOOL
Success Analysis Protocol, continued from p. 6
6. Continued rounds (each round is about 30 minutes)
• In each group, the next participant shares a case. The group follows the above sequence of steps
and continues until each group member has presented a case.
7. Compilation (about 5 minutes)
• Each group writes the factors that contributed to success on a piece of chart paper. Small groups
do a “gallery tour” of the pieces of chart paper, noticing what’s similar and what’s distinctive
about each small group’s list of factors in success.
8. Discussion (about 10 minutes)
• The large group discusses common factors and unusual factors in the success cases. They also
may discuss aspects of the cases that surprised them. They might discuss elements that undergird
the factors of success, such as the school culture, an administrator’s philosophy, or a teacher’s
leadership.
9. Review (30 minutes)
• Read the shorter version of the report and consider which successful traits are supported by the
research.
10. Response (15 minutes)
• Consider:
ᎲᎲ How were our successes like the findings in the study?
ᎲᎲ How were they different?
ᎲᎲ What did we learn from the study about the kind of professional learning we experience in
relationship to what others experience in the U.S and beyond?
11. Debriefing (about 5 minutes)
• The facilitator invites participants to reflect on the utility of the process and continue their
discussion of the content.
Source: Adapted from Daniel Baron of the National School Reform Faculty, with credit to Vivian
Johnson.
tool 3.9
TOOL 4.9
ChAPTer 11: DeSiGnS for ProfeSSionAL LeArninG
Module 4 • WHAT WILL WE DO IN OUR COLLABORATIVE PROFESSIONAL LEARNING TEAMS?
peeling a standard
Peeling a Standard helps teachers better understand how the core curriculum content standards and the
cumulative progress indicators are used to make instructional and assessment decisions. Teachers can identify
essential learnings (content and skills) for their own level by examining the strands within the core curriculum
content standards and the cumulative progress indicators for each strand for the grade levels below and above
their current grade level. When teachers know what students are expected to know and be able to do in
order to demonstrate cumulative progress indicators, they can focus instruction and assessment on essential
learnings. For example, in this example, a team of 3rd-grade teachers addressing Standard 6.6 studies the 2ndand the 4th-grade cumulative progress indicators for that standard to identify prior and future student
learning. With this knowledge, they can identify key learnings to include in their 3rd-grade curriculum to
ensure that students are able to demonstrate the 4th-grade cumulative progress indicators by the end of 4th
grade.
Grade level: 3rd
Content: GeoGrAPhY
STAnDArD 6.6 (Geography)
all students will apply knowledge of spatial relationships and other geographic skills to understand
human behavior in relation to the physical and cultural environment.
Descriptive statement: The study of geography is based on the principle that thinking in and understanding
spatial terms will enable students to understand the many relationships of place, people, and environments. By
taking an active, questioning approach to the world around them, students learn to devise their own mental
world-view. As students engage in critical thinking to interpret patterns in the evolution of significant historic
events and the movement of human populations on the Earth’s surface, their understanding of geography,
history, economics, and civics deepens. Furthermore, the use of geographic tools and technology assists
students in understanding the reasons for, and the economic, political, and social consequences of, human
impact on the environment in different areas of the world.
Source: Collaborative professional learning in school and beyond: A tool kit for New Jersey educators, by Joellen
Killion. oxford, oh: new Jersey Department of education and nSDC, 2006.
BeCominG A LeArninG SChooL
MINDS IN MOTION: CREATING A COMMUNITY OF COLLABORATIVE LEARNERS
national Staff Development Council l www.nsdc.org
Rochester City School District
tool 4.9
3.9
TOOL
Strands
ChAPTer
11: DeSiGnS
for ProfeSSionAL
LeArninG
Module 4 • WHAT WILL WE DO IN OUR
COLLABORATIVE
PROFESSIONAL
LEARNING
TEAMS?
2nd grade cumulative progress
indicators
A
4th grade cumulative progress
indicators
1. explain the spatial concepts of
location, distance, and direction,
World in
including:
spatial terms
• The location of school, home,
neighborhood, community, state, and
country;
• The relative location of the
community and places within it;
• The location of continents and
oceans;
2. explain that the globe is a
model of the earth and maps are
representations of local and distant
places;
3. Demonstrate basic globe and map
skills.
1. Use physical and political maps
to identify locations and spatial
relationships of places within local and
nearby communities.
2. Describe and demonstrate different
ways to measure distance (e.g. miles,
kilometers, time).
3. estimate distances between two places
on a map using a scale of miles.
4. identify the major cities of the state,
the United States, and the world.
5. identify the major countries,
continents, bodies of water, and
mountain ranges of the world.
6. Locate time zones, latitude, longitude,
and the global grid.
B
1. Describe the physical features of
places and regions on a simple scale.
2. Describe the physical and human
characteristics of places.
1. identify the physical and human
characteristics of places and regions
in the state and the United States (e.g.
landforms, climate, vegetation, housing).
2. explain changes in places and regions
over time and the consequences of those
changes.
3. Describe the geography of the state.
4. Discuss factors involved in
the development of cities (e.g.
transportation, food, marketplace,
religion, military protection).
C
1. recognize that the relationship of
the earth to the sun affects weather
conditions, climate, and
seasons.
1. Describe the basic components of
the earth’s physical systems, including
landforms, water, erosion, weather, and
climate and discuss their impact on
human development.
D
1. identify the types of transportation
used to move goods and people.
2. identify the modes of
communication used to transmit
ideas.
1. Describe the development of
transportation and communication
networks in the state and the United
States.
2. identify the distribution and
characteristics of populations for
different regions of the state and the
United States.
places and
regions
physical
systems
human
systems
E
1. Describe the role of resources
such as air, land, water, and plants in
environment
everyday life.
and society
2. Describe the impact of weather on
everyday life.
3. Act on small-scale, personalized
environmental issues such as littering
and recycling, and explain why such
actions are important.
3rd grade essential
learnings
(content and skills)
1. Differentiate between living and nonliving natural resources.
2. explain the nature, characteristics, and
distribution of renewable and nonrenewable resources.
Source: Collaborative professional learning in school and beyond: A tool kit for New Jersey educators, by Joellen
Killion. oxford, oh: new Jersey Department of education and nSDC, 2006.
BeCominG
A LeArninG
SChooL
MINDS
IN MOTION:
CREATING
A COMMUNITY OF COLLABORATIVE LEARNERS
national Staff Development
Council
www.nsdc.org
Rochester
CitylSchool
District
t
3 TEACHERS TEACHING TEACHERS
P
PAGE 6
FOCUS ON NSDC’S
STANDARDS
Keep an eye on the finish line
Joellen Killion is
deputy executive
director of National
Staff Development
Council.
This mismatch often means that learners will not
rofessional learning has as its major
use what they learned, and professional developfocus improving teaching and student
ment will be unsuccessful.
learning. To ensure that learning for
The last two decades of federally funded
adults translates into learning for stumath and science initiatives
dents, learning facilhave modeled the design stanitators think about how the
dard. To deepen teacher content
learning processes teachers
knowledge in math and science
experience mirror the learning
and expand their pedagogical
processes these same teachers
skills, universities and school
want for students. Researchers
systems have partnered, suphave noted that teachers tend to
ported by federal grants, to proteach as they were taught, and
vide professional development
recognizing this, those responsiDESIGN
for teachers. In these learning
ble for professional learning
Staff development that
experiences, teachers first are
think not only about what they
improves the learning of all
students of mathematics or sciwant teachers to know, but also
students uses learning
ence, experiencing carefully
about what they want teachers to
strategies appropriate to the
planned and executed profesdo with what they learn. Simply
intended goal.
sional learning experiences that
put, modeling strong learning
not only help teachers learn
processes in professional develwhat they don’t know about math and science,
opment increases the likelihood that teachers will
but also modeling the same kind of instructional
use what they learn in their own classrooms.
strategies that the professional development
Employing the best design strategy for proproviders hope teachfessional development means that learning faciliers will use once they
tators think about the outcomes of the learning
Learning
Description
return to their classexperience and match the strategy to the outoutcomes
rooms. These learncome. The outcomes of learning fall into five catKNOWLEDGE Factual information, principles,
ing experiences are
egories (KASAB). See box at right.
concepts
built on the premise
Each type of outcome requires a different
ATTITUDE
Belief in the value of something
that once they experiway of learning. Learning about something
SKILL
Ability to do something; know how
ence it, teachers are
doesn’t automatically translate into knowing how
to do it
more likely to underto use the knowledge. It is possible to know
ASPIRATION
Desire or willingness; motivation
stand the learning
about something, believe in its value, know how
BEHAVIOR
Using the learning regularly in
process, feel comfortto use it, and not have the desire to use it, and
practice
able with it, and be
consequently choose not to use it. Depending on
Killion, J. (2002). Assessing Impact: Evaluating Staff
ready to implement it
the type of outcome, the learning facilitator
Development. Oxford, OH: National Staff
in their own classselects the best strategy for achieving that outDevelopment Council.
rooms.
come. Unfortunately, many learning experiences
The design stanfor adults are designed for knowledge and skill
dard, too, serves as the foundation for this pracwhen the intended outcome is really behavior.
National Staff Development Council • 800-727-7288 • www.nsdc.org
OCTOBER 2007
t
3 TEACHERS TEACHING TEACHERS
PAGE 7
SCENARIO A
SCENARIO B
Teachers arrive at a designated location
where all teachers from one grade level are
scheduled to meet for the day. They have been
promised continental breakfast and box
lunches and six hours of professional
development credit for the day. The outcome of
the day is to familiarize teachers with the
curriculum, help them know how to use it, and
to teach the new inquiry-based instructional
methodology the curriculum is based on. The
science coordinators spend most of the six
hours lecturing about how the curriculum was
developed and explaining that it is based on
both state and national science standards, show
scope and sequence charts of the key strands in
the curriculum, explain the pacing guides, and
share common benchmark assessments that
teachers will use to assess students in science.
They learn how the benchmark assessment will
be given on a set schedule, how the score will
be turned into the principal at each school, and
how those scores will be sent to the district
office for analysis of how well each school is
implementing the curriculum. The coordinators
talk about the difference between inquiry and
direct instruction and cite the benefits and
challenges of both approaches. They show a
videotape of an inquiry-based science lesson
based on the curriculum and ask teachers if
they have questions. Teachers make several
comments about the added work and the
challenge of each approach. At the end of the
day, teachers receive their curriculum guides
and are told to call the science coordinators
assigned to their school if they have additional
questions.
Teachers meet regionally in classrooms. As
they arrive, they receive their curriculum guides,
learn where and what typical science classroom
equipment is in their learning room, and are
grouped into grade-level teams of four. Each
team is instructed to learn how the curriculum
guide is organized using a set of questions
appropriate to each team. After 20 minutes of
exploration, the science coordinator highlights
a few key points about the guide and answers
questions. In their grade-level teams of four,
teachers’ next task is to prepare a 25-minute
lesson using the curriculum guide. They are
asked to make sure their lesson incorporates a
few key principles — high student
engagement, hands-on, and discovery vs.
telling. Teams are encouraged to spend a few
minutes clarifying what these terms mean to
them and are pointed to several resources in
the curriculum guide that might be helpful.
They learn that they will present their lesson to
another team. The teams have 75 minutes for
preparation. After a short break, each team is
paired with another team to observe each
other’s lesson. As one team becomes the
students, and a member of the other team
teaches the lesson, the three remaining
members take notes on how students respond
in the lesson. The process is repeated when the
other team steps into the teacher and observer
role. Teams share feedback with each other
using the rubric for an age-appropriate inquiry
lesson included in the curriculum guide. Next,
teachers in their teams map out the first month
of science lessons, what resources and
questions they have, how to use the curriculum
guide, and what equipment, materials, or other
resources they are likely to need. They wrap up
the day talking about how this approach to
teaching science is both the same and different
than what they did before, what they anticipate
the benefits will be for students, and what they
want students to gain from their learning.
tice. Essentially it says that how professional
learning occurs impacts both the perceived value
and implementation of the learning. Two examples (see boxes on this page) will help clarify this
point. In each scenario, the district is implementing a new science curriculum. In the fall orientation period before school starts, all teachers attend
National Staff Development Council • 800-727-7288 • www.nsdc.org
FOCUS ON NSDC’S
STANDARDS
For more
information about
NSDC’s Standards
for Staff
Development, see
www.nsdc.org/
standards/
index.cfm
OCTOBER 2007
t
3 TEACHERS TEACHING TEACHERS
a one-day workshop provided by the district’s science curriculum team. The outcome of the day is
to familiarize teachers with the curriculum, help
them know how to use it, and to foster teachers’
use of the new inquiry-based instructional
methodology on which the curriculum is based.
The approaches to professional learning differ. How the learning is structured and what
learning strategies for adults are integrated into
their learning experiences is likely to impact both
teachers’ depth of understanding of the new science curriculum, how to use it, and their willingness to use it. However, the learning does not
stop after this day. Savvy learning facilitators
meet frequently with teachers in teams to talk
about challenges, problems, successes, and to
look at student work resulting from the lessons.
Facilitators may offer to co-teach or conduct
demonstration lessons for teachers. They may
help teachers find the equipment they need for a
PAGE 8
particular inquiry lesson. They are likely to help
teachers analyze the results of common assessments to determine how to address those students
who missed key concepts or skills.
Lois Easton, editor of Powerful Designs for
Professional Learning (NSDC, 2004) recognizes
that aligning the appropriate learning strategy for
adults with the intended outcomes is essential to
maximize the potential of professional learning.
She provides a rich resource for learning facilitators in Powerful Designs. In it, she describes how
to choose learning designs and gathers together
chapters from experts in the field who share
detailed information on how to use 21 different
learning designs. This is an essential resource for
those who facilitate learning for adults in schools
or districts. When learning facilitators know
clearly their intended goals and use learning
strategies that align with those goals, both adults
and students benefit. u
Teachers Teaching
Teachers (T3)™ is
published eight times
a year by the National
Staff Development
Council, 5995 Fairfield
Road, #4, Oxford, OH
45056.
Copyright, NSDC, 2007.
All rights reserved.
NSDC STAFF
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Executive director
Stephanie Hirsh
stephanie.hirsh@nsdc.org
Sue McAdamis (2008)
President
mcadamissue@rockwood.k12.mo.us
Deputy executive director
Joellen Killion
joellen.killion@nsdc.org
Sydnee Dickson (2008)
sydnee.dickson@schools.utah.gov
MAIN BUSINESS
OFFICE
5995 Fairfield Road, #4
Oxford OH 45056
513-523-6029
800-727-7288
Fax: 513-523-0638 (fax)
NSDCoffice@nsdc.org
www.nsdc.org
Director of communications
Joan Richardson
joan.richardson@nsdc.org
Editor: Joan
Richardson
Designer: Kitty Black
Emeritus executive director
Dennis Sparks
dennis.sparks@comcast.net
Director of business services
Leslie Miller
leslie.miller@nsdc.org
Director of learning
Cathy Owens
cathy.owens@nsdc.org
Distinguished senior fellow
Hayes Mizell
hmizell@gmail.com
National Staff Development Council • 800-727-7288 • www.nsdc.org
Karen Dyer (2009)
President-elect
dyerk@leaders.ccl.org
Maria Goodloe-Johnson (2009)
maria.goodloejohnson@seattleschools.org
Charles Mason (2010)
masonc@mtnbrook.k12.al.us
James Roussin (2009)
jim.roussin@gmail.com
Sue Showers (2008)
cinsue@fuse.net
William Sommers (2007)
Past president
wsommers@sedl.org
See pp. 11-17 to
learn more about
the designs featured
in Powerful Designs
for Professional
Learning.
COPYING/REPRINT
POLICY
All content in Teachers
Teaching Teachers (T3) is
copyright protected by
the National Staff
Development Council
and may not be copied
or reprinted without permission. Please see
www.nsdc.org/library/
publications/
permpolicy.cfm for
details as well as a form
for submitting a request.
CONTACT
Complete contact information for all staff and
board members is available on the web site at
www.nsdc.org/
connect/about/index.cfm
.
OCTOBER 2007
t
3 TEACHERS TEACHING TEACHERS
N
PAGE 7
FOCUS ON NSDC’S
STANDARDS
Apply knowledge of learning
SDC’s learning standard reminds
us to apply our knowledge of
human learning and change when
we plan or facilitate professional
learning. This standard encourages teacher leaders or coaches to know about
and apply their knowledge of how adults learn
and how change impacts them.
Learning is a process of change. Learning
can be accidental, unanticipated, and unplanned.
Another term used to describe this kind of learning is informal learning. For example, I had an
unexpected learning moment after a rather casual
conversation over lunch where my guest
expressed a point of view very different from my
own. I listened carefully, probed her thinking,
and shared my own views. I left the conversation
with a different perspective.
Sometimes learning is planned and purposeful. This occurs when the learner intentionally
engages in an experience in which some change
is the expected outcome. That outcome is frequently a change in a KASAB. A term used to
describe this form of learning is formal learning.
For example, I clearly recall the series of workshops I attended to learn coaching skills.
How we define learning depends on the outcome of the learning process. The KASAB model
provides a useful framework for thinking about
different kinds of learning. This model identifies
five different kinds of changes that occur as a
result of learning or some intervention. (See chart
on p. 8.)
Sadly, much of the professional development
teachers have experienced focuses on transferring
knowledge and developing skills. Informational
or demonstrative learning focuses on the facts,
principles, or concepts. It is what a learner knows
What is learning?
about. Operational or procedural learning focuses
on the learner’s know-how, the capacity to do.
However, deep learning, often called transformational learning, occurs at the level of
beliefs, values, and motivation rather than only at
the level of knowledge and skills.
Transformational learning is long-term and
results in behavioral changes. Transformational
learning is deep change that occurs at the core of
the learner. Learning at this level promotes a
change in practice.
Cognitive psychologists for decades have
been exploring how learning occurs. From the
work of Vygotsky,
Piaget, Kolb, Luria,
Freire, Knowles,
LEARNING
Kegan, and others, we
Staff development that
have learned that there
improves the learning of
are processes that supall students applies
port learning, yet not all
knowledge about human
adults or students learn
learning and change.
in the same way. Some
are whole-to-part learners and others are part-to-whole learners. Some
learn best by jumping in and experimenting
through a hands-on approach; others learn best
by hearing about or observing. Some want theory
and research; others want practical. Some want
time to think about, process, draw pictures of, or
reconstruct what they learn; others seem to just
get it.
Multiple factors affect how we learn as
adults. Our need to learn is one. When adults
express a desire or understand the reason for
learning, they are more open to learning.
Sometimes when learners perceive that they have
little choice in learning or when the learning
doesn’t appear relevant to their particular situa-
Joellen Killion is
deputy executive
director of National
Staff Development
Council.
How we learn
National Staff Development Council • 800-727-7288 • www.nsdc.org
For more
information about
NSDC’s Standards
for Staff
Development, see
www.nsdc.org/
standards/
index.cfm
OCTOBER 2008
t
3 TEACHERS TEACHING TEACHERS
tion, they seem less willing to engage in the
learning process.
Another factor that affects how we learn is
our sense of efficacy. Efficacy is our confidence
that we know how to teach and that we make a
difference. A high level of efficacy often means
that learners are more confident that what they
are learning will strengthen their practice and
give them more options. A low level of efficacy
often means that a learner is less confident and
less willing to examine his or her practice and
PAGE 8
FOCUS ON NSDC’S
STANDARDS
Development Laboratory studied how teachers
experienced the implementation of new science
curriculum. Led by Bill Rutherford, Gene Hall,
Shirley Hord, and Susan Loucks-Horsley, the
development of the Concerns-Based Adoption
Model (CBAM) (see Hall & Hord, 2000) provided educational leaders with a practical theory to
guide the implementation of change efforts in
education.
The research has four key components. The
first is Stages of Concern. (See chart on p. 9.)
KASAB MODEL
TYPE OF CHANGE
DEFINITION
TEACHER EXAMPLE
Knowledge
Conceptual understanding of information,
theories, principles, and research.
Teachers understand mathematical concepts they teach.
Attitude
Beliefs about the value of particular
information or strategies.
Teachers believe students’ competence in mathematics is important to
their success, both within and beyond school.
Skill
The ability to use strategies and processes to
apply knowledge.
Teachers know how to employ a variety of instructional strategies to
help students visualize mathematical concepts.
Aspiration
Desires, or internal motivation, to engage in a
particular practice.
Teachers want their students to understand and perform well in
mathematics.
Behavior
Consistent application of knowledge and
skills.
Teachers consistently employ inquiry-based instructional practices in
mathematics to help students acquire a deep understanding of math
concepts.
Source: adapted from Assessing Impact: Evaluating Staff Development, by Joellen Killion. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 2008.
consider alternative approaches. A learner with
low efficacy often looks outside of himself or
herself for the reason for problems rather than
considering what he or she can do to address the
problem.
Certainly other factors affect how people
learn. Time, resources, expectations, and the culture in which the learning occurs influence learning. One other important consideration is how
learners experience learning.
Learning is a process of change. When individuals engage in either informal or formal learning, they respond in different ways. In landmark
research in the 1970s and ’80s, a team of
researchers at the Southwest Educational
How do learners experience learning?
Other key components include Levels of Use,
Innovation Configuration Maps, and change
facilitators. Of particular interest to coaches is
Stages of Concern. Stages of Concern identifies
seven stages of responses learners have in a
change initiative. Knowing a learner’s stage of
concern helps the change facilitator identify the
most appropriate intervention or action to support
the learner. For example, if a learner expresses a
management concern, indicating that he or she
doesn’t know how to find the necessary resources
to implement the new instructional processes, a
coach can zero in on this need and address the
concern with the hope of removing barriers to
implementation.
Change challenges everyone. Any form of
professional development requires change.
National Staff Development Council • 800-727-7288 • www.nsdc.org
OCTOBER 2008
t
3 TEACHERS TEACHING TEACHERS
PAGE 9
Transformational learning, change that occurs at
the level of beliefs, aspirations, and behaviors,
reconfigures how learners think and act. When
teacher leaders and coaches clarify the types of
change they expect and teachers want as a result
of professional learning, use their knowledge of
how various factors influence learning, and are
skillful in responding to learners as they experi-
FOCUS ON NSDC’S
STANDARDS
ence change, they will be more prepared to lead
learning within their schools and districts.
Hall, G. & Hord, S. (2000). Implementing
Change: Patterns, Principles, and Potholes.
Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. N
Reference
S TA G E S O F C O N C E R N
STAGES OF
CONCERN
TYPICAL EXPRESSIONS
OF CONCERN
TYPICAL COACH RESPONSE/INTERVENTION
6. Refocusing
“Perhaps if we thought about
integrating this with our
social studies program, we
could accomplish more.”
•
“How can I learn about what
others are doing?”
•
5. Collaboration
•
•
4. Consequence
3. Management
“How will this affect my
classroom practice and my
students?”
•
“Where will I find the time to
do this?”
•
•
•
•
As we think about how to adapt what we are learning, how do we ensure that we
incorporate the essential features of these instructional strategies and not lose the
essence?
Let’s take some time to plan how we might do that.
In our next team meeting, let’s take some time to hear how others are doing with
implementing these strategies and how their students are doing.
I will be happy to take your class while you observe your colleagues to see how it is
going in their classes.
If you implement these new strategies, how do you anticipate your students will
respond?
I am willing, if it is helpful, to observe several students in your class when you teach
these strategies to watch how they respond. This might help you understand more
thoroughly how these strategies support student learning.
I am glad to help you make sense of this. When can we meet to discuss your
questions?
I wonder if we could discuss this with other teachers who are asking the same
questions you are?
Here are some strategies others have used.
2. Personal
“Wait! How can I possibly
•
think about something new?”
•
•
I understand your concern about how this will affect you. I wonder if you want to
know what others have said about how it has impacted them.
Tell me how you think this will impact you. What are you anticipating?
What relationship do you see between this and your professional goals?
1. Information
“I’d like to know more about
what that is.”
•
•
•
•
What do you want to know?
How can I help you with this?
Here are some resources to give you more information.
Please check the web site.
0. Awareness
“I heard about that.”
•
•
•
What have you heard?
What are you interested in knowing?
I can provide more information if you’d like or share some resources that would help
you know more.
National Staff Development Council • 800-727-7288 • www.nsdc.org
OCTOBER 2008
STANDARDS ASSESSMENT INVENTORY Recommendations: Learning Designs Standard
Tools to support STRENGTHENING strategies
chapter 9
PlaNNiNg
effective professional
learning
Where are We noW?
We identify the focus of our professional development by analyzing a variety of student achievement
data.
STRoNgly agRee
agRee
No oPiNioN
DiSagRee
STRoNgly DiSagRee
the focus of our professional development aligns with our school improvement goals.
STRoNgly agRee
agRee
No oPiNioN
DiSagRee
STRoNgly DiSagRee
our professional development goals are written in a smart goal format and stipulate what
improvements we want in teachers’ knowledge, skills, and practices.
STRoNgly agRee
agRee
No oPiNioN
DiSagRee
STRoNgly DiSagRee
We selected new instructional strategies based on evidence of improved student learning.
STRoNgly agRee
agRee
No oPiNioN
DiSagRee
STRoNgly DiSagRee
our professional development plan includes long-term support strategies that help teachers implement
new classroom practices.
STRoNgly agRee
BeComiNg a leaRNiNg SChool
agRee
No oPiNioN
DiSagRee
STRoNgly DiSagRee
National Staff Development Council • www.nsdc.org
97
chapter 9 • PlaNNiNg eFFeCTiVe PRoFeSSioNal leaRNiNg
o paraphrase American psychologist
T
ing needs will lead to very different forms of profes-
Abraham Maslow, if all you have is a
sional learning. For example, if teachers analyze student
hammer, everything starts to look like a
learning data and find students are not performing well
nail. In the field of education, workshops
in reading comprehension of expository text, they next
remain the hammer in the professional
need to determine whether expository reading material
development tool kit. Despite 25 years of research that
is available in classrooms and what teaching strategies
has identified the limitations of this training model,
best help students comprehend this kind of text. A
most schools answer every adult learning need by find-
workshop might be appropriate if teachers do not know
School
ing a presenter and planning a work-
how to help students develop strategies to comprehend
shop.
expository text. If teachers have already been exposed to
improvement
Creating and sustaining effective
plans and
classroom practices that improve stu-
menting them, then professional learning could take
professional
dent learning require a different set
place in grade-level learning teams that support teachers
development
of tools. However, merely replacing
in developing common lesson plans, reviewing student
should
workshops with another form of pro-
work, and observing each other’s classroom instruction.
complement and
fessional development, such as learn-
The Backmapping Model for Planning Results-
be aligned with
each other.
appropriate instructional strategies but are not imple-
ing teams or action research, is not
Based Professional Learning in figure 9.1 describes a
enough. Change the hammer and
seven-step process for planning professional learning
change the nail — take time to de-
(Killion, 1999).
termine student learning needs and
Districts, schools, departments, or grade-level
what educators need to know and be able to do before
teams can use this process, but adult learning is likely to
planning professional development.
more closely align with student needs when school or
Analyzing and diagnosing student and adult learn-
98
National Staff Development Council • www.nsdc.org
department or grade-level staff are responsible for ana-
BeComiNg a leaRNiNg SChool
PlaNNiNg eFFeCTiVe PRoFeSSioNal leaRNiNg • chapter 9
figure 9.1 BaCKmaPPiNg moDel FoR PlaNNiNg ReSUlTS-BaSeD PRoFeSSioNal leaRNiNg
Step 7
Implement,
sustain, and
evaluate the
professional
development
intervention.
Step 1
Analyze student
learning needs.
Step 2
Identify
characteristics
of community,
district, school,
department,
and staff.
Improved
student
learning
Step 6
Plan
intervention,
implementation,
and evaluation.
Step 5
Study the research
for specific
professional
learning programs,
strategies, or
interventions.
lyzing the data and planning professional learning.
Some of these steps may seem familiar. They are, in
Step 3
Develop
improvement
goals and specific
student
outcomes.
Step 4
Identify
educator
learning
needs.
student learning and achievement. In Step 1, educators
identify student learning needs. Step 2 involves analyz-
fact, similar to most school improvement planning
ing the department, school, and district context. In
models. School improvement plans and professional
Step 3, planners develop an improvement goal that
learning should complement and be aligned with each
specifies improved student achievement as the end re-
other. School improvement plans identify student learn-
sult and educator learning as a step in accomplishing
ing goals, while professional learning helps educators
the goals.
acquire the knowledge and skills to help students meet
Step 4 has educators identify adult learning needs
those goals. Depending on the district or school’s cur-
and replaces the traditional needs assessment survey
rent improvement process, this planning model may
process. Step 5 involves reviewing research about possi-
provide a few steps to add to established processes.
ble strategies to ensure any program planned has evi-
The backmapping model guides educators in planning results-based professional learning that improves
BeComiNg a leaRNiNg SChool
dence of its impact on student learning. In Step 6, the
planning group selects the intervention and plans for its
National Staff Development Council • www.nsdc.org
99
chapter 9 • PlaNNiNg eFFeCTiVe PRoFeSSioNal leaRNiNg
implementation and evaluation. Step 7 involves imple-
These scores by themselves are insufficient to use for
menting, sustaining, and evaluating the professional de-
planning professional learning. Suppose the mathemat-
velopment intervention.
ics department faculty next analyze subtest and student
group scores. They find a particular group of students is
step 1: aNalyze STUDeNT leaRNiNg NeeDS.
To produce results, professional learning must be
performing poorly in the area of probability and statistics. They then may review the curriculum to determine
directly tied to student learning needs. Before selecting
which standards or learning objectives are most essential
or designing professional development, carefully and
for students to achieve and what fundamental knowl-
thoroughly analyze student achievement data to iden-
edge and skills students may be lacking that serve as the
tify specific areas of student achievement and areas of
prerequisites to these standards. Faculty then use this
need. This analysis will help guide decisions about the
information to establish schoolwide and/or department
format of professional learning.
improvement goals, identify specific actions necessary
Key questions to answer during this step include:
to achieve those goals, and guide the selection and/or
•
What assessment data are available?
design of a professional development intervention to
•
What is being measured in each assessment?
address the need to increase the probability and statis-
•
What areas of student performance are meeting or
tics skills of the identified group of students.
exceeding expectations?
•
•
•
What areas of student performance are below ex-
a focus doesn’t provide enough information for staff to
pectations?
design professional learning to address the problem.
What patterns exist within the data? How are the
The more detailed skills and identified student groups
data similar or different in various grade levels,
provide actionable information that is specific enough
content areas, and individual classes?
for planners to identify what teachers need to know and
How did various groups of students perform?
be able to do in order to improve student performance
(Consider gender, race, special needs, English lan-
in probability and statistics.
guage learners, socioeconomic status.)
•
In this example, simply identifying mathematics as
While state assessment data is important, any
What do other data reveal about student perform-
analysis should include other data. Consider district or
ance?
school interim assessments, grades, attendance, disci-
•
What surprises us?
pline issues, graduation rates, demographics, and other
•
What confirms what we already know?
student data. School and district staff also need strate-
The data analysis process results in staff knowing
gies for analyzing student achievement data, identifying
or identifying:
student learning needs, and translating student data
1.
Specific areas of student need;
into improvement goals.
2.
Specific knowledge and skills that students need in
order to improve achievement; and
3.
Specific students or groups of students for whom
the need is most prevalent or pronounced.
For example, a school’s scores on a state assessment
are below the expected or desired level in mathematics.
100
National Staff Development Council • www.nsdc.org
step 2: iDeNTiFy ChaRaCTeRiSTiCS oF CommUNiTy,
DiSTRiCT, SChool, DePaRTmeNT, aND STaFF.
School leaders and teachers use what they know
about students’ characteristics to decide what instruction and programs are appropriate for them. The same
BeComiNg a leaRNiNg SChool
PlaNNiNg eFFeCTiVe PRoFeSSioNal leaRNiNg • chapter 9
is true for professional development leaders. Knowing
•
Performance/ability
the characteristics of the adults who will participate in
•
Attitude
professional learning influences the design of the learn-
•
Sense of efficacy
ing experience and the nature of the follow-up support.
•
Response to change
For example, professional learning for experienced
•
Collegiality
teachers may be different than professional learning for
•
Extent to which teachers’ preparation aligns with
novices. A program for teachers working to meet the
needs of urban, disadvantaged students may be differ-
teaching assignments
•
Level of education
ent than one for teachers in rural schools. A program in
a district or school with limited resources and/or time
What are some characteristics of formal and
for professional learning will be different than in set-
informal leadership for both teachers and
tings where time and resources are available. Detailing
administrators?
the context helps professional development leaders
•
Leadership style
make informed decisions about appropriate professional
•
Roles of formal and informal leaders
learning.
•
Level of participation in leadership activities
•
Opportunities to be involved in leadership
Develop a profile of the school environment and
conditions by considering these questions:
roles/activities
•
Trust in leadership
What are the characteristics of the students?
•
Support by leadership
•
Ethnicity/race
•
Support for leadership
•
Gender
•
Level of communication
•
Socioeconomic status
•
Mobility
What are some characteristics of the community?
•
Family support
•
Support for education
•
Motivation
•
Support for the school
•
Attitude toward school
•
Involvement in school activities
•
Experience in school
•
Support for students
•
Academic performance
•
Support for professional development
•
Retention rates
•
Parents’ education level
What resources are available to support professional
•
Sibling data
development?
•
Budget
What are the characteristics of the staff?
•
Time
•
Years of experience
•
Support personnel in the building
•
Years at grade level
•
Support personnel outside the building
•
Years in the school
•
Union contract
•
Past experience with professional development
•
Incentives
•
Motivation
BeComiNg a leaRNiNg SChool
Once the analysis is complete, use this information
National Staff Development Council • www.nsdc.org
101
chapter 9 • PlaNNiNg eFFeCTiVe PRoFeSSioNal leaRNiNg
to consider which interventions are most appropriate
tainable, results-oriented, time-bound) goal format.
for the school or team.
(See tool 9.3 on the CD.)
step 3: DeVeloP imPRoVemeNT goalS aND
step 4: iDeNTiFy eDUCaToR (TeaCheR aND
SPeCiFiC STUDeNT oUTComeS.
Educators need to be clear about what students
aDmiNiSTRaToR) leaRNiNg NeeDS.
Professional learning frequently begins with a
and teachers are to accomplish as a result of teachers’
needs assessment survey that asks adult learners to iden-
professional learning. Missing the mark is easy without
tify what they want to learn. This common practice
a goal and specific target.
often leaves a gap between what educators want to learn
Key questions about outcomes include:
and what they may need to learn to address the identi-
•
What results do we seek for students?
fied student learning goals. tool 9.5 on the CD pro-
•
What new practices do we expect from staff?
vides a rationale for eliminating the traditional needs
The intended results of the professional learning
assessment survey in favor of analyzing student learning
should be stated in terms of student achievement.
needs. For example, teachers are often eager to learn
Teachers’ and principals’ actions or
about educational innovations, and principals may
changes are the means to achieve the
want to learn how to shortcut nagging managerial tasks.
be clear about
goal of increasing student achieve-
However, if the goal is to increase student reading per-
what students
ment. For example, “100% of the
formance, and students’ greatest deficits are compre-
and teachers are
staff will participate in training in
hending and interpreting informational text, teachers
to accomplish as a
brain-based learning” is not a goal
and principals need to develop their skills and knowl-
result of teachers’
because it does not describe the
edge about how to help students read nonfiction text.
training’s impact on student learn-
Professional learning on other topics takes time and re-
ing. Professional development goals
sources away from the established school improvement
too often state the activities that will
and team learning goals.
Educators need to
professional
learning.
be conducted rather than results to
be accomplished.
A preferable goal or objective would be: “In three
Classroom walk-throughs are useful in determining
what teachers need to learn. Walk-throughs help administrators and teams of teachers gather information
years, 90% of students will read on grade level as result
about instructional strengths and needs and provide a
of teachers learning and implementing new brain-based
framework for using that information to discuss in-
instructional strategies.” This statement focuses on the
struction, monitor how professional development is im-
end result of professional learning rather than on what
plemented, and measure professional development’s
occurs in the process. These objectives might state that
effect on classroom practices.
a majority of teachers will use new practices routinely
Classroom walk-throughs can give administrators
and with high quality or high fidelity. Student learning
clear information about teachers’ current practices and
will only be affected when teachers implement new
help leaders identify trends and patterns of practice
strategies well — not just know them.
within a school or district. Administration and faculty
Write clear and specific goals and objectives using
the components of a SMART (specific, measurable, at-
102
National Staff Development Council • www.nsdc.org
can use the information to discuss effective classroom
practices and determine what learning is needed to ac-
BeComiNg a leaRNiNg SChool
PlaNNiNg eFFeCTiVe PRoFeSSioNal leaRNiNg • chapter 9
complish their student learning and professional learn-
consider these questions to narrow the choices:
ing goals.
•
After identifying educators’ learning needs, con-
and knowledge we have identified as educator
sider what actions to take to meet these needs. The
scope and content of the professional learning required
learning needs?
•
will be clearer when student learning needs, the school
or district’s context and characteristics, the specific goal,
Which professional learning addresses the skills
What professional development are schools with
similar student demographics using?
•
and educator learning needs all are clear.
If our school’s characteristics do not match the
schools in which the professional learning was successful, what are the key differences? How likely are
those differences to interfere with the program’s
step 5: STUDy The ReSeaRCh FoR SPeCiFiC
PRoFeSSioNal leaRNiNg PRogRamS,
success? What changes might increase the likeli-
STRaTegieS, oR iNTeRVeNTioNS.
hood of success?
After establishing educator learning goals, examine
•
What aspects of the professional learning (if any)
the research for specific professional development prac-
might need to be modified to accommodate the
tices that are supported by evidence of their impact on
unique features of our school or students?
student learning. In their urgency and enthusiasm to
•
improve student performance, school staff may pass
over this critical step and select or adapt unfamiliar pro-
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the professional learning?
•
What school, district, and community support was
grams. They often fail to critically review available pro-
required to make the professional learning success-
grams and practices to determine whether the new
ful?
practices have proven successful. Sometimes, teachers
Next, consider the school’s context by asking:
within a school have conducted action research studies
•
that can provide findings to consider when selecting interventions. Their findings can be reviewed at this step
mate?
•
along with other research-based options.
Even well-designed, formal professional develop-
What are the characteristics of the culture and cliWhat do teachers already know and what do they
need to know next?
•
What practices are teachers currently using in the
ment initiatives need to be reviewed for their effect on
classroom? How different are current practices
student learning. NSDC has published a series of What
from desired practices?
Works books (Killion, 1999; Killion, 2002a; Killion,
•
2002b) that reviewed professional development programs in various content areas for elementary, middle,
resist changes?
•
and high school levels. These books provide each program’s evidence of impact on student learning.
For other programs, the professional development
program review form (tool 9.7 on the CD) identifies
Does the school culture embrace new practices or
What are teachers’ current levels of understanding
of content related to state standards?
•
What support do teachers need in order to implement new strategies?
After examining research-based evidence and
essential questions important in collecting research-
weighing the options, the context factors identified in
based evidence of results.
Step 2 become criteria for selecting an intervention ap-
Once research-based options have been identified,
BeComiNg a leaRNiNg SChool
propriate for the school, the staff, and the student pop-
National Staff Development Council • www.nsdc.org
103
chapter 9 • PlaNNiNg eFFeCTiVe PRoFeSSioNal leaRNiNg
ulation. Members decide to adopt or adapt an existing
strategies are most useful for:
professional development program or to create one to
•
Gathering and using information from within the
align with their unique school characteristics, their
school or district about learning: Accessing Student
goals, and current research.
Voices, Action Research, Classroom Walk-
This is a significant decision that needs to be made
Throughs, Data Analysis, Portfolios for Educators,
with careful thought and thorough discussion. When
making this decision, members are determining where
Shadowing Students, and Visual Dialogue.
•
Creating professional learning communities: Criti-
they will place their energy and resources for the long
cal Friends Groups, Mentoring, Peer Coaching,
run.
Tuning Protocols, and Visual Dialogue.
•
Focusing on standards, curriculum, and assessment: Action Research, Assessment as Professional
step 6: PlaN iNTeRVeNTioN, imPlemeNTaTioN, aND
Learning, Case Discussions, Curriculum Design,
eValUaTioN.
Initiating new professional learning takes time and
Immersing Teachers in Practice, Lesson Study,
energy. To implement new professional development
Standards in Practice, Study Groups, and Visual
strategies requires that leaders or faculty plan follow-up
Dialogue.
or long-term support beyond the immediate school
•
Focusing on instructional practices or pedagogy:
year. A professional development intervention needs to
Action Research, Case Discussions, Critical Friends
be carefully selected to match teacher learning needs.
Groups, Immersing Teachers in Practice, Journal-
Many questions need to be answered to get the best fit
ing, Lesson Study, Mentoring, Peer Coaching,
between educator needs and appropriate professional
Portfolios, and Tuning Protocols.
development design. Many of the job-embedded pro-
More detailed information about how to select ap-
fessional development strategies can be used in combi-
propriate professional learning designs to match the
nation to help educators learn about new practices,
learning needs of teachers and administrators can be
begin implementing new practices, and consistently use
found in Chapter 11. Chapter 11 describes a variety of
new practices. Each of these three aspects of learning
job-embedded professional learning strategies to use to
new classroom strategies requires different kinds of pro-
develop awareness of new instructional strategies or
fessional learning. The ultimate goal is to enhance the
programs, build knowledge, translate new knowledge
instructional practices used in the classroom so that stu-
into practice, practice using new strategies, and reflect
dent learning is improved.
on new practice.
Powerful Designs for Professional Learning (Easton,
After selecting, adapting, or designing a profes-
2008) includes 21 job-embedded professional develop-
sional development program/intervention and before
ment practices. Each strategy has information to help
implementation, consider:
administrators and teachers decide when and why to
•
use these strategies. This information helps school fac-
What kind of support does the program need to be
successful?
ulty determine which strategies might work best, fit a
•
How will we support the individuals involved?
particular context, and lead to teachers learning specific
•
What are we equipped to do to support and imple-
content.
ment the professional learning, and what external
For example, some professional development
104
National Staff Development Council • www.nsdc.org
resources will we need?
BeComiNg a leaRNiNg SChool
PlaNNiNg eFFeCTiVe PRoFeSSioNal leaRNiNg • chapter 9
refLectIons
1.
Consider the components of the backmapping model. Which of these steps are you currently using?
How can you refine these activities to bring them into line with the model?
2.
Where can you find research to support the adoption of new professional learning?
3.
Who plans or designs professional learning for the district or school? How well-prepared are they to
plan professional learning as described in this chapter? If they do not feel ready, who can help increase
their capacity?
4.
How many sources of student data do you have available for analysis? How comfortable are staff in
conducting their own analysis of student data? What could be done to help them become more
comfortable?
5.
Step 6 of the backmapping process requires thoughtful planning and is typically the school’s or district’s
first step. What are the advantages of completing Steps 1-5 before Step 6?
•
•
What resources are we dedicating to the profes-
identify what important baseline data to collect, data
sional learning?
which may be necessary for demonstrating the profes-
What is our timeline for full implementation by all
sional learning’s impact.
faculty members?
•
•
•
•
•
When planning to evaluate a professional develop-
What benchmarks along the way will help us know
ment program, leaders:
if we are successful?
1.
Assess the design to determine if the staff develop-
Are we willing to commit time, energy, and finan-
ment program is thorough, well-conceived, and
cial resources to this effort for the long term?
able to be implemented;
How will we align this new initiative with existing
2.
Identify key questions they hope to answer; and
efforts? What might we need to eliminate to make
3.
Design the evaluation framework — the plan for
resources available for this program?
conducting the evaluation.
How closely do the goals of the professional learn-
An evaluation framework includes identifying what
ing align with our school’s improvement goals and
data will be collected, sources of that data, who will
the district’s strategic goals?
conduct the evaluation, and a timeline (Killion, 2007).
How will we assess how the program is initiated,
Plans should include both formative and summative
implemented, and sustained?
evaluations.
Planning evaluation at the same time as planning
A formative assessment allows professional devel-
implementation of the professional learning leads to a
opment leaders to know how well the program is being
higher-quality evaluation. Considering both the pro-
implemented, provides opportunities to take corrective
gram and evaluation at the same time allows planners to
actions, and answers questions including:
BeComiNg a leaRNiNg SChool
National Staff Development Council • www.nsdc.org
105
chapter 9 • PlaNNiNg eFFeCTiVe PRoFeSSioNal leaRNiNg
•
•
•
Are the program activities being implemented as
on an acceptable level of implementation is an Innova-
planned?
tion Configuration (IC) map. IC maps describe and de-
Are resources adequate to implement the program
fine the essential features of new practice (Hall & Hord,
as planned?
2001). tool 9.8 on the CD describes the components
To what degree are differences occurring in imple-
of an Innovation Configuration map as well as strate-
mentation that may influence the program’s re-
gies for designing your own.
sults?
Setting expectations and standards for acceptable
A summative evaluation allows professional devel-
implementation will make a significant difference in the
opment leaders to know what impact the program has
quality of implementation. Then use both formative
had and answers questions including:
and summative evaluation processes to provide the best
•
Has the learning achieved the intended results?
data to continually improve professional learning and
•
What changes for teachers have resulted from the
increase the likelihood that it will achieve the results it
professional learning?
was designed to achieve. Formative assessments provide
What changes for students have resulted from the
data that can be used to continually adjust and refine
professional learning?
the program to strengthen results. Summative evalua-
What changes in the organization have resulted
tion provides information about the impact of profes-
from the professional learning?
sional learning and offers valuable data to improve its
Planning the program and evaluation simultane-
results. More information about evaluating professional
•
•
ously gives professional development leaders and the
learning is provided in Chapter 14.
evaluator greater clarity about how the professional
learning is intended to work, increasing the likelihood
that professional learning will be implemented as designed and that the intended results will be realized.
references
Easton, L.B. (Ed.) (2008). Powerful designs for
professional learning (2nd ed.). Oxford, OH: NSDC.
Hall, G. & Hord, S. (2001). Implementing
step 7: imPlemeNT, SUSTaiN, aND eValUaTe The
PRoFeSSioNal DeVeloPmeNT
iNTeRVeNTioN.
Any new professional development intervention requires constant nurturing and support for it to be im-
change: Patterns, principles, and potholes. Boston: Allyn
& Bacon.
Killion, J. (1999). What works in the middle: Results-based staff development. Oxford, OH: NSDC.
Killion, J. (2002a). What works in the elementary
plemented at a high level. Staff development leaders,
school: Results-based staff development. Oxford, OH:
including the principal and teacher leaders, are prima-
NSDC & NEA.
rily responsible for monitoring and making adjustments
to ensure the initiative’s success.
Those responsible for implementation first need a
clear understanding of what high-quality performance
means and looks like. One tool for reaching agreement
106
National Staff Development Council • www.nsdc.org
Killion, J. (2002b). What works in the high school:
Results-based staff development. Oxford, OH: NSDC &
NEA.
Killion, J. (2007). Assessing impact: Evaluating
staff development. Oxford, OH: NSDC.
BeComiNg a leaRNiNg SChool
Module 2 • HOW DO WE PLAN FOR SCHOOLWIDE AND TEAM-BASED COLLABORATIVE LEARNING?
SELF-ASSESSMENT OF CURRENT PLANNING FOR PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
1. Our school utilizes both team-based and schoolwide collaborative learning to improve our
professional knowledge and skills.
Strongly agree
Agree
No opinion
Disagree
Strongly disagree
2. Teachers identify their professional development focus based on the needs of their students.
Strongly agree
Agree
No opinion
Disagree
Strongly disagree
3. Teachers learn within teams several times a week.
Strongly agree
Agree
No opinion
Disagree
Strongly disagree
4. One component of our professional learning plan includes team support for implementing
new instructional strategies.
Strongly agree
Agree
No opinion
Disagree
Strongly disagree
5. One way we evaluate the results of our professional learning is by examining student work.
Strongly agree
Agree
No opinion
Disagree
Strongly disagree
2-2
Rochester City School District
MINDS IN MOTION: CREATING A COMMUNITY OF COLLABORATIVE LEARNERS
t
NSDC TOOLS
3 TEACHERS TEACHING TEACHERS
PAGE 10
POWERFUL
DESIGNS:
• Who and when
Page 13
• What and why
Pages 14-15
• How
Page 16
I
RIPE FOR THE PICKING: Collection of 21
strategies satisfies a taste for context and content
BY LOIS BROWN EASTON
magine a school that has an environment
of staff growth and learning. The climate
that makes learning possible for adults in
this school can always improve, but the
school can legitimately call itself a professional learning community. This school has the
context for adult learning.
Imagine that this school has collected and
analyzed data from a variety of sources. Staff
members know what they need to learn to do better so students can learn better. Teachers know
the content they must study.
What they need to know is how: How will
they learn what they need? What strategies will
help them learn and help them make changes that
affect student achievement? What processes will
they initiate?
As a school-based staff developer, you are
required to make frequent decisions about the
right process (or strategy or design) to use for
professional learning that will make a difference.
Process is so important that the National Staff
Development Council made it one of three
aspects designers of professional development
must consider, along with context and content
(NSDC, 2001).
Imagine that our imaginary school has determined that students need to improve their reading
skills in the content areas. The staff wants to
learn how to help students understand materials
they read in social studies and science, for example. You consult a resource that describes power-
ful strategies for professional development —
such as NSDC’s book, Powerful Designs for
Professional Learning (NSDC, 2004) — and
select a variety of processes that could be used.
Some of these designs work individually. In
some, staff work individually and then get
together in groups. Six months into their focus on
reading in the content areas, teachers come
together, bringing a variety of viewpoints after
experiencing a variety of professional development activities — though all focused on reading.
Their professional development continues with
National Staff Development Council • (800) 727-7288 • www.nsdc.org
SEPTEMBER 2005
t
3 TEACHERS TEACHING TEACHERS
other processes as they implement the changes
they have identified.
Let’s be more specific. In the first six
months, one teacher decides to access student
voices by having students talk about reading in
focus groups. Other teachers begin action
research projects, mostly working alone but getting together every other week to share their
results. A few individuals keep journals about
reading in their own classrooms. Some of these
individuals create portfolios to share with others.
Another group conducts case discussions on
reading, and another looks at curriculum as curriculum designers. The principal and associate
principals do classroom walk-throughs that focus
on reading. Another group analyzes the data that
initiated this professional learning cycle; this
group wants to know the details behind the
scores that alarmed the staff about reading in the
content areas. The last group examines classroom
and district assessments for levels of questioning
about text.
At the end of the first six months, these individuals and groups learn from each through visual dialogue, and the staff as a whole creates a
plan for action. The action research individuals
and groups continue their work, as do the journal
writers and portfolio makers. The curriculum
designers and the assessment group expand their
work, and other groups begin to form. Some staff
members begin to meet in critical friends groups
and do tuning protocols around student understanding of text. A small group decides to shadow students in another school, known for its
focus on critical reading skills.
Later, as implementation continues (and gets
tougher), a group forms to do lesson study related to reading in science classes. Another group
looks at assignments through the standards in
practice process. Finally, the staff decides to have
a school coach help them focus on literacy across
the curriculum.
This article and the tools on pp. 13-16 will
guide you in choosing the designs that will work
for your school.
All of the 21 professional development
designs included in Powerful Designs for
Who?
PAGE 11
Professional Learning (listed at right) work well
with classroom teachers as well as administrators
at the building and district levels. The p. 13 tool
identifies designs that will benefit by including
college or university staff or community members, parents, and policy makers as partners.
Regardless of who is involved in professional development, always ask, “Who else needs to
be here?”
1. Who should be involved?
2. Will people work as individuals or in
groups?
Each of the 21 designs has roots in what
happens in classrooms, focuses on learners and
learning, and is collaborative in some way. All
designs honor professionals. All lead to application. All promote inquiry and reflection.
Beyond these standards for powerful professional development, however, are other more
specific purposes that can be promoted through
certain designs. These more specific purposes
take the form of questions listed below. Designs
that are especially oriented to these specialized
purposes are listed in the tool on pp. 14-15.
1. Which designs are most useful for gathering
and using information from within the
school or district about learning?
2. Which designs are most likely to require outside resources to inform the work?
3. Which designs are especially useful in creating a learning community?
4. Which designs focus most on standards, curriculum, and assessment?
5. Which designs focus most on practice or
pedagogy?
6. Which designs are most useful for looking at
classrooms?
7. Which designs focus on the whole school
and/or beyond?
8. Which designs are particularly reflective?
9. Which designs look at student work or
involve students in some way?
10. Which designs are best for bringing others
(other than teachers or administrators) into
the school improvement effort?
11. Which designs can be used to address specific problems and seek solutions?
What and why?
National Staff Development Council • (800) 727-7288 • www.nsdc.org
21 strategies
The strategies
included in
Powerful Designs for
Professional
Learning:
• Accessing
student voices
• Action research
• Assessment as
professional
development
• Case discussions
• Classroom walkthroughs
• Critical friends
groups
• Curriculum
design
• Data analysis
• Immersing
teachers in
practice
• Journaling
• Lesson study
• Mentoring
• Peer coaching
• Portfolios for
educators
• School coaching
• Shadowing
students
• Standards in
practice
• Study groups
• Training the
trainer
• Tuning
protocols
• Visual dialogue
SEPTEMBER 2005
t
3 TEACHERS TEACHING TEACHERS
12. Which designs result in a concrete product?
Which designs are the most experiential?
13. Which designs may involve modeling?
To be effective, schools should plan to commit to a design for at least a year. No design
should be implemented only once a year. They
are meant to be continuous over a period of time.
See the tool on p. 13 for guidance in designs
that will work well in three to six sessions a year,
those that require at least monthly meetings,
those that should occur at least weekly, and those
that should happen daily.
In addition, the duration of any professional
development activity or session can vary enormously. Some strategies that may require less
frequent meetings may need three hours or more
for each session. Some strategies may require
educators to meet together more often but for
shorter amounts of time. Individual work that
results in later group sharing might require an
hour or less.
When?
Teachers Teaching Teachers
(T3) is published eight times
a year by the National Staff
Development Council, 5995
Fairfield Road, #4, Oxford, OH
45056.
Copyright, NSDC, 2005. All
rights reserved.
MAIN BUSINESS OFFICE
5995 Fairfield Road, #4
Oxford OH 45056
(513) 523-6029
(800) 727-7288
(513) 523-0638 (fax)
E-mail: nsdcoffice@nsdc.org
Web site: www.nsdc.org
Editor: Joan Richardson
Designer: Kitty Black
PAGE 12
All 21 designs identified in this article can
be used with other designs to explore the same
content. In fact, using a variety of adult learning
strategies oriented towards the same need can
enrich the results considerably.
The tool on p. 16 will help you identify
strategies by answering the following questions:
1. Which designs require a facilitator?
2. Which designs require administrators to be
involved?
3. Which designs work best when school is in
session? Which designs work best when
school is not in session?
4. Which designs cost the most?
Students will succeed when educators
choose the best possible context for professional
development, deliberately focus content on student improvement needs, and choose processes
that help teachers learn to best address those
needs. u
How?
Each of the 21
designs:
• Has roots in
what happens in
classrooms.
• Focuses on
learners and
learning.
• Is collaborative.
• Honors
professionals.
• Leads to
application.
• Promotes inquiry
and reflection.
See tools
on pp. 13-16
NSDC STAFF
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
COPYING/REPRINT POLICY
Executive director
Dennis Sparks
dennis.sparks@nsdc.org
Deborah Childs-Bowen,
president (2006)
All content in Teachers
Teaching Teachers (T3) is
copyright protected by the
National Staff Development
Council and may not be
copied or reprinted without
permission. Please see
www.nsdc.org/library/
publications/permpolicy.cfm
for details as well as a form
for submitting a request.
Deputy executive director
Stephanie Hirsh
stephanie.hirsh@nsdc.org
Director of publications
Joan Richardson
joan.richardson@nsdc.org
Director of special projects
Joellen Killion
joellen.killion@nsdc.org
Web editor
Tracy Crow
tracy.crow@nsdc.org
Distinguished senior
fellow
Hayes Mizell
hayes.mizell@nsdc.org
Karen Dyer (2007)
Cindy Harrison,
past president (2005)
Gale Hulme (2005)
Sharon Jackson (2006)
Charles Mason (2007)
CONTACT
Sue McAdamis (2006)
Bill Sommers,
president-elect (2007)
Complete contact information for all staff and board
members is available on the
web site at www.nsdc.org/
connect/about/index.cfm.
Business manager
Leslie Miller
leslie.miller@nsdc.org
National Staff Development Council • (800) 727-7288 • www.nsdc.org
SEPTEMBER 2005
t
3 TEACHERS TEACHING TEACHERS
PAGE 13
NSDC TOOL
POWERFUL DESIGNS: WHO AND WHEN
When?
(Assumes no less than 1-year commitment)
x
Case Discussions
x
x**
x
x**
x
x
x
x
x
x
Critical Friends Groups
x
x
Curriculum Designers
x
x
x
x
Data Analysis
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Immersing Teachers in Practice
x
x
x
x
Journaling
x*
x
x*
Assessment as Professional Development
Each session is 3
hours or more
Daily
At least weekly
At least monthly
x
x
Classroom Walk-Throughs
Duration
Each session is an
hour or less
x
3 to 6 times year
Large groups/
Concurrent small
groups
Pairs
x
Accessing Student Voices
Action Research
Individuals at first,
then groups
Community, parents,
policy makers
POWERFUL
DESIGN
University or college
staff
Frequency
Each session is 1 to 2
hours
Who?
In addition to classroom teachers and
administrators, who should be
involved?
x
x
Lesson Study
x
x
x
Mentoring
x
x
x
x
Peer Coaching
x
x
x
x
x
Portfolios for Educators
School Coaching
x
x
x
Shadowing Students
x
x
x
x
x
x
Standards in Practice
Study Groups
x
Training the Trainer
x
Tuning Protocols
x
x
Visual Dialogue
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
* = group sharing **= individual work
SOURCE: Powerful Designs for Professional Learning, by Lois Brown Easton, Oxford, OH: National Staff Development Council, 2004.
All rights reserved. Order through NSDC’s Online Bookstore, store.nsdc.org.
National Staff Development Council • (800) 727-7288 • www.nsdc.org
SEPTEMBER 2005
t
3 TEACHERS TEACHING TEACHERS
PAGE 14
NSDC TOOL
POWERFUL DESIGNS: WHAT AND WHY
POWERFUL
DESIGN
Useful for
gathering data
in a school
Accessing Student Voices
x
Action Research
x
Involves
gathering
information
from external
sources
Particularly
helpful in
creating a
learning
community
Looks at
standards,
curriculum,
assessment
x
Assessment as
Professional Development
x
x
Case Discussions
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Journaling
x
x
x
Lesson Study
x
Mentoring
x
Peer Coaching
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
School Coaching
Shadowing Students
x
x
Immersing Teachers
in Practice
Portfolios for Educators
Involves
looking at
whole school/
behond
x
Critical Friends Groups
Data Analysis
x
x
Curriculum Designers
Involves
looking
at classrooms
x
x
Classroom Walk-Throughs
Focuses on
pedagogy
and
teaching
x
x
x
x
x
x
Standards in Practice
x
x
Study Groups
x
x
x
Training the Trainer
x
Tuning Protocols
Visual Dialogue
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
SOURCE: Powerful Designs for Professional Learning, by Lois Brown Easton, Oxford, OH: National Staff Development Council, 2004.
All rights reserved. Order through NSDC’s Online Bookstore, store.nsdc.org.
National Staff Development Council • (800) 727-7288 • www.nsdc.org
SEPTEMBER 2005
t
3 TEACHERS TEACHING TEACHERS
PAGE 15
POWERFUL DESIGNS: WHAT AND WHY (continued)
Involves
looking at
student work
or students
Good for
involving
others
Good for
problem
solving
Accessing Student Voices
x
x
x
Action Research
x
POWERFUL
DESIGN
Is particularly
reflective
Results in a
concrete
product
Is
experiential
Involves
modeling
x
Assessment as
Professional Development
x
Case Discussions
Classroom Walk-Throughs
x
Critical Friends Groups
x
x
x
Curriculum Designers
x
Data Analysis
x
Immersing Teachers
in Practice
Journaling
x
x
x
Lesson Study
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Mentoring
x
x
Peer Coaching
x
x
x
Portfolios for Educators
x
x
x
School Coaching
x
x
Shadowing Students
x
Standards in Practice
x
Tuning Protocols
x
x
x
x
x
x
Study Groups
Training the Trainer
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Visual Dialogue
x
x
x
SOURCE: Powerful Designs for Professional Learning, by Lois Brown Easton, Oxford, OH: National Staff Development Council, 2004.
All rights reserved. Order through NSDC’s Online Bookstore, store.nsdc.org.
National Staff Development Council • (800) 727-7288 • www.nsdc.org
SEPTEMBER 2005
t
3 TEACHERS TEACHING TEACHERS
PAGE 16
NSDC TOOL
POWERFUL DESIGNS: HOW
FACILITATOR NEEDED ADMINISTRATOR INVOLVEMENT
POWERFUL DESIGN
No
At first Yes
x
Accessing Student Voices
Action Research
x
Support Participation
essential
$
x
x
x
$$
Case Discussions
x
x
x
x
Out
x
x
Critical Friends Groups
In
x
x
x
Participation
helpful
COST
x
Assessment as Professional Development
Classroom Walk-Throughs
SCHOOL IN/OUT
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
$$$
x
$$
x
$
x
$$
Curriculum Designers
x
x
x
x
$$$
Data Analysis
x
x
x
x
$$$
Immersing Teachers in Practice
x
x
x
$$$
Journaling
x
x
x
Lesson Study
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
$
x
$$
Mentoring
x
x
x
x
$$
Peer Coaching
x
x
x
x
$$
Portfolios for Educators
x
x
x
x
$
School Coaching
x
x
x
x
$$$
Shadowing Students
x
x
x
x
$$
Standards in Practice
x
x
x
$$
x
$$
Study Groups
x
Training the Trainer
Tuning Protocols
x
Visual Dialogue
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
$$
x
x
x
$$$
x
x
$$$
SOURCE: Powerful Designs for Professional Learning, by Lois Brown Easton, Oxford, OH: National Staff Development Council, 2004.
All rights reserved. Order through NSDC’s Online Bookstore, store.nsdc.org.
National Staff Development Council • (800) 727-7288 • www.nsdc.org
SEPTEMBER 2005
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2001
Tools For Schools
TM
INSIDE
A bi-monthly
publication
supporting student
and staff learning
through school
improvement
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
www.nsdc.org
3
4
5
7
8
Learning Plan
Learning Team Journal
Learning Team Survey
Resources
Dr. Developer
Learning Teams
When teachers work together,
knowledge and rapport grow
By Joan Richardson
A
fter a three-year
leave of absence, Anne
Jolly returned to
her
Alabama
classroom with “more enthusiasm and anticipation than I felt in
my first position.’’
The former Alabama Teacher of
the Year was armed with an arsenal of
new ideas and deeper understanding about
the profession. She was confident she could
transform her practice to better serve a population of students who were increasingly
diverse and needy.
But, after just a month, “far from revolutionizing my classroom practices, I was falling back
into many of my same old teaching patterns. I found
it increasingly hard to put a new way of teaching
into operation,’’ she said. “The isolated classroom
just wasn’t working for me anymore.’’
Because of her experience, Jolly has become
an advocate for learning teams as a way to improve
student learning. A learning team is, quite simply,
a small, collaborative group of teachers who work
together in a very disciplined way to focus on a
central issue all year long.
Unlike school teams that are organized for
other purposes, learning teams focus on teacher
learning as a way to address student needs and improve student learning, she said. (In some schools,
these teams are known as
“study groups,’’ “impact
groups,’’ or “collaborative
teacher groups.’’)
Learning teams enable teachers to keep up with
the knowledge they need to do
their jobs well. They also help
teachers support each other as they
change their practices.
“Learning teams are the most effective, cost-efficient way for teachers to learn
what changes are needed in their practice and then
to make those changes. They also have the added
benefit of building rapport, trust, and support,’’ said
Jolly, now an education program specialist for
SERVE, the regional educational laboratory serving
the southeastern states, and author of an upcoming
NSDC book on learning teams in middle schools.
MAKING A CASE FOR LEARNING TEAMS
Generally, the principal is the instigator for creating learning teams. But, if such teams are going to
be effective, Jolly said, teachers must be involved in
the final decision. “If teachers don’t support the concept, learning teams will not be successful,” Jolly said.
Unsatisfactory test scores can often be used as
a prompt for creating the learning teams. But, even
when that’s the case, the principal or an outside facilitator who specializes in such work will still need
Continued on Page 2
Learning Teams
Tools For Schools
August/September 2001
Learning teams build rapport and knowledge
Continued from Page One
to present teachers with substantial information about the value of teachers learning and collaborating. (See Resources on
Page 7 for more background information.)
“Teachers also need to understand that
learning teams have a disciplined focus. They
are focused around teacher learning, not
school management. This is not a staff meeting. This is about student needs,’’ Jolly said.
ample, if students are doing poorly on a
statewide writing test, teachers will want
to ensure that they know what’s being
evaluated. Students may be quite successful grammatically and structurally but fail
to understand how to present a cohesive
idea — or vice versa. Students may be quite
successful writing stories or poems but less
proficient at informational writing.
GETTING STARTED
After the principal has significant
staff buy-in to the idea, the next issue is
membership of the learning team.
Jolly recommends including no more
than six persons on a team. Typically, a
team would include members of a single
department or a grade level. But teachers
could self-select according to interest in a
particular topic, Jolly said.
Taking advantage of an existing organizational structure often helps because
teachers already know each other. Building on a team that already works with one
group of students, as in a middle school,
is also very beneficial.
A learning team needs to meet for at
least an hour at a regular time once a week.
Ideally, teams should meet during the
school day and plan to meet together for
the entire school year.
DEVELOP A LEARNING PLAN
After a learning team has its focus,
the next step is crafting a learning plan.
(See Page 3 for an example.)
At a minimum, the learning plan
should include responses to these questions.
!
What do students need to learn to do
better? For example, drawing from the
example above, the learning team might
say that “Students need to improve the
quality of their informational writing.’’
!
What specific knowledge or instructional skills do teachers need in order to address student achievement in this focus area?
!
How will teachers acquire this knowledge and these skills?
!
What information do teachers need?
!
How will teachers know if they have
achieved their goal?
Jolly said teams should consider the
learning plan a “work in progress’’ that
will be revised as teams learn more.
FIRST, THE DATA
To establish its focus for the year, the
learning team should assemble and examine student data: standardized test results,
district assessment results, examples of
teacher assignments and the resulting student work, climate survey results, demographics, and information regarding discipline, attendance, and parental involvement.
By closely examining the data themselves, teachers will be able to identify
clear priorities for students. “Data also can
create a sense of urgency that’s needed to
drive change,’’ Jolly said.
Jolly cautions that teachers must also
look below the surface of the numbers and
probe for deeper explanations. For ex-
DOING THE RESEARCH
After identifying its focus, each learning team should query its own members to
learn what knowledge they can share with
others about the focus of their inquiry.
For example, ask team members
about workshops they have attended that
bear on the topic. What articles or books
have they read that relate to this topic?
What did they learn in graduate courses
about this topic? Have they done any writing or presenting on this topic? What other
knowledge do team members have that
might be related to this topic?
“This helps teachers view each other
as resources. It’s a strategy to begin bringing out different strengths,’’ Jolly said.
PAGE 2
Beyond that, however, Jolly believes
the facilitator should be the group’s primary
researcher. “Teachers are already pretty
well overwhelmed. The facilitator needs to
make it as easy for the teachers as possible.
Teachers don’t need to go out and beat the
bushes to find everything,’’ she said.
SHARING THE WEALTH
Initially, teachers may spend a great
deal of time reading articles and books,
interviewing experts, or watching videotapes. In each instance, they should spend
time reflecting on what they have learned.
At some point, they should be ready
to put what they are learning into action.
During one meeting, they may visit the
classroom of a teacher using a strategy
they want to see in practice. They may examine samples of student work, both before they begin changing their practice and
after introducing new strategies to discover their impact. They may develop a
lesson at one meeting and follow up the
next week by discussing their experience
with it.
At every step, the learning team needs
to maintain a journal that is the weekly
record of its work, Jolly said. (See Page 4
for an example.)
The learning team journal should be
kept in a public place, such as the teachers’ workroom so other staff members can
also read the record.
EVALUATE YOUR WORK — AND
IDENTIFY YOUR NEXT INQUIRY
Finally, learning teams need to evaluate their work.
At the end of one year’s work, Jolly
said teams will often have numerous ideas
about the inquiries they want to make during the next year.
“By the end of a year, teachers will
have realized that this is a teacher learning experience. This is not just about coming up with a new strategy for the classroom. This is all focused on teachers learning more about their students and their
teaching,’’ she said.
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
Tools For Schools
August/September 2001
Learning Plan
1.
What is the learning team’s focus?
2.
What do students need to learn to do better?
3.
What specific knowledge or instructional skills do teachers need in order to address
student achievement in this focus area?
4.
How will teachers acquire this knowledge and these skills?
5.
What information do teachers need?
6.
How will teachers know if they have achieved their goal?
COMMENTS TO
FACILITATOR
Use this form to help the
learning team describe its
plan for learning.
Team members should
consider the learning plan
a “living document.”
As the team learns more
about its focus area, the
learning plan should be
revised.
Each copy of the learning
plan should be considered
public and posted or
made available some place
in the school that is open
to all teachers, such as a
teachers’ workroom. This
will allow other teachers
to be aware of the team’s
work and share relevant
resources.
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
PAGE 3
Tools For Schools
August/September 2001
Learning Team Journal
COMMENTS TO
FACILITATOR
Team
Date
Time
Location
The learning team should
appoint a recorder for its
weekly meetings. That
person should maintain
the team’s regular learning
journal.
Topic of discussion
The team journal should
be kept in a binder some
place in the school that is
open to all teachers, such
as a teachers’ workroom,
along with the team’s
learning plan.
Individual members
should also be encouraged
to keep their own
journals, either using this
form or creating a form
that works best for them.
These journals do not
have to be shared with
others.
__________________
__________________
__________________
__________________
Team members present:
Key new ideas and information (from research)
Activities since last meeting and additional discussion
Plans and classroom applications (before next meeting)
Concerns/reflections/recommendations
Plans for next meeting
Today’s best practice or idea (to be shared with other teams)
PAGE 4
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
Tools For Schools
August/September 2001
Learning Team Survey
School ___________________________________________
1.
2.
Subject/grade level __________________________________
How many times have you met with your learning team?
1-3 _____
4-6 _____
7+ _____
Have not met _____
What rating best describes your feelings about these meetings? Scale: 1 (most negative) to 10 (most positive).
Most negative (-)
Unproductive
Non-task oriented
Not well facilitated
Incompatible group members
Less than honest communications
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Most positive (+)
Productive
Task oriented
Well facilitated
Compatible group members
Honest communications
3.
What, if any, are the positive impacts of these meetings on you personally?
4.
What, if any, are the negative impacts or concerns you have had with the learning team meetings?
5.
Rate the benefit of participating on a learning team. Scale: 1 (not much benefit) to 5 (a great deal of benefit).
To what extent have you gained ...
New knowledge about teaching and learning?
New insights about how to reach certain students?
New ideas about how to improve the way you teach?
New perspectives on your strengths and weaknesses in teaching?
A new outlet for expressing and sharing frustrations, concerns, problems with teaching?
Greater confidence in using a wider range of instructional and assessment methods?
A stronger sense of connection or support from other teachers?
A greater sense of yourself as a professional?
6.
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
Circle choice
2
3
4
2
3
4
2
3
4
2
3
4
2
3
4
2
3
4
2
3
4
2
3
4
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
With regard to your selected team focus, how successful has your group been with each activity listed here?
Scale: 1 (not at all successful) to 5 (extremely successful).
How successful has your learning team been with ...
Analyzing and discussing student needs?
Reading research and studying successful strategies for addressing student needs,
and discussing applications of what we have read/studied?
Discussing similarities and differences in teachers’ approaches and beliefs about teaching?
Investigating programs, strategies, and materials that might help motivate students?
Designing new materials, lessons, or assessments for students?
Trying out new techniques, materials, approaches in teaching and assessing students?
Sharing successful strategies you currently use?
Assessing and sharing results of new approaches to teaching with the learning team?
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
Circle choice
2
3
4
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
continued on Page 6
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
PAGE 5
Tools For Schools
Learning Team Survey
August/September 2001
continued
7.
Of the teachers on your learning team, how many do you think believe the learning team approach has significant potential
to help teachers improve students’ motivation and performance? ______ (give number)
8.
Below is a list of activities that support teacher growth and development. Try to assess the activities in terms of whether
they were practiced effectively at the school before the learning teams began. Scale: 1 (not very effectively practiced) to 5
(very effectively practiced) before the learning teams began.
Teachers talked to each other about how they taught and the results they got.
Teachers learned from each other by watching each other teach.
Teachers designed lessons, assessments, or units together.
Teachers critiqued lessons, assessments, or units for each other.
Teachers reviewed the curriculum across grade levels in a particular subject.
Teachers developed interdisciplinary strategies to increase student interest and learning.
Teachers shared articles and other professional resources and read and discussed books.
Teachers asked each other for advice and help with particular students and topics.
Teachers visited other schools to examine instructional approaches in other settings.
Teachers worked together to examine student classroom tests and other student work
samples to better understand student strengths and weaknesses.
Teachers provided moral support and encouragement to each other in trying new ideas.
Teachers helped each other implement ideas from workshops they attended.
9.
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
Circle choice
2
3
4
2
3
4
2
3
4
2
3
4
2
3
4
2
3
4
2
3
4
2
3
4
2
3
4
1
1
1
2
2
2
3
3
3
4
4
4
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
In your opinion, what percent of your students have benefited from your learning team participation?
Less than 25% _____
26-50% _____
51-75% _____
76% + _____
10. Indicate your level of agreement with each of the following statements based on your experiences so far with the learning
team. Scale: 1 (not at all) to 5 (a great deal).
I think my participation on the learning team will ...
Improve my overall teaching effectiveness.
Improve my skills in helping students learn.
Change my perceptions about some students’ learning abilities.
Increase my understanding of how to motivate students to work harder.
Significantly change how I teach.
Significantly change how I work with other teachers.
1
1
1
1
1
1
Circle choice
2
3
4
2
3
4
2
3
4
2
3
4
2
3
4
2
3
4
5
5
5
5
5
5
11. Indicate your level of agreement with each of the following statements. Scale: 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
I am enthusiastic about my participation on a learning team.
I feel a lot of stress during the workday.
I need more time for learning team participation.
I am satisfied with my work environment here.
I am excited by my students’ accomplishments this year.
Student motivation is a major problem here.
Teachers here tend to do their own thing in the classroom with little coordination.
I often feel unsure of my teaching.
Teachers here get along well.
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
Circle choice
2
3
4
2
3
4
2
3
4
2
3
4
2
3
4
2
3
4
2
3
4
2
3
4
2
3
4
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
Source: SERVE, Atlanta.
PAGE 6
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
Tools For Schools
August/September 2001
Tools For Schools
Resources for
learning teams
Includes sections on curriculum development, teacher preparation, school leadership, professional development programs,
school-parent partnerships and assessment
practices. Available through NSDC’s
Online Bookstore, www.nsdc.org/
bookstore.htm. Item #B77. Price: $30,
non-members.
The Adaptive School: A Sourcebook for
Developing Collaborative Groups, by
Robert Garmston and Bruce Wellman.
(Christopher-Gordon Publishers, 1999). A
guidebook to aid schools in developing
the individual teacher talent and energy
necessary to improve student learning.
Recipient of the 1999 NSDC Book Award.
Available through NSDC’s Online Bookstore, www.nsdc.org/bookstore.htm. Item
#B80. Price: $55, non-members.
Professional Learning Communities:
Communities of Continuous Inquiry and
Improvement by Shirley Hord. (Southwest Educational Development Laboratory, 1997). Describes the look and feel
of a professional learning community as
well as providing strategies for developing the same. A full text of the book is
available online at http://www.sedl.org/
pubs/change34/. It also can be ordered
by visiting SEDL’s web site and clicking
on catalog.
A New Vision of Staff Development by
Dennis Sparks and Stephanie Hirsh.
(ASCD and NSDC, 1997). Describes three
powerful ideas that drive the new paradigm for staff development: Resultsdriven, systems thinking, and
constructivism. Includes case studies of
schools and districts that are putting theory
into practice. Available through NSDC’s
Online Bookstore, www.nsdc.org/
bookstore.htm. Item #B50. Price: $22.45,
non-members.
Whole-Faculty Study Groups: A Powerful Way to Change Schools and Enhance
Learning, by Carlene Murphy and Dale
Lick. (Corwin Press, 1998). Offers practical guidance for starting, leading, and
maintaining faculty study groups. Includes
case studies as well as tools to help implement study groups. Available through
NSDC’s Online Bookstore, www.nsdc.
org/bookstore.htm. Item #B64. Price: $37,
non-members.
Professional Learning Communities:
Best Practices for Enhancing Student
Achievement, by Rick DuFour and Robert Eaker. (National Education Service,
1998). Research-based recommendations
that enabled one school to earn the Blue
Ribbon Award from the U.S. Department
of Education on three separate occasions.
From the NSDC library
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P
ast issues of NSDC publications
have focused on a number of strategies that would benefit a school
that is working with learning teams. This
is just a sampling of other resources that
can be found on the NSDC web site,
www.nsdc.org/library.htm, or ordered
through the NSDC Online Bookstore.
!
Developing norms was the focus of
the August/September 1999 issue of Tools
for Schools.
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
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Action research was the focus of the
February/March 2000 issue of Tools for
Schools.
!
Collecting data was the focus of the
October/November 2000 Tools for
Schools and the Winter 2000 issue of the
Journal of Staff Development
!
Examining student work was the focus of the February/March 2001 issue of
Tools for Schools and the May 2001 issue of Results.
!
ISSN 0276-928X
Tools For Schools is published five times a year
(August, October, December, February and April)
by the National Staff Development Council, PO Box
240, Oxford, OH 45056, for $49 of standard and
comprehensive membership fees. Periodicals postage
paid at Wheelersburg, OH 45694.
MAIN BUSINESS OFFICE
PO Box 240, Oxford, Ohio 45056
(513) 523-6029
(800) 727-7288
(513) 523-0638 (fax)
E-mail: NSDCoffice@aol.com
Web site: www.nsdc.org
Editor: Joan Richardson
Designer: Sue Chevalier
NSDC STAFF
Executive director
Dennis Sparks (SparksNSDC@aol.com)
Deputy executive director
Stephanie Hirsh (NSDCHirsh@aol.com)
Director of publications
Joan Richardson (NSDCJoan@aol.com)
Director of programs
Mike Murphy (NSDCMurphy@aol.com)
Director of special projects
Joellen Killion (NSDCKillio@aol.com)
Business manager
Leslie Miller (NSDCLeslie@aol.com)
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Mike Ford, president (2002)
Deborah Childs-Bowen (2003)
Lenore Cohen (2002)
Bobb Darnell (2001)
Cindy Harrison (2002)
Marti Richardson (2001)
Carole Schmidt, president-elect (2003)
Scotty Scott (2003)
Rosie Vojtek, past president (2001)
COPYING/REPRINT POLICY
NSDC members may make up to 30 copies of
individual Tools For Schools articles. Each copy must
include a full citation of the source. For permission
to make more copies than that or to reprint an
article from any NSDC publication, please fax your
request on your organization’s letterhead to Joan
Richardson at (313) 824-5062. Please allow two
weeks for a response. No e-mail requests accepted.
BACK COPIES
Members may order back copies of Tools For Schools
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100+ copies: $1each.
To order, contact NSDC’s main business office.
Postmaster: Send address changes to the National
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PAGE 7
Tools For Schools
August/September 2001
7 good reasons to join the team
Ask
Dr.
Developer
Dr. Developer has
all the answers to
questions that
staff developers
ask.
(At least he thinks
he does!)
Q
The school year has just started
and already my principal wants
teachers to divide into learning
teams. I’m already an excellent
teacher and I find it hard to believe that
taking time away from my classroom is
somehow going to help my students learn
more. My students need more of my time,
not less! Why would my students benefit if
I spend more time with other teachers?
Learning teams can benefit you
and your students in at least seven
ways. (I could come up with more
reasons but the editor never gives
me more space!)
1) Having teachers participate in learning teams is a powerful example for your
students about the importance of learning.
When students see you learn, they are seeing that their teachers value learning for
themselves as well as for their students.
You can build on that for your students by
making direct and frequent references to
the learning that you’re doing, pointing out
what you learned and what you do in your
classroom as a result of that learning.
2) Learning teams give teachers an opportunity to experience a way of learning
that they can use with their students. As
A
teachers become more comfortable with
this style of learning, they are more likely
to borrow these ideas for their classrooms.
3) Working with colleagues on issues focused on student learning builds a sense of
trust in a school. That can significantly alter
the atmosphere in a school and in a district.
4) Learning teams are more efficient than
pulling teachers from their classrooms and
sending them to workshops to learn.
5) Learning teams respect the knowledge and skills that teachers already have.
They encourage teachers to draw on resources closest to them — the other teachers in their own buildings and districts.
6) Some of the best learning that teachers do involves working alongside other
teachers who are familiar with the same
group of students and the expectations of
the school district. That might mean talking with them about problems they face
with challenging students, observing them
while they teach, and offering feedback.
7) Even excellent teachers need to work
with other teachers and continue to learn
about their practice. Not only will other
teachers benefit from the opportunities to
learn from you, you will be enriched by
spending this learning time with your colleagues.
Tools may be copied and used in workshops.
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
Member Services
PO Box 240
Oxford, Ohio 45056
Membership info: (800) 727-7288
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2001
Tools For Schools
TM
INSIDE
A bi-monthly
publication
supporting student
and staff learning
through school
improvement
3
4
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
www.nsdc.org
5
6
7
8
Tuning Protocol
Collaborative Assessment
Conference
Standards in Practice
Descriptive Review
Resources
Ask Dr. Developer
Group
Wise
Strategies for examining student work together
By Joan Richardson
E
xamining student work has always been part of a teacher’s job. But, in
recent years, that practice has moved from being a solitary activity to being
a more collaborative effort in which teachers learn about their practice by
sharing with and listening to colleagues.
In the hierarchy of professional development practices, examining student work
would rank near the top because of the way that teachers work together to sharpen
their practice to improve student learning.
Select a strategy for examining
student work.
As various organizations have become interested in the strategy of examining student work,
different protocols have been developed to guide
that work. A protocol is simply a structure and guide
for a group’s conversation regarding a piece of student work. The protocols are designed to provide a
safe place for teachers to share their students’ work
while also encouraging an honest exchange among
participants.
Every protocol has been designed to emphasize a different aspect of evaluation. Some, like the
Collaborative Assessment Conference, emphasize
describing the student work. Others, like the Coalition of Essential Schools’ Tuning Protocol, em-
phasize evaluative feedback from participants. Selecting a design that fits the culture of a school is a
crucial factor in successfully using that design.
The tools on Pages 3, 4, 5, and 6 provide various options for examining student work. School
teams may want to practice several options before
identifying one that best fits their school. Schools
may also discover that one strategy works best for
one team while another team prefers a different
strategy.
To learn more about practical options, visit the
Learning About Student Work web site maintained
by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform
(www.lasw.org). That web site includes a synopsis of about a dozen strategies for examining stuContinued on Page 2
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
Tools For Schools
Strategies for examining student work together
Continued from Page One
dent work and links to learn more about
each of them.
Opt for anonymity.
To introduce the process and to help
teachers become comfortable with the
concept, consider doing one or two practice sessions.
Bring in student work that does not
belong to any of the participants. Visit the
Learning about Student Work web site
(www.lasw.org) and look for samples of
student work that could be used for this
practice session. Or, tap colleagues at another school for samples of student work.
“Teachers are often quite shy about
bringing their own student work to the
table. They feel very apologetic. They feel
that others might castigate them for the
errors, for work that’s not perfectly done,”
said Lois Easton, director of professional
development at the Eagle Rock School and
Professional Development Center in Estes
Park, Colo. Easton does extensive work
with tuning protocols developed by the
Coalition of Essential schools.
Practicing on student work in which
they have no investment can help teachers feel more comfortable about the conversations they might hear regarding the
work of their students.
Select a project, task, or assessment
that addresses one of the schoolwide
goals for student performance.
The task should require that students
produce something that demonstrates what
they have learned. This could be a longterm project or a short-term task. Whatever the final result, the student product
or performance should be something
significant, not a worksheet, quiz, or test.
Geneva City Schools in Geneva,
N.Y., wanted students to do more writing
in math as a way to improve their ability
to explain how they solved math problems. So teachers assembled by grade
February/March 2001
level to study students’ math journals, said
Jody Hoch, now director of mathematics
for the Rush-Henrietta Central School
District in upstate New York.
particularly useful for very young children
who haven’t yet acquired adequate written communication skills.
Collect documents that will help
the study group participants
understand the project or task.
Watch the details.
These might include the initial assignment, scoring/grading criteria (or rubrics),
objectives of the assignments, exemplars,
models, timelines, checklists, etc. Think
about other key information participants
will need to understand the project or task
and that can be shared succinctly.
The presenting teacher should be prepared to briefly describe the context of the
student work. The documents listed above
would be used to illustrate his or her points
during that presentation.
Select samples of student work that
demonstrate authentic student
responses to the project or task.
Choose two or three samples to provide contrast. Teachers often find that a
sample of work that shows promise but is
not a stellar response to the assignment
provides the best basis for feedback. Work
selected may include final products, drafts,
reflections, etc.
The Annenberg Institute for School
Reform suggests a variety of ways to select student work samples:
n Written work (or artwork) from several students in response to the same assignment.
n Several pieces of work from one student in response to different assignments.
n One piece of work from a student who
completed the assignment successfully
and one piece from a student who was not
able to complete the assignment successfully (same assignment for both).
n Work done by students working in
groups (include work of at least two groups
that were given the same assignment).
n Videotape, audio tape, and/or photographs of students working, performing,
or presenting their work. This might be
PAGE 2
If possible, remove student names
from the samples.
Make enough copies of the student
work so that each participant has his or
her own copy. Ensure that the facilitator
knows in advance about any unique types
of student work, such as sculpture or an
entire portfolio of work, that are not easily duplicated. That will enable the facilitator to adapt the format accordingly.
If the student work is a video, a fiveminute clip is usually sufficient to demonstrate the work.
Prepare a focusing question.
The presenting teacher should prepare
a “focusing question” about the work that
addresses a real interest or concern. Questions typically focus on either inputs (the
assignment, teacher’s support of student
performance) or outputs (quality of student
work, teacher’s assessment of the work).
A broader question may elicit a wide
range of feedback — and this may be desirable. For example: How can I support
higher quality presentations? (input) What
are the strengths and weaknesses you see
in the student presentations? (output)
A narrower question might provide
the kinds of feedback the teacher finds
most useful. For example: How can my
prompt bring out more creativity in the
students’ work? (input) What evidence is
there in the student work of mathematical
problem solving? (output)
Remember, even with a narrower focus question, participants will offer a range
of feedback — on and off the question.
See the February 2001 issue of
Results to read about the use of
“tuning protocols,” one strategy
for examining student work.
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
Tools For Schools
Tuning Protocol
BACKGROUND: The Tuning Protocol was developed by the Coalition of Essential
Schools to provide teachers with feedback on authentic assessments (exhibitions,
portfolios, etc.). A teacher or a team of teachers presents samples of student work
and the context for the work. The presenter then offers a focusing question. After
reviewing the work, participants offer feedback.
FACILITATION: Can be facilitated by someone inside or outside the group.
TIME: One hour.
tips
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
When looking for evidence of
students’ thinking:
I Stay focused on the evidence
that is present in the work.
Directions
PRESENTATION.
Time: 15 minutes
I Presenter shares the student work and sets the context by describing the teaching/
learning situation. Presenter poses one or two key questions to be answered.
I As the presenter speaks, participants are quiet, taking notes.
CLARIFYING QUESTIONS.
Time: 5 minutes.
I Participants ask non-evaluative questions about the presentation, such as
“What happened before X? What did you do next?”
I Look openly and broadly; don’t
let your expectations cloud
your vision.
I Look for patterns in the
evidence that provide clues to
how and what the student was
thinking.
INDIVIDUAL WRITING.
Time: 5 minutes.
I Participants write individually about the presentation.
PARTICIPANT DISCUSSION.
Time: 15 minutes.
I Presenter turns to one side and listens silently during this time.
I Participants discuss among themselves, exploring issues raised during the
presentation, striving to understand the situation, and raising possible answers
to the questions.
PRESENTER REFLECTION.
Time: 15 minutes
I Presenter talks about the participants’ discussion.
I Participants are silent, taking notes as the presenter speaks.
DEBRIEFING.
Time: 10 minutes
I Presenter and participants discuss both the process and the content of the protocol.
Source: Lois Easton, professional development director, Eagle Rock School and Professional
Development Center, Estes Park, Colo., (970) 586-7109, e-mail: leaston@psd.k12.co.us.
PAGE 3
Source: “Some Guidelines for Learning
From Student Work,” Horace 13 (2),
November 1996. Horace is a publication of
the Coalition of Essential Schools. Available
online at www.essentialschools.org/pubs/
horace/13/v13n02.html.
February/March 2001
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
Tools For Schools
Collaborative Assessment
Conference
tips
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
When listening to colleagues’
thinking:
BACKGROUND: Developed by Harvard’s Project Zero, the Collaborative Assessment
Conference provides a structure for groups of teachers to look closely at student
work, describe it, ask questions about it, and explore implications for instruction. In
this practice, describing the assignment and other context factors for the student
work is not discussed until participants have described the work and asked questions
about it.
FACILITATION: An experienced facilitator should lead this process.
I Listen without judging.
I Tune in to differences in
perspective.
I Use controversy as an
opportunity to explore and
hear the perspectives of
others.
TIME: 45 to 60 minutes.
Directions
GETTING STARTED. The group chooses a facilitator to guide participants. The
presenting teacher shares copies of the selected work, without commenting about
the work or the assignment.
DESCRIBING THE WORK. The group describes any aspect of the work they notice. They
do not make judgments about the quality of the work or their personal preferences.
I Focus on understanding where
different interpretations come
from.
RAISING QUESTIONS. The group asks questions about the child, the assignment, the
curriculum, or any other area. The presenting teacher takes notes but does not respond.
I Make your own thinking clear
to others.
SPECULATING ABOUT WHAT THE STUDENT IS WORKING ON. The group “guesses”
about what the child was working on when he/she created the piece. This could include
ways the student was trying to fulfill the assignment, skills the child was trying to
master, questions the child was trying to answer, or ideas he/she was trying to express.
I Be patient and persistent.
THE “PRESENTING TEACHER” SPEAKS. The presenting teacher now adds
perspective on each of the previous phases of the conference. The teacher provides
his or her own perspective on the student’s work and responds to questions or issues
raised by the group.
IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING. Everyone is invited to share any
thoughts about the student work. These could include thoughts about their own teaching,
student learning, or ways to support a particular child in reaching his/her goals.
FINAL REFLECTION. At this time, participants have an opportunity to reflect on the
process of their own thinking during the conference.
Source: “Some Guidelines for Learning
From Student Work,” Horace 13 (2),
November 1996. Horace is a publication of
the Coalition of Essential Schools. Available
online at www.essentialschools.org/pubs/
horace/13/v13n02.html.
February/March 2001
Source: Harvard Project Zero, a 30-year-old research group at the Harvard Graduate
School of Education, works with individuals, schools, and other institutions to help create
communities of reflective, independent learners; to enhance deep understanding within
disciplines; and to promote critical and creative thinking. For more information, contact
Harvard Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education, 321 Longfellow Hall, 13
Appian Way, Cambridge, MA 02138, (617) 495-4342, fax (617) 495-9709, e-mail:
info@pz.harvard.edu, web site: http://pzweb.harvard.edu.
PAGE 4
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
Tools For Schools
Standards in Practice
BACKGROUND: Standards in Practice was developed by The Education Trust as a
“quality control’’ tool for analyzing and improving the quality of instruction. SIP is
typically used in bi-monthly meetings of small teams of teachers, guidance
counselors, and parents. The process calls for a close examination of teachers’
assignments, student work, and the relevant standard or set of standards.
FACILITATION: Usually done by a coach from outside the school.
TIME: 90 to 120 minutes.
tips
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
When reflecting on your own
thinking:
I Ask yourself, “Why do I see
this student work in this way?
What does this tell me about
what is important to me?”
Directions
1. A volunteer teacher brings to the meeting a set of student work, along with the
assignment. It must be ordinary, right-off-the-desk work.
2. Group members do the assignment themselves in order to experience the task
presented to students.
3. Team members identify the state or local standards (or national standards, if both
state and local standards are lacking) that align with the assignment. Note: This
step has a secondary benefit: In many cases, teachers, parents, and counselors are
less familiar with the standards and/or the assessments aligned to them than they
should be. Looking through the standards to find those that match gives team
members experience with the language and organization of the standards.
4. Without looking at the student work, the team constructs a scoring guide (rubric)
for this specific assignment. The scores go from 4, which is an ideal portrait of
work that would satisfy this assignment, down to 1, which describes minimal
effort. The rubric must include descriptions of exactly what the teacher wants to
see in successful work. Descriptions of work worthy of a 4 must include words
denoting quality, expressions such as “convincingly persuades,” “vividly portrays,”
“proves without question.” It cannot just list features alone.
I Look for patterns in your own
thinking.
I Tune in to the questions that
the student work and your
colleagues’ comments raise for
you.
I Compare what you see and
what you think about the
student work with what you
do in the classroom.
5. The team uses this scoring guide to score the student work. Team members
confine their comments to the work and do not make references to the student
who created the work.
6. The team summarizes what happened during the session and makes a plan of
action.
Source: “Examining student work,’’ by Ruth Mitchell, Journal of Staff Development,
Summer 1999 (Vol. 20, No. 3). For more information, contact the Education Trust at 1725 K
Street NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20006, (202) 293-1217, fax (202) 293-2605, e-mail:
rmitchell@edtrust.org. Education Trust’s web site is www.edtrust.org.
Source: “Some Guidelines for Learning
From Student Work,” Horace 13 (2),
November 1996. Horace is a publication of
the Coalition of Essential Schools. Available
online at www.essentialschools.org/pubs/
horace/13/v13n02.html.
February/March 2001
PAGE 5
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
Tools For Schools
Descriptive Review
tips
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
When you reflect on the
process of looking at student
work:
I What did you see in this
student’s work that was
interesting or surprising?
I What did you learn about how
this student thinks and learns?
I What about the process
helped you see and learn these
things?
I What did you learn from
listening to your colleagues
that was interesting or
surprising?
I What new perspectives did
your colleagues provide?
I How can you use your
colleagues’ perspectives?
I What questions about teaching
and assessment did looking at
this student’s work raise for
you?
I How can you pursue these
questions further?
I Are there ideas you would like
to try in your classroom as a
result of looking at the
student’s work?
Source: “Some Guidelines for Learning
From Student Work,” Horace 13 (2),
November 1996. Horace is a publication of
the Coalition of Essential Schools. Available
online at www.essentialschools.org/pubs/
horace/13/v13n02.html.
BACKGROUND: Several variations exist for the Descriptive Review. All of them
feature close, collaborative description of a student’s work as well as the child who
created that work. A teacher typically requests a review because he or she has
questions about the child. Any artifact of student work can be the subject of a
descriptive review as long as participants can view it during their discussion.
FACILITATION: Should be provided by an experienced facilitator.
TIME: At least 45 minutes.
Directions
1. The facilitator introduces the student work and describes what participants should
try to “see’’ in the work — the underlying values and principles, the habits of
mind, the assumptions, etc. Time: 2 minutes.
2. Presenters describe their work in detail. Reviewers take notes. Time: 10 minutes
for each presenter.
3. Reviewers may ask clarifying questions. Time: 3 minutes.
4. The facilitator begins the first round of discussion by asking, “What do you see?
Describe this work physically. Describe this work as literally as you can.”
Reviewers respond in turn around the circle. Time: 3-5 minutes.
5. The facilitator summarizes what is heard, restates important themes and ideas that
emerged from the description before going on to the next round. Time: 2 minutes.
6. The facilitator moves into the next round of questioning, framing each round
with a guiding question. As the rounds of questions proceeds, the facilitator
guides the discussion into becoming less literal. Reviewers should move into
discussion of assumptions, values, compromises, patterns, images, etc.
Time: 3-5 minutes each round.
7. The facilitator summarizes at the end of each round.
8. The facilitator makes a final summation of the reviewers’ descriptions. Time: 2 minutes.
9. The facilitator invites the reviewers to offer suggestions or make
recommendations to the presenters. The facilitator invites the presenters to share
with participants any new insights as a result of listening to the descriptions.
Time: 10 minutes.
Source: Lois Easton, professional development director, Eagle Rock School and Professional
Development Center, Estes Park, Colo., (970) 586-7109, e-mail: leaston@psd.k12.co.us.
February/March 2001
PAGE 6
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
Tools For Schools
Learning about
ISSN 0276-928X
examining student work
N “Examining student work,” by Ruth
Mitchell, Journal of Staff Development
Summer 1999. Presents plan used by the
Education Trust for examining student
work. Available at www.nsdc.org/library/
studentwork.html.
N “Hoover Middle School Teachers Examine Student Work,’’ by John Norton.
Describes the work of the history team at
Hoover Middle School in Long Beach,
Calif., which meets weekly to scrutinize
student work and their own lessons. On
the web version, listen in on an actual
“critical friends” session, examine the student work yourself, and review the Hoover
teachers’ tips for other teachers who want
to start their own collaborative groups.
Available online at www.middleweb.com/
Hooverpromo.html.
N “Learning to teach better by examining
student work. A budding trend and the
research behind it,’’ by Debra Williams,
Catalyst: Voices of Chicago School Reform, December 1999. Includes teacher
stories, research findings, and examples
of student work (high-scoring, typical and
low-scoring student work from grade 6
writing) accompanied by the assignments
and teacher analysis. Available at
www.catalyst-chicago.org/12-99/
129toc.htm.
N Looking at Student Work: A Window
into the Classroom by Annenberg Institute
for School Reform. 1997. 28-minute video.
Features students, teachers, and administrators at Norview High School in Norfolk,
Virginia, as they discuss their experiences
in looking at student work. For ordering
information, visit www.aisr.brown.edu/
publications/pubvs.html.
N Looking at Student Work web site,
maintained by the Annenberg Institute for
School Reform. Offers extensive resources for studying student work. Visit
www.lasw.org.
N “Looking Collaboratively at Student
Work: An Essential Toolkit,’’ by Kathleen
Cushman, Horace 13 (2), November
1996. Horace is a publication of the Coalition of Essential Schools. Describes several strategies for examining student work,
including the Coalition’s tuning protocol.
The entire issue is available online at
www.essentialschools.org/pubs/horace/
13/v13n02.html.
N Looking Together At Students’ Work: A
Companion Guide to Assessing Student
Learning by Tina Blythe, David Allen, and
Barbara S. Powell. New York: Teachers
College Press, 1999. Provides strategies
and resources for working together to examine and discuss student work such as
science projects, essays, art work, math
problems, and more. Offers a clear process
for starting and sustaining collaborative
discussions of student work and student
learning and detailed descriptions of two
structures for examining student work, the
Tuning Protocol and the Collaborative Assessment Conference. To order, visit
www.teacherscollegepress.com.
N The Cart Before the Horse Before the
Cart: How Deeper Understandings of
Standards, Instruction, and Assessment
Can Emerge from Examining Student
Work by Don Glass (2000). Posted by the
Rethinking Accountability initiative of the
Annenberg Institute for School Reform.
Documents discussions from two meetings where teachers, parents, and other
stakeholders collaboratively examined a
piece of student art and writing. Available
online at www.aisr.brown.edu/accountability/lswA/speakout/index.html.
N “Student work: This focus for staff development leads to genuine collaboration,”
by Anne Lewis, Journal of Staff Development, Fall 1998. This article was an excerpt
from the following article: “Teachers in the
driver’s seat,” by Anne Lewis, The Harvard
Education Letter, March/April 1998.
PAGE 7
Tools For Schools is published five times a year
(August, October, December, February and April) by
the National Staff Development Council, PO Box
240, Oxford, OH 45056, for $49 of standard and
comprehensive membership fees.
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Editor: Joan Richardson
Designer: Susan M. Chevalier
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BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Mike Ford, president (2002)
Deborah Childs-Bowen (2003)
Lenore Cohen (2002)
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Cindy Harrison (2002)
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Scotty Scott (2003)
Rosie Vojtek, past president (2001)
COPYING/REPRINT POLICY
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include a full citation of the source. For permission to
make more copies than that or to reprint an article
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To order, contact NSDC’s main business office.
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February/March 2001
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
Tools For Schools
Not for everyone
Ask
Dr.
Developer
Dr. Developer has
all the answers to
questions that staff
developers ask.
(At least he thinks
he does!)
Q
I’m intrigued by the idea of having teachers work together to examine student work. But I wonder if my school is prepared for
this. How can I tell if we’re ready?
A
Working together to study student
work is an intensive process. Collegiality needs to be part of the culture of a school if this study of student work is going to be successful. That
means that teachers must already be comfortable working with each other and learning from other. There must be a respectful
and trusting atmosphere in the building.
Although collaborating to examine
student work should enhance that trust and
respect, it’s unlikely that this practice, by
itself, would create that atmosphere. So,
if you’re working in a school where teachers are accustomed to going in the room
and closing the door, you may not be ready
to jump into this practice.
Ask yourself these questions about
your school. Are teachers already accustomed to looking at student data? Do they
do this alone or do they do this as a group?
Do teachers already work together on curriculum committees? Do they write cur-
riculum together? Do they have regular
planning time with each other? Are they
involved in other forms of collaborative
professional development — study
groups, peer coaching, mentoring, etc.?
If you believe that examining student
work is a goal you want to work towards,
consider laying the groundwork for that
by working in one of these other areas first.
There are also other factors that will impact a school’s readiness for this practice.
STANDARDS. The school should already be using standards. Teachers must
have some framework to operate within
when they’re examining student work.
They need to know the expectations for
students.
TIME. Teachers also need time to do
this work. In many districts, that will require changes in union contracts or, at a
minimum, a recognition that teachers participating in this practice need the opportunity to be flexible about their time. Examining student work is not a task for teachers who like to keep one eye on the clock.
EXPERTISE. When a school begins to
explore this practice, they probably will initially want help from an outside facilitator
who has been trained to lead this process.
TOOLS MAY BE COPIED AND USED IN WORKSHOPS.
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
Member Services
PO Box 240
Oxford, Ohio 45056
Membership info: (800) 727-7288
t
3
F O R
A
DY N A M I C
F
Vol. 4, No. 1
September 2008
Lessons from a
coach
TEACHERS
TEACHING
TEACHERS
CO M M U N I T Y
O F
T E A C H E R
™
L E A D E R S
Tap the power of peers
By Lois Brown Easton
irst-year teacher Francine
Gillespie waited in the 3rdgrade office for her
colleagues. She had brought
student work to share — a
science report she’d chosen randomly
from her students’ reports on the galaxy.
She couldn’t wait for her colleagues’
What’s
inside
feedback and suggestions on the quality
of the work and their ideas for her to
improve her teaching of this unit.
Two miles away, four teachers stood
in Bud Collier’s room, jotting notes on
clipboards as Bud taught a mathematics
lesson they had created together. One
watched a particular student;
Peer-to-peer
another scanned
professional
learning takes a
the room every
variety of powerful
60 seconds; a
forms
third noted the
work of a pair of
students in the back of the room. Later,
they would meet for a colloquium. Bud
would describe how he had felt teaching
the group-created lesson; the others would
chime in with the data they had collected.
In the high school across from Bud
Collier’s middle school, Enrique Chama
summarized his research for the social
studies staff. He described why he chose
to research the effect of higher-level questioning. He had documented that students
resist venturing outside their comfort zone
with analysis and synthesis questions and
shared what he had done to make higher-
Work on
language, assume
positive
intentions when
coaching, says
Amber Jones.
Page 5
Voice of a
teacher leader
Bill Ferriter
believes that
compassionate
colleagues can
solve the
retention
problem.
Page 6
Focus on NSDC’s
standards
To be useful,
data need a
strenuous
workout.
Page 7
Direct instruction
in writing helps
students learn.
Research brief
Page 9
Assess how your
group is
implementing
NSDC’s Context
standards.
NSDC tool
ns
dc
Page 11
National Staff
Development
Council
800-727-7288
www.nsdc.org
NSDC’s purpose: Every educator engages in effective professional learning every day so every student achieves.
t
3 TEACHERS TEACHING TEACHERS
CHARACTERISTICS OF POWERFUL
PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
Powerful professional learning:
•
Begins with what will really help young
people learn. It results in application in
the classroom.
•
Requires collecting, analyzing, and presenting real data. Because it is about
what happens in the classroom, it is
content-rich. It may never formally end;
as classroom situations change, new
questions arise leading to new answers
and more new questions.
•
Honors the staff’s professionalism,
expertise, experiences, and skills.
Although they may work alone on some
aspects of professional learning, such as
Chama’s action research project, powerful professional learning is collaborative
or has collaborative aspects to it. Faculty
are more likely to buy in to professional
learning because they understand the
need and respond to it by learning and
helping each other implement changes.
•
Establishes a culture of quality. The conversation in the hallways, faculty
lounge, and meetings changes.
•
Slows the pace of schooling. Each professional learning activity requires
reflection, as well as sharing thoughts
and ideas. Many educators organize
themselves into professional learning
communities to ensure that they have
regularly scheduled time to continue
their own learning, help others learn,
and make sense of what’s going on in
school.
PAGE 2
order questions a regular feature of class discussions. His data, collected over four months, were
impressive, and his colleagues agreed to try variations of his processes in their own classes if he
would coach them.
These teachers (their names have been
changed) were engaged in peer-to-peer professional learning. Gillespie had brought student
work to be examined using a tuning protocol at a
grade-level meeting. Her colleagues had taken
care of other business online beforehand so they
could devote this meeting to professional learning. Anyone from Collier’s vertical learning community could have taught the lesson he taught;
the team had worked on it as part of lesson study
which brought together district mathematics
teachers from 6th through 10th grades. Chama
was sharing the results of an action research project with his professional learning community.
Professional learning is the learning that
teachers do themselves and with each other.
Professional development, although valuable,
usually involves outsiders who develop and train
people. Professional development is sometimes
the best way a faculty can learn something new,
and most of us would prefer to be trained in
something like lifesaving. The problem is that
professional development often is a one-shot situation, and after the speaker or trainer departs or
the university course ends, although teachers
have the best intentions, they are unable to
implement what they learned. They may have no
support so that when there are problems, they
have no one to turn to. They may find it easier to
keep doing what is familiar, despite initial excitement about change.
In addition to the professional learning activities Gillespie, Collier, and Chama engaged in,
consider these:
• Building assessments or rubrics together;
• Analyzing and revising curriculum;
• Conducting focus groups with students to get
student voices;
• Analyzing videotapes of teaching;
• Participating in a book or article study;
• Using any of the protocols described by the
National School Reform Faculty;
Other professional learning activities
National Staff Development Council • 800-727-7288 • www.nsdc.org
TAP THE POWER
OF PEERS
A simple three-part
definition of
professional learning
communities is:
• A group of
educators who
meet regularly to
engage in
professional
learning ...
• To enhance their
own practice as
educators ...
• In order to help all
students succeed
as learners.
GET THE POWER
Read about 23
successful
professional learning
strategies in Powerful
Designs for
Professional Learning.
The expanded second
edition introduces
new chapters on
classroom walkthroughs,
differentiated
coaching, dialogue,
and video. Available
through
store.nsdc.org.
SEPTEMBER 2008
t
3 TEACHERS TEACHING TEACHERS
•
Developing and analyzing case studies, or
using those available online;
• Analyzing assignments (Standards in
Practice);
• Developing portfolios to share;
• Keeping journals and discussing key experiences with each other; or
• Shadowing students (or adults) in one’s own
or another school.
These and other strategies are fully described
in Powerful Designs for Professional Learning
(NSDC, 2008).
Professional learning starts in many schools
by forming professional learning communities.
However, unless teachers engage in professional
learning, professional learning communities risk
becoming just business as usual, rather than a
time for professional learning. Beware the statement, “Oh, we do professional learning communities” in a school that may merely have renamed
faculty, grade-level, or department meetings. A
simple three-part definition of professional learning communities is:
• A group of educators who meet regularly to
engage in professional learning ...
• To enhance their own practice as
educators ...
• In order to help all students succeed as
learners.
To be a true professional learning community, all three parts must be in place. Professional
learning is not a business-as-usual agenda full of
items to be decided or announcements to be
made. Some characteristics of professional learning communities are variable, however, such as:
How to get started
The earliest form of a professional learning
community was probably a Critical Friends
Group. A group can call itself a professional
learning community if it is really engaged in all
three parts of the definition.
•
WHAT THE GROUP CALLS ITSELF
Sometimes two or three close colleagues
form a professional learning community.
Sometimes a whole faculty participates in a sin•
THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE IN THE GROUP
PAGE 3
gle professional learning community. There’s no
perfect number, except as participants consider
“air time.” In a group of 10 or more, meeting for
an hour or so, participants may become frustrated
because they do not have time to talk. At the other end of the range, a group of three to four may
lack diversity. Go for eight to 10 members and
adjust as necessary by adding more groups.
Some professional learning strategies can be
accomplished in 30 minutes; some take a few
hours or more. Some require weekly meetings;
some require monthly meetings. Some are better
done when school is in session; others are better
done after school or during breaks (with the
teachers receiving compensation). The meeting
time can vary according to what members want;
however, professional learning communities
should be scheduled ahead of time so that they
have a regular place on the calendar.
The best way to get started is to start. Find
someone who would also like to engage in professional learning. Decide when and where to
meet. Informally share what you’re learning.
(“Joe and I looked at student portfolios the other
day.”) Be sure to share information with the
school administrator and ask for time to share
formally during a faculty meeting. Gradually
invite other teachers to join you or start their own
groups.
The impetus to start professional learning
communities and engage in professional learning
can come from teachers themselves or be
launched by administrators, preferably with the
help of a design team composed of those teachers
most interested in participating. Professional
learning communities, like most collaborative
efforts, are unlikely to survive an executive mandate: “You, you, and you — be a professional
learning community.” It’s OK to start small with
two or three people sharing their professional
practice, their students’ work, and the questions,
dilemmas, and problems that inevitably arise.
Professional learning can be contagious.
When teachers talk about what they are learning,
they infect others around them, who (because
learning is natural) may then spread learning to
their colleagues.
•
National Staff Development Council • 800-727-7288 • www.nsdc.org
HOW LONG THE GROUP MEETS
TAP THE POWER
OF PEERS
START WITH
YOURSELF
Ask colleagues to
help you examine
a piece of student
work or an aspect
of your
professional
practice; have a
peer serve as
facilitator and
timer for the
process.
Take an article to
a faculty meeting
and ask if other
faculty members
want to form an
ad hoc discussion
group.
Ask colleagues for
help writing an
assignment.
Develop a case
study about a
student who is
bewildering you
and ask others to
study it with you.
SEPTEMBER 2008
t
3 TEACHERS TEACHING TEACHERS
Don’t let excuses delay professional learning. If you wait until the school culture is perfect
and collegial trust is rampant, you will never
begin. Professional learning activities themselves
often foster trust, and team-building exercises
don’t mean much unless they happen when people work on real problems using a professional
learning strategy such as a tuning protocol.
Start with yourself. Ask colleagues to help
you examine a piece of student work or an aspect
of your professional practice; have a peer serve
as facilitator and timer for the process. Or bring
an article to a faculty meeting and ask if other
faculty members want to form an ad hoc discussion group. Ask colleagues for help writing an
assignment. Develop a case study about a student
who is bewildering you and ask others to study it
with you.
What Gillespie, Collier, and Chama do in the
classroom is better because they have peer support — their students reap the benefits of their
Conclusion
PAGE 4
teachers’ professional learning. Gillespie, Collier,
and Chama also affect the work of colleagues
who hear about what they are doing and want to
know more. As their colleagues begin their own
journeys into professional learning, they begin to
affect the learning of their students. Soon the
school as a whole is improving. As more schools
sponsor professional learning and the mechanism
by which teachers learn (the professional learning
community or whatever the learning group may
call itself), they turn to the districts for support.
Districts become professional learning communities, too. Peer-to-peer professional learning, then,
is a powerful way to make change in a system
that otherwise seems to resist change.
TAP THE POWER
OF PEERS
Don’t let excuses
delay professional
learning. If you wait
until the school
culture is perfect and
collegial trust is
rampant, you will
never begin.
Easton, L.B. (Ed.). (2008). Powerful
designs for professional learning, 2nd Ed.
Oxford, OH: NSDC.
Ginsberg, M. (2004). Context, in Easton,
L.B., (Ed.), Powerful Designs for Professional
Learning. Oxford, OH: NSDC. N
References
National Staff Development Council • 800-727-7288 • www.nsdc.org
SEPTEMBER 2008
t
NSDC TOOL
3 TEACHERS TEACHING TEACHERS
E
PAGE 8
Protocol:
A structure and
guide for a group’s
conversation
regarding a piece of
student work.
Got an hour? Here is
an efficient way to examine student work
THE TUNING PROTOCOL:
xamining student work has always been
part of a teacher’s job. But, in recent
years, that practice has moved from being
a solitary activity to being more collaborative
work in which teachers learn about their practice
by sharing with and listening to colleagues.
In the hierarchy of professional learning
practices, examining student work would rank
near the top because of the way that teachers
work together to sharpen their practice to
improve student learning.
Background: The Tuning Protocol was developed by the Coalition of Essential Schools to
provide teachers with feedback on authentic
assessments (exhibitions, portfolios, etc.). A
teacher or team of teachers presents samples of
student work and the context for the work. The
presenter then offers a focusing question. After
reviewing the work, participants offer feedback.
Facilitation: Can be facilitated by someone
inside or outside the group.
Time: One hour.
DIRECTIONS
Time: 15 minutes
• Presenter shares the student work and sets the context by describing the teaching/learning
situation. Presenter poses one or two key questions to be answered.
• As the presenter speaks, participants are quiet, taking notes.
Presentation
Time: 5 minutes
• Participants ask non-evaluative questions about the presentation, such as “What happened
before X? What did you do next?”
Clarifying questions
Individual writing
Time: 5 minutes
• Participants write individually about the presentation.
Time: 15 minutes
• Presenter turns to one side and listens silently during this time.
• Participants discuss among themselves, exploring issues raised during the presentation,
striving to understand the situation, and raising possible answers to the questions.
Participant discussion
Presenter reflection
Time: 15 minutes
• Presenter talks about the participants’ discussion.
• Participants are silent, taking notes as the presenter speaks.
For more information
about examining
student work visit
www.nsdc.org/library
/strategies/
examiningwork.cfm
Time: 10 minutes
• Presenter and participants discuss both the process and the content of the protocol.
Debriefing
SOURCE: Lois Easton, editor, Powerful Designs for Professional Learning (Oxford, OH: NSDC, 2004.)
National Staff Development Council • (800) 727-7288 • www.nsdc.org
OCTOBER 2005
STANDARDS ASSESSMENT INVENTORY Recommendations: Learning Designs Standard
Tools to support COMPREHENSIVE strategies
theme / THE BASIC INGREDIENTS
WEIGHING the WORKSHOP
A S S E S S T H E M E R I T S W I T H S I X K E Y C R I T E R I A F O R P L A N N I N G A N D E VA L U AT I O N
BY CATHERINE A. LITTLE AND KRISTINA AYERS PAUL
E
very teacher can recall a
range of experiences in
professional development
workshops. Some of
these may have provided
opportunities in which teachers felt
engaged, empowered, and supported
as learners, while others felt disconnected from practice. Although we
recognize that workshops, particularly
those with no follow-up support, are
not the ideal learning experience for
teachers, we also acknowledge that
some form of workshop is still a common approach in professional development in the United States. Therefore, even within a context calling for
more comprehensive professional
26
JSD
DECEMBER 2009
VOL. 30, NO. 5
development, the workshop merits
careful examination in terms of the
quality of learning it can provide.
Designers, facilitators, and evaluators
need tools to guide reflection on quality that will lead to the best possible
learning experience for teachers.
We developed and used the planning and evaluation framework
described here as part of a statewide
evaluation of professional development for K-12 teachers in a variety of
CATHERINE A. LITTLE (catherine.little
@uconn.edu) is assistant professor in the
department of educational psychology at the
University of Connecticut. KRISTINA AYERS
PAUL (kristina.paul@uconn.edu) is a doctoral
student in the department of educational
psychology at the University of Connecticut.
WWW.NSDC.ORG
disciplines (Little, Paul, Wilson,
Kearney, & Hines, 2008). While we
developed this framework as a tool for
formative evaluation, we expect that it
will be equally useful to planners as a
guide for designing workshop-style
professional development.
FRAMEWORK
As we prepared to evaluate professional development that incorporated
workshops, we continually returned to
key principles such as those stated in
the recent NSDC report on the status
of professional learning. “Effective
professional development is intensive,
ongoing, and connected to practice;
focuses on the teaching and learning
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
common sense, but keeping this focus
at the forefront of planning helps to
center professional development
around the learning implications for
classrooms and the ultimate purpose
for teacher professional learning.
2. CLIMATE
INGREDIENTS
for professional
learning
highlighted
in this article:
• Plan learning experiences
thoughtfully.
• Measure impact of
professional learning.
• Connect learning to the
classroom.
• Differentiate adult learning.
Birman, Desimone, Porter, and
Garet (2000) identified coherence as a
critical component of professional
development that promotes changes
in teacher knowledge and classroom
practice. In their definition, coherence
refers to how professional development connects to teachers’ classroom
practice and professional goals, as well
as the standards that guide curriculum
and instruction in schools. The following criteria reflect coherence within a high-quality learning experience:
• Designers build professional
development around substantive and
connected content that is appropriate
to and representative of the relevant
discipline and participant teaching
assignments. The emphasis is on
ensuring that the content itself is relevant to teachers and of high quality.
• The learning experience offers
specific and explicit connections to
standards. Not only do facilitators
make connections to standards in
planning a high-quality learning experience, they also devote specific attention to having teachers explore or
review those connections within the
experience.
• Facilitators highlight specific
connections to assessment through a
focus on assessment strategies linked
to content and the use of assessment
data in instructional decision making.
• Classroom-applicable activities
are integrated into professional development. This criterion does not mean
that the learning experience must be
“make-and-take” nor that it must provide activities that teachers will be
able to use immediately without careful consideration of how to integrate
them. However, high-quality professional development provides specific
applications and/or opportunities for
teachers to construct their own classroom connections to the content they
are learning.
• High-quality professional development maintains a focus on K-12
students. This criterion seems like
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
800-727-7288
1. COHERENCE
theme / THE BASIC INGREDIENTS
of specific academic content; is connected to other school initiatives; and
builds strong working relationships
among teachers” (Darling-Hammond,
Wei, Andree, Richardson, &
Orphanos, 2009, p. 5). While we
acknowledge the importance of more
comprehensive professional development including sustained learning
opportunities, we examined how
workshops and similar experiences as a
part of that system must be designed
to reflect certain quality indicators.
Our team of current and former
classroom teachers and professional
development facilitators drew upon
their own workshop experiences, as
well as the literature on professional
development and adult learning, to
identify key criteria for high-quality
learning within workshops. The criteria fell into six key categories: coherence, climate, instructional strategies,
participant engagement, logistical considerations for participant learning, and
assessment and feedback.
The climate for learning is an
important consideration for adult participants, just as it is for K-12 students. The climate of professional
development sets a tone for learning,
encouraging participant engagement
and also communicating the importance of climate for promoting student engagement. Key considerations
for climate include understanding
participants as adult learners as well as
creating a general environment of
respect and purposeful activity.
• Participants are treated as professionals in both explicit and implicit ways. Facilitators
demonstrate respect for the professional knowledge and experiences that
participants bring. Facilitators also
communicate professional respect
through a physical environment that
is comfortable for adults and includes
easy access to important amenities.
• High-quality learning experiences promote an interactive climate
in which participants feel welcome to
share ideas, ask questions, and express
their opinions and experiences as
related to the classroom context.
• There is an interchange of
questions and answers among facilitators and participants. Facilitators
invite questions and are responsive in
the answers and resources that they
recommend. Facilitators also ask questions to prompt discussion, and they
encourage interchange among participants, so that an overall professional
conversation occurs among the educators present.
• There is time for discussion
and reflection, including specific
time allotted for participants to consider how what they are learning
VOL. 30, NO. 5
DECEMBER 2009
JSD
27
theme / THE BASIC INGREDIENTS
applies to their own setting. Such
reflection time might be guided by
structured questions or left more open
to participant response.
28
3. INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES
The rationale for the Quality
Teaching standard from NSDC’s
Standards for Staff Development
(2001) highlights that to the extent
possible, participants in professional
development should experience
instruction the way that they are
intended to use it. Moreover, the
Design and Learning standards discuss careful planning of learning experiences for teachers and the integration of theories and research on how
adults learn as well as how children
learn. These standards inform the criteria for planning and evaluating the
strategies and activities used within a
professional learning context.
• Participants in high-quality
learning engage in substantive activities that are grounded in quality content, organized around significant
learning objectives for teachers and, by
extension, their students, and planned
so that they engage teachers in critical
thinking about their own practice.
• High-quality professional development uses appropriately varied
delivery formats, integrating strategies that are relevant to the content
and to the participants. This criterion
also emphasizes the importance of
using high-quality materials that support content acquisition and delivery.
• Facilitators model instructional
strategies for teacher participants.
These learning experiences also provide an effective balance of strategies
between those that put teachers in the
role of their students and those that
address teachers directly as adult
learners.
• Questioning provides the
groundwork for active communication between the facilitator and participants. Facilitators model questioning strategies relevant to the content
JSD
DECEMBER 2009
VOL. 30, NO. 5
and encourage discussion of question
preparation and delivery. They use
well-designed questions to guide discussions and small-group activities.
• High-quality learning reflects
attention to varying participant
readiness and experience levels.
Flexible activities with multiple entry
points, respectful discussion, and
responsive grouping patterns are
among the strategies that facilitators
may use to provide a differentiated
response to the range of participant
readiness levels.
• High-quality learning uses varying groupings that are appropriate
to the tasks. This criterion reflects an
overall focus on purposeful organization of activities to promote optimal
learning and emphasizes giving teachers options for how and with whom
they work.
4. PARTICIPANT ENGAGEMENT
Planning for effective professional
development includes careful consideration of how and in what grouping
context participants will work.
Evaluation of these experiences, therefore, can include observation of how
participants are involved in activities
and the degree to which their engagement is evident.
This theme and its criteria are
perhaps more relevant for evaluation
than for planning, but are included
here to emphasize the focus on the
teacher as engaged learner.
• Participant engagement in
large-group settings includes attention to how and to what degree participants are involved with learning
when a whole group is together, as in
a whole-group content delivery context or whole-group discussions.
• Participant engagement in
small-group settings reflects attention to how teachers are invited to
work with one another on tasks and
discussions, and how on-task learning
is fostered by the facilitator and by
participants themselves.
WWW.NSDC.ORG
5. LOGISTICAL CONSIDERATIONS
FOR PARTICIPANT LEARNING
Planning for professional development requires attention to many organizational and management details.
These, too, form part of the overall
plan for and assessment of quality.
• High-quality learning experiences make effective use of time, with
purposeful yet flexible organization to
maintain focus on intended outcomes
and to respond to participant needs.
Breaks are strategically provided at regular intervals, are of sufficient length,
and end on time, and the overall
learning experience adheres to a schedule that respects participant time.
• The materials and resources
supplied to participants are organized and provided in adequate supply.
Resources include sufficient detail and
documentation to allow participants
to recall key understandings at a later
time.
• If appropriate, participants are
provided with access and time to use
technology that is integrated within
the learning opportunity. Facilitators
maintain an appropriate participantto-technology ratio and recognize and
respect individual readiness levels.
6. ASSESSMENT AND FEEDBACK
Just as classroom instruction must
be grounded in quality assessment
that allows educators to monitor student learning and make instructional
decisions based on data, high-quality
professional development is also
grounded in assessment and incorporates assessment within the overall
process.
• Decision making about professional development is guided by overarching goals and by evidence of
learning needs among teachers.
Such evidence may be drawn from
student assessment data, teachers’
documented goals for growth, district
teacher evaluation data, and other
sources.
• During implementation, ongoNATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
theme / THE BASIC INGREDIENTS
ing assessment should be incorporated through formal and informal
methods. Facilitators use a variety of
strategies to check for understanding
and to adjust the pace and content of
instruction according to teachers’
demonstrated needs.
• Participants have multiple
opportunities to demonstrate learning. In order to conduct ongoing
assessment, facilitators must encourage teachers to communicate what
they are learning; moreover, opportunities to demonstrate and share learning help to promote engagement and
active connections between the professional development content and
classroom practice.
• As participants demonstrate
their learning, facilitators provide
respectful and appropriate feedback
to help participants evaluate their own
progress toward the stated learning
objectives and individual professional
goals.
• High-quality professional development is not a one-shot session but
includes some version of follow-up,
whether a formal follow-up with the
same facilitator or a structured ongoing conversation. Although often the
workshop-oriented structure does not
30
JSD
DECEMBER 2009
VOL. 30, NO. 5
include this element, it is perhaps the
most critical element for improving
the likelihood that changes in classroom practice will result.
APPLICATIONS OF THE
FRAMEWORK
We see several possibilities for
using these criteria as a framework for
planning and evaluating professional
development. In our experience as
evaluators charged with making formative recommendations to professional
learning designers, we identified sample performance indicators for each
criterion and looked for evidence of
these as we observed the learning in
action. We then used our observation
notes to highlight areas of strength
and raise questions and concerns for
facilitators, encouraging them to
use our observations in planning their
ongoing work with participants. We
also see that these criteria might be
used as a planning tool, much as students might refer to an assessment rubric as they engage in the
development of a product. After articulating professional learning goals and
objectives, planners might then use
the criteria to ensure that all aspects
of creating high-quality learning have
WWW.NSDC.ORG
been considered in their design.
Furthermore, the criteria can guide
ongoing evaluation as a school, district, or other learning organization
strives to build high-quality learning
for teachers that ultimately promote
high-quality learning for students.
REFERENCES
Birman, B.F., Desimone, L.,
Porter, A.C., & Garet, M.S. (2000,
May). Designing professional development that works. Educational
Leadership, 57(8), 28-33.
Darling-Hammond, L., Wei,
R.C., Andree, A., Richardson, N., &
Orphanos, S. (2009, February).
Professional learning in the learning
profession: A status report on teacher
development in the United States and
abroad. Dallas, TX: NSDC.
Little, C.A., Paul, K.A., Wilson,
H.E., Kearney, K.L., & Hines, A.H.
(2008). Examining professional development: An observational framework.
Unpublished instrument, Connecticut
Teacher Quality Partnership Grant
Evaluation, University of Connecticut.
National Staff Development
Council. (2001). NSDC’s standards
for staff development. Oxford, OH:
Author. I
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
Vol. 2, No. 7
April 2007
THE LEARNING
System
FOR A DYNAMIC COMMUNITY OF DISTRICT LEADERS ENSURING SUCCESS FOR ALL STUDENTS
WHAT’S
INSIDE
District
Leadership
Letting go of
district-based
professional
development
isn’t easy — but
it is essential.
PAGE 2
Focus on
NSDC’s
Standards
Investing in jobembedded
strategies is the
most effective
way to use
professional
development
funds.
PAGE 3
NSDC Tool
What a district
leader needs to
know about
teamwork is
demonstrated in
“Navigating the
Maze.”
PAGES 4-5
Selecting coaches
Hiring or selecting the right individuals to serve as coaches
is critical to the success of any coaching efforts
B Y
M
J O E L L E N
K I L L I O N
ost schools and districts
implement coaching to improve
teaching and student learning.
Sometimes, the main purpose of
coaching is program implementation, such as a
comprehensive school reform program. Sometimes, coaching is implemented to refine instruction in general or to support teachers in adapting
instruction to meet the needs of certain groups of
students, such as English language learners.
Sometimes, coaching is intended to support a
certain group of teachers, such as novice teachers. Still other coaching programs strive to
improve student learning in a more general way.
Once a district decides the goals of coach-
A N D
C I N D Y
H A R R I S O N
ing, other decisions are easier to make. One of
the crucial decisions is whether to deploy
coaches at the school or district level. This
decision will impact the hiring and selection of
coaches, supervision of coaches, standardizing
the work of coaches, and establishing relationships with colleagues and supervisors.
DISTRICT-LEVEL DEPLOYMENT
Districts typically deploy coaches at the
district level when they want to support implementation of a districtwide initiative. One district, for
example, might want to support implementation of
differentiation strategies. Another might be
National Staff
Development
Council
800-727-7288
www.nsdc.org
Continued on p. 6
Our goal: All teachers in all schools will experience high-quality professional learning as part of their daily work.
COVER STORY
SCHOOL-BASED
COACHES
Advantages
• Relationship
with teachers at
site
• Knowledge of
school context
• In classrooms on
a regular basis
• Trust with
teachers
• Familiarity with
students
Disadvantages
• Balancing
perspectives of
coach,
administration,
and teachers
• Being perceived
as an evaluator
of teachers
• Being an expert
in all areas that
the school needs
• Not spending
time in the role
6
Selecting coaches: School-based vs. district-based
innovation those coaches support may not be
viewed as an integral part of the school’s program
implementing a new curriculum. Sometimes, a
of improvement.
district with limited funds hires several districtlevel coaches to support all schools. Some states
SCHOOL-LEVEL DEPLOYMENT
and even districts have implemented coaching
Districts typically decide to deploy coaches
support for targeted schools.
at the school level because they believe that
District-based coaches offer the advantage of:
frequent access to coaching will improve
• Standardizing program implementation
teaching and learning. The authors confess a
throughout a district;
strong preference for this design.
• Targeting intervention support to schools
When coaches are part of a school’s staff,
with the greatest need;
they develop trusting and productive
• Building deep expertise with a
relationships with staff members and
smaller group of staff;
the principal. Principals typically
• Ensuring consistency of
prefer having coaches assigned fullmessage and support; and
time to their school so that the coach
• Ensuring that coaches are
develops a deep understanding of the
providing the designated services.
school’s culture and provides
Central office staff typically
sustained support to teachers over
supervises district-deployed coaches.
time. Coaches who are in a school
With accountability to central office,
full-time can influence change and
providing ongoing professional
feel greater responsibility and
development and support to coaches
Excerpted from
accountability for improving
may be easier.
Taking the lead:
teaching and student learning. They
But district-deployed coaches
New roles for
are invited into classrooms to
come with disadvantages too. They
teachers and
provide support and to work with
may not develop ongoing, deep
school-based
teams of teachers in planning
relationships with individual staff
coaches, by
learning. They are more aware of the
members. As a result, teachers may
Joellen Killion
learning needs of teachers and can
view district coaches more as
and Cindy
provide multiple opportunities for
monitors than as supporters. DistrictHarrson. (NSDC,
“at-the-elbow” learning. Schooldeployed coaches are likely to be in
2006). Available
based coaches also know the
schools only occasionally and
through the
students and therefore are likely to
therefore have less opportunity to
NSDC Online
have fewer behavior management
provide sustained support over time,
Bookstore,
issues when modeling in classrooms.
the kind of support often associated
store.nsdc.org.
Teachers view building-based
with changing classroom instruction.
coaches as partners “in the trenches”
District-deployed coaches have
with them rather than visitors from central office.
less familiarity with the culture of the schools
Several potential disadvantages of buildingthey visit because they are not members of the
based coaches exist. Coaches who reside in one
community. They hold status as a visitor to rather
building can be pulled into other duties, such as
than a member of the community.
substituting, when there is a shortage of relief
A district with many such coaches may also
teachers or covering recess/lunch duty when
find it difficult to ensure that services are
someone is missing or an emergency occurs.
distributed equitably throughout the district.
They are often pulled into other work that is not
Principals and school leadership teams may not
part of their primary responsibilities because they
view district-deployed coaches as partners in the
Continued on p. 7
school improvement process. Therefore, the
Continued from p. 1
National Staff Development Council I 800-727-7288 I www.nsdc.org
APRIL 2007 I The Learning System
Selecting coaches: School-based vs. district-based
Continued from p. 6
are accessible and sometimes coaches’ work is
viewed as unessential.
Building-based coaches sometimes are
viewed as an extension of the administration
because coaches frequently interact with principals to plan and coordinate their work, an
essential task for coaches if they want to be
effective. Depending on the staff’s relationship
with the school’s administration, this may
negatively impact the coach’s ability to develop
trusting relationships.
If the coach was a teacher in the building,
teachers may have difficulty shifting their
perception of the coach in his or her new role.
COMBINED APPROACH
Another way to deploy coaches is by
combining district and building deployed
coaches. Some districts select a pool of coaches,
engage principals in identifying candidates for
their schools, and then assigning coaches from
among that pool. In this case, supervision of
coaches can become a district, principal, or
shared responsibility.
Adams12 Five Star Schools in Thornton,
Colo., began its coaching model by deploying
coaches from the district level. There was a belief
that content-area expertise was the most important factor for impacting student achievement.
After several years and multiple evaluations, the
district could not show a correlation between
coaching and student achievement. They identified changes in teacher practice but the changes
were not district- or even schoolwide. They
learned that some schools used the services of
coaches appropriately while other schools did
not use coaching services or used them inappropriately. They also learned that there was limited
connection between coaches and all the schools
they served, even though the district worked hard
to maintain consistency of coaching assignment
and to ensure that coaches met frequently to
reflect on their work and to learn from one
another. After several years, the district switched
to school-based coaches. To accomplish this, the
district invested more funds to provide more
APRIL 2007 I The Learning System
coaches. Principals received support in how to
deploy coaches within their school in order to
help coaches impact student achievement. These
“student achievement coaches” received more
support from both district and school staff to
ensure their success.
When this shift occurred, the program was
more successful. Evaluation of the coaching
program after the change indicated an increased
use of coaches, greater principal and teacher
satisfaction with the program, and increased use of
data to drive instruction by school staff members.
Adams 12 was also identified as making the
greatest improvement in state student achievement
tests among all districts in metropolitan Denver.
While the evaluation does not allow for conclusions that coaching caused increases in student
achievement, it does allow for a conclusion that
coaching contributed, since the greatest achievement gains occurred in math, the same content
area in which coaches did most of their work.
OTHER DECISIONS
Regardless of how coaches are deployed,
districts must also determine whether coaches
work in one school or multiple schools. If
coaches work in a single school, they can become
deeply immersed in the school culture, develop
strong relationships with the staff, and provide
consistent, ever-present support. If coaches work
in multiple schools, developing strong relationships and providing consistent support may be
more challenging, especially if they are in the
school only part time. Scheduling and providing
follow-up become more challenging, although
not impossible.
Another decision is whether coaches are
full-time or part-time. Full-time coaches obviously have more time allocated to accomplish the
job. But, because they are not actively teaching,
other teachers may not view them as credible.
When coaches are teaching the same grade or
content in which they provide support for
teachers, they always have current examples,
understand the real challenges of the classroom
teacher, and can model “best practices” in their
own classrooms.N
COVER STORY
DISTRICT-BASED
COACHES
Advantages
• Deep expertise
in area of
support
• Ability to directly
relate to central
office
counterparts
• Requires limited
funds
• Coach roles and
central office
communication
common across
all schools
Disadvantages
• Lack of ongoing
relationship with
teachers
• Being able to
support teachers
often enough to
ensure
instructional
practices are in
place
• Too many
people to serve
with multiple
site assignment
• Who is the real
boss? Building
level or district?
National Staff Development Council I 800-727-7288 I www.nsdc.org
7
theme / WHAT WORKS
Coaching
THE KEY TO TRANSLATING RESEARCH INTO PRACTICE LIES IN CONTINUOUS,
JOB-EMBEDDED LEARNING WITH ONGOING SUPPORT
BY JIM KNIGHT
I
n the past decade, interest in
the form of professional learning loosely described as coaching has exploded. This growing
interest in coaching is likely
fueled by educators’ recognition that
traditional one-shot approaches to
professional development — where
teachers hear about practices but do
not receive follow-up support — are
ineffective at improving teaching
practices. Much more support is
needed to help teachers translate
research into practice, and for many
districts, that support is coaching.
DEFINITION
What is coaching? Researchers
and practitioners have described severJIM KNIGHT is a researcher at the University of Kansas
Center for Research on Learning. He has written several
books and articles about instructional coaching and
maintains a blog at jimknightcoaching.squarespace.com.
You can contact him at jknight@ku.edu.
18
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VOL. 30, NO. 1
al distinct approaches with unique
goals and methods. Peer coaching
(Showers, 1984), classroom management coaching (Sprick, Knight,
Reinke, & McKale, 2006), contentfocused coaching (West & Staub,
2003), and blended coaching (Bloom,
Castagna, Moir, & Warren, 2005) are
just a few approaches. Three
approaches are especially common in
today’s schools: literacy coaching
(Moran, 2007 & Toll, 2005), cognitive coaching (Costa & Garmston,
2002), and instructional coaching
(Knight, 2007).
Cognitive coaches engage in dialogical conversations with teachers
and others, observe them while working, and then use powerful questions,
rapport building, and communication
skills to empower those they coach to
reflect deeply on their practices. The
term literacy coach is used widely to
refer to educators who use a variety of
tools and approaches to improve
teachers’ practices and student learning related to literacy. Instructional
coaches partner with teachers to help
them incorporate research-based
instructional practices into their
teaching so that students will learn
more effectively.
Despite the unique goals and
methods of each of these approaches,
there are several commonalities:
• Focus on professional practice.
The purpose of most forms of coaching is to improve the ability of a
school to educate students by improving the way teachers teach in the
classroom.
• Job-embedded. The professional learning experiences facilitated by
coaches are usually directly applicable
to teachers’ classrooms. Teachers who
collaborate with coaches make plans,
explore content, reflect, and implement new practices that they will use
immediately in their lessons.
• Intensive and ongoing.
Coaching is not a one-shot workshop,
but rather differentiated professional
support, meeting each teacher’s
unique needs over time. Coaching
often occurs one-to-one and may
involve several interactions lasting
WWW.NSDC.ORG
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
800-727-7288
theme / WHAT WORKS
days, weeks, and, in some cases,
practices simultaneously overwhelm
months.
teachers with the changes they are
• Grounded in partnership.
expected to implement and decrease
Coaches see themselves as equal parttheir enthusiasm for any change.
ners or collaborators with teachers.
Similarly, when districts frequently
adopt and abandon proThus, teachers have choice
grams and initiatives, teachand control over how
COACHING
ers often take a wait-and-see
coaching proceeds.
approach to professional learning.
• Dialogical. Coaches strive to
Coaches will find a better setting for
enable dialogue when they coach
professional learning if districts have a
teachers. Coaching is not about
sustained focus on a few high-leverage
telling teachers what to do but rather
strategies.
about engaging in reflective conversaA learning-friendly culture.
tions where coach and teacher think
Teachers
are more likely to experitogether.
ment and learn when they feel
• Nonevaluative. Although
respected and free to take risks.
coaches frequently observe teachers
Conversely, when teachers feel they
teaching, and, indeed, teachers may
are punished more than praised and
observe coaches teaching, coaches do
constantly under scrutiny without sufnot set themselves up as evaluators of
ficient encouragement, their desire to
teachers. Rather, they discuss teaching
learn may decrease dramatically.
with teachers in a nonjudgmental
Teachers who work in learning-friendway.
ly schools will be more much likely to
• Confidential. Most approaches
collaborate with coaches.
to coaching describe the relationship
Principal support. Principals
as confidential. Coaching will likely
need
to support their coaches by
be more successful when teachers are
attending coaching workshops,
comfortable speaking openly about
observing coaches while they conduct
their strengths and concerns.
model lessons, speaking frequently
• Facilitated through respectful
about the importance of professional
communication. Coaches need to be
learning and coaching, learning what
excellent communicators who articuthe coach shares with teachers, and
late their messages clearly, listen
meeting frequently with coaches to
respectfully, ask thought-provoking,
ensure that their coaches share their
open-ended questions, and whose
observations are energizing, encouragvision for professional learning.
ing, practical, and honest.
Clear roles. If teachers perceive
their coach as an administrator rather
than a peer, they may hesitate to open
CONDITIONS FOR SUCCESS
up about their needs or take risks.
Between 2005 and 2008,
Therefore, principals and coaches
researchers and consultants associated
should ensure that coaches work as
with the Kansas Coaching Project at
peers providing support and service to
the University of Kansas Center for
their colleagues, and principals and
Research on Learning have worked
other administrators should perform
with coaches and other educators in
important administrative tasks such as
schools, districts, and state agencies in
teacher evaluations and walkmore than 35 states. During these
throughs. Principals respectfully hold
workshops and consultations, certain
teachers accountable, and coaches
factors repeatedly surface that appear
provide sufficient support for teacher
to be critical for coaching success.
professional learning.
Focus and continuity. Districts
Protect the coaching relationthat attempt to implement too many
ship. Coaching works best when
teachers are collaborating with a
coach because they want to, not
because they are forced to. If a principal tells a teacher they have to work
with their coach, the coach may be
perceived as a punishment. If a principal strongly encourages a teacher to
change, but offers the coach as one of
several growth options (others might
include books, articles, web sites, and
video programs), the coach can be
perceived as a lifeline rather than a
punishment.
Time. The single most powerful
way to increase the effectiveness of
coaches is to ensure that they have
sufficient time for coaching. In conducting research on coaching at many
sites around the nation, my colleagues
and I ask coaches to map out how
they use time in their roles.
Overwhelmingly, their maps indicate
that less than 25% of their time is
spent in coaching tasks. Principals
VOL. 30, NO. 1
WINTER 2009
JSD
19
WHAT THE RESEARCH SAYS
For a recent book chapter, Jake
Cornett and I reviewed more than
200 articles, presentations, reports,
articles, and books that contain some
form of research on
coaching (Cornett &
Coaches need to
Knight, 2008). The bulk
have a deep
of this research was conunderstanding
ducted on peer coaching,
of the practices
cognitive coaching, and
or content
instructional coaching. In
knowledge they
one landmark study, Bush
share with
(1984) conducted a fiveteachers as well
year study of staff develas the coaching
opment in California.
practices and
Bush’s research team studcommunication
ied the impact various
skills that are
approaches to professional
necessary for
development had on
effective
whether or not teachers
coaching.
used new teaching practices. They found that
when teachers were given
only a description of new instructional skills, 10% used the skill in the
20
JSD
WINTER 2009
VOL. 30, NO. 1
100%
95%
90%
80%
RATE OF TRANSFER
INTO CLASSROOM PRACTICE
following peer coaching
professional development
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
TEACHER TRANSFER RATE
theme / WHAT WORKS
and other district leaders need to
ensure that they do not ask coaches to
do so many noncoaching tasks that
they rarely have the opportunity for
sustained coaching.
Continuous learning. Coaches
and administrators should “walk the
talk” when it comes to professional
learning by continuously improving
their own professional practice.
Coaches need to have a deep understanding of the practices or content
knowledge they share with teachers as
well as the coaching practices and
communication skills that are necessary for effective coaching.
COACHING
Principals need to understand
what coaches do, and how they
can contribute to conditions that support coaching. Additionally, both
coaches and principals need to be
coached so that they are constantly
learning how to improve the way they
lead instructional improvements in
schools.
10%
Workshop
0%
14-16%
12-13%
Workshop,
Workshop
modeling,
and modeling and practice
Workshop,
modeling,
practice,
feedback, and
peer coaching
16-19%
Workshop,
modeling,
practice, and
feedback
TYPES OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Source: “Effective staff development,” by Robert N. Bush. In Far West Laboratory (Ed.), Making
Our Schools More Effective: Proceedings of Three State Conferences. San Francisco: Author, 1984.
classroom. When modeling, practice,
and feedback were added to the training, teachers’ implementation of the
teaching practices increased by 2% to
3% each time. When coaching was
added to the staff development, however, approximately 95% of the teachers implemented the new skills in
their classrooms. (See chart above.)
In her book Cognitive Coaching: A
Synthesis of the Research (2001, p. 1),
Jenny Edwards identified nine anticipated outcomes:
1. Increase in student test scores and
“other benefits to students”;
2. Growth in teacher efficacy;
3. Increase in reflective and complex
thinking among teachers;
4. Increase in teacher satisfaction
with career and position;
5. Increase in professional climate at
schools;
6. Increase in teacher collaboration;
7. Increase in professional assistance
to teachers;
8. Increase in personal benefits to
teachers; and
9. Benefit to people in fields other
than teaching.
In a recent study of instructional
coaching (Knight & Cornett, 2008),
51 teachers attended an after-school
workshop on unit planning and
teaching routine, based on The Unit
Organizer (Lenz, Bulgren, Schumaker,
Deshler, & Boudah,1994). Teachers
were randomly assigned into two
groups, one that received coaching
and one that did not. Research assistants observed the classes taught by
teachers in both groups, watching for
evidence of use of the newly learned
teaching practice. In classes taught by
teachers who were coached, observers
saw evidence of use of the unit organizer during 90% of their visits.
However, in classes taught by teachers
who were not coached, observers saw
evidence of use of the unit organizer
in only 30% of the classes.
It is important to note that
research on cognitive coaching doesn’t
necessarily apply to instructional
coaching, and vice versa. Nonetheless,
a few generalizations seem to be fairly
unavoidable. First, in most of the
studies we reviewed, the best implementation rate one could hope for
WWW.NSDC.ORG
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
theme / WHAT WORKS
following a one-shot workshop was
15%. Second, coaching that focuses
on helping teachers implement new
practices leads to implementation.
Finally, the research on cognitive
coaching suggests that this approach
has a positive impact on teachers’
beliefs about their efficacy as teachers.
REFERENCES
Bloom, G., Castagna, C., Moir,
E., & Warren, B. (2005). Blended
coaching: Skills and strategies to support
principal development. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Bush, R.N. (1984).
COACHING
Effective staff development. In
Making our schools more effective: Proceedings of three state conferences. San Francisco: Far West
Laboratory.
Cornett, J. & Knight, J. (2008).
Research on coaching. In J. Knight
(Ed.), Coaching: Approaches and perspectives (pp.192-216). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Costa, A. & Garmston, R.
(2002). Cognitive coaching: A foundation for renaissance schools. Norwood,
MA: Christopher-Gordon.
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VOL. 30, NO. 1
LEARN MORE
THE COACHING PROCESS
Differentiated Coaching: A
Framework for Helping Teachers
Change, by Jane Kise. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 2006.
Taking the Lead: New Roles for
Teacher Leaders and School-Based
Staff Developers, by Joellen
Killion and Cathy Harrison.
Oxford, OH: NSDC, 2006.
APPROACHES TO COACHING
Coaching: Approaches and
Perspectives, edited by Jim
Knight. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Corwin Press, 2008.
Edwards, J.L. (2008). Cognitive
coaching: A synthesis of the research.
Highlands Ranch, CO: Center for
Cognitive Coaching.
Knight, J. (2007). Instructional
coaching: A partnership approach to
improving instruction. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Knight, J. & Cornett, J. (2008).
Studying the impact of instructional
WWW.NSDC.ORG
coaching on teacher practice. Article in
preparation.
Lenz, B.K., Bulgren, J.,
Schumaker, J., Deshler, D.D., &
Boudah, D. (1994). The unit organizer routine. Lawrence, KS: Edge
Enterprises.
Moran, M.C. (2007).
Differentiated literacy coaching:
Scaffolding for student and teacher success. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Showers, B. (1984). Peer coaching: A strategy for facilitating transfer
of training. Eugene, OR: Center for
Educational Policy and Management.
Sprick, R., Knight, J., Reinke,
W., & McKale T. (2006). Coaching
classroom management: Strategies and
tools for administrators and coaches.
Eugene, OR: Pacific Northwest
Publishing.
Toll, C.A. (2005). The literacy
coach’s survival guide: Essential questions and practical answers. Newark,
DE: International Reading
Association.
West, L. & Staub, F.C. (2003).
Content-focused coaching: Transforming
mathematics lessons. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann. I
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
feature cOAchiNg
HOW TO BE
a WISE
CONSUMER
of COACHING
sTRATegIes TeAcHeRs cAN use TO MAXIMIze
cOAcHINg’s BeNeFITs
By David Yopp, elizabeth A. Burroughs,
Jennifer Luebeck, clare Heidema, Arlene Mitchell,
and John sutton
I
nstructional coaching is gaining popularity as a
school-based effort to increase teacher effectiveness and student achievement. A coach can be
broadly defined as a person who works collaboratively with a teacher to improve that teacher’s
practice and content knowledge, with the ultimate goal of affecting student achievement.
By its very nature, coaching requires effort from both
the coach and teacher. Because instructional coaching is
collaborative rather than directive, it will be most effective
when teachers share responsibility for the outcomes. In our
work with coaching in schools, we’ve observed behaviors
that make teachers effective consumers of coaching.
Effective coaching requires feedback. An effective
consumer of coaching asks the coach for targeted feedback.
One mathematics coach recalled beginning a post-lesson conference by asking, “Do you want some feedback
from me?” The teacher said no, and the coach was left wondering what to do next. In another instance, a coach asked
a teacher in a prelesson conference what she would like the
50
JsD | www.learningforward.org
coach to look for. The teacher said, “Anything. Any advice
would be helpful.” In a third case, when asked what she
would like the coach to look for, the teacher responded that
she’d recently tried to get more students responding to her
high-level, open-ended mathematics questions. “Would
you watch my questioning strategies and student reactions
to help me improve this aspect of my teaching?” she asked.
The teachers in the first two scenarios were not being
good consumers of coaching. Because the coach in the first
scenario was working with Knight’s (2007) concept of choice
and respected the teacher’s right to refuse feedback, the coaching session was essentially over when the teacher said no.
The second teacher could have contributed more to the
optimal coaching situation. While the coach appreciated
the teacher’s openness, the coach was left wondering what
February 2011 | Vol. 32 no. 1
observations would be most helpful. The coach might point
out aspects of teaching the teacher felt she was already good
at, possibly offending the teacher and reducing the coaching session’s effectiveness.
The third teacher exhibited traits of a good consumer
of coaching. The coach knew exactly what the teacher wanted
to work on, and the teacher and coach had several coaching sessions in which questioning strategies were the focus.
The coach was able to help the teacher increase her wait
time, develop more challenging content-focused questions,
and incorporate strategies to ensure that the majority of students were engaged in important mathematical thinking.
Coaching is a reflective process. An effective consumer of coaching is open to reflection and is an active
participant in the reflective process.
A coach asked a teacher during a post-lesson conference, “How do you think it went?” and the teacher answered, “Fine.” The coach asked if there was anything that
the teacher had hoped would go better, and the teacher said
no. The coach then asked if the teacher would like some
feedback, but the teacher appeared to have already disengaged from this reflective opportunity.
In a session with a different teacher, when the coach
asked the teacher how she felt it went, the teacher said she
felt it went well but was concerned that the students didn’t really comprehend how the use of manipulatives in the
mathematics lesson demonstrated the meaning of addition
of fractions. The coach reported, “We engaged in a rich
conversation about what we thought the students did learn
and ways to plan lessons that focused students on the purpose of the lesson. We also developed formative assessments
that would help us monitor students’ understanding the
next time the lesson was taught. It was a collaborative
process where the teacher and I shared ideas and cooperatively developed a more effective lesson.”
These two examples demonstrate the importance of reflection. Reflection differs from feedback. Reflection describes a cooperative process between teacher and coach.
This might occur during a prelesson conference when a
teacher and coach discuss the purpose of an upcoming lesson the coach will observe or reflect on what important
content they expect students to learn. Does the lesson involve discovery learning? Will the teacher use direct instruction? What difficulties does the teacher anticipate
students will encounter?
Knight (2007) and Hull, Balka, and Miles (2009) discuss the importance of reflection in adopting new teaching
strategies and in monitoring, evaluating, and modifying
them. These discussions target the coach’s role in helping
teachers to reflect. Yet, for reflection to take place, the teacher
must participate in the process and share responsibility with
February 2011 | Vol. 32 no. 1
the coach for setting the stage for reflection.
During the post-lesson conference, a coach might ask
the teacher, “How do you think it went?” — a reflective
question suggested by West and Staub (2003) to set the
stage for careful consideration and critical assessment of a
recently delivered lesson. Teachers must reflect on their
broad goals for instruction and communicate them to the
coach. What do they expect from the students in the subject area? Is it to become better problem solvers? To engage
in more inquiry and exploration? A good consumer of
coaching is open to answering these types of questions.
Effective coaching requires teachers to communicate
their needs. An effective consumer of coaching tells the
coach what he or she needs.
During the first prelesson conference with a coach, one
teacher said, “I need help getting my students interested in
mathematics. They don’t pay attention during my lessons,
and even when I do group work, they don’t stay focused. Before long, they are off doing other stuff or causing trouble.”
The coach watched one of this teacher’s lessons that involved group work and noticed several issues. The coach
reported, “I saw ways to improve the tasks she assigned so
that instruction was more relevant to the students’ experiences, ways to present the task so that students would be
more engaged and better understand
their roles, and ways to improve how
Because instructional
she monitored the students as the task
coaching is collaborative
unfolded. I modeled a lesson for the
rather than directive, it
teacher, illustrating some strategies for
will be most effective
the aspects described above, and towhen teachers recognize
gether we planned a similar lesson for
and share responsibility
her to deliver. The teacher came to refor the outcomes.
alize that the problem she had called
‘students’ interest in mathematics’ was
better addressed by asking how we
could engage the students and keep them engaged during
a mathematics lesson.”
This scenario demonstrates how important it is for a
coach to understand a teacher’s needs. Coaching authors
offer advice on how to assess teaching needs (Hansen, 2008),
develop links between a coach’s goals and a teacher’s goals
(Morse, 2009), inquire into a teacher’s interest (Knight,
2007) and give teachers choices on what to be coached on
(Knight, 2007; Hull, Balka, and Miles, 2009). This advice
targets the coaches: What advice do teachers need?
Good consumers of coaching find ways to clearly communicate their needs to coaches. In our work with teachers and coaches, we use a survey that a coach gives to
teachers at the beginning of the semester to set the stage
for coaching (see p. 53). This instrument asks teachers to
reflect on aspects of their teaching and to indicate whether
www.learningforward.org | JsD
51
feature cOAchiNg
they would like to be coached on these topics. Teachers can help
coaches target their needs by providing this information at the
beginning of a school year.
Effective coaching requires teachers to communicate their
expectations for coaches as the lesson transpires. An effective consumer of coaching tells his or her coach what kind
of classroom interaction he or she desires.
One of the coaches with whom we’ve worked reported observing a lesson where, in the middle of a mathematical explanation, the teacher turned to the coach and asked, “Do you
know a better way to explain this?” The coach was taken aback
and had difficulty responding. The coach reported that she would
have been better prepared had she known that the teacher wanted
that type of involvement.
Another coach reported team teaching lessons with a teacher.
She and the teacher would even pause lessons to have sidebar
chats about what was transpiring and what to do next. This
teacher and coach had developed a clear understanding about
what role the coach would play during lessons. This same coach
reported that she didn’t always have this type of role in the teachers’ classrooms. Her role was always based on a teacher’s preferences, goals, and comfort level.
In contrast, a different coach reported that on her first visit,
a teacher invited her to sit in a corner and observe the lesson.
The coach took her place on a stool in back and never got up
during that lesson or any other. The teacher might have been
open to the coach circulating among the students and observing student work, but the coach never broached the subject.
In this last example, we could point the finger at the coach
for not clarifying her role with the teacher. But the remedy to
the issue was communication, and communication is two-sided.
Good consumers of coaching are willing to initiate discussions
with their coaches about what level of interaction they expect
from coaches in their classrooms.
Effective coaching is content-based. An effective consumer of coaching is willing to examine her or his own content knowledge.
Many teachers with whom we have worked ask to be coached
on teaching strategies that are not content-focused, such as cooperative learning, classroom management, engagement strategies, and wait time. While these are important concerns, such
topics need not dominate coaching sessions. There is almost always a way to relate such issues to teaching and learning within
a content area. In mathematics, for example, strategies such as
cooperative learning that are not unique to mathematics can be
discussed in the context of how they enhance specific mathematics content learning.
This point is made salient in recent research. Lockwood,
McCombs, and Marsh (2010) found evidence that reading
coaches improved student achievement in reading, but they did
52
JsD | www.learningforward.org
not find the same level of evidence in students’ mathematics
scores. They had looked at mathematics achievement scores because they knew the state mathematics assessments involved a
significant amount of reading in the mathematics questions’ development. This result does not suggest that mathematics coaching is not effective. Instead, it suggests that coaching should
target specific subject content.
Because coaches are often trying to focus on teacher-stated
needs, a coach might bypass conversations about content if he
or she doesn’t sense a willingness from the teacher to discuss
them. A good consumer of coaching can help keep the coaching conversations grounded in content by expressing a willingness and desire to discuss content and constantly ask how specific
strategies improve learning of particular content.
Effective coaching is structured and involves at least three
components: a prelesson conference, a lesson observation,
and a post-lesson conference. Effective consumers of coaching help coaches schedule these.
Coaches often report difficulties in scheduling the components of a coaching cycle with teachers. Too often we find that
this difficulty comes from teachers being unaware of what coaching entails. A teacher needs to know that the three components
of coaching — prelesson conference, classroom observation or
modeling, and post-lesson conference — come as a package. In
one setting we experienced, when coaches themselves did not
schedule the time to visit with teachers but relied on district personnel to set up the schedules, there was little or no time for a
prelesson conference or post-lesson reflection. At the same time,
teachers reported through surveys that they valued being coached,
and many said they would have liked to have more time to discuss issues with their coach. We have found that it is critical for
teachers to ensure that time will be available at both ends of the
lesson observation. Coaches are sometimes hesitant to interfere
with busy schedules. By taking responsibility for scheduling
coaching, teachers become good consumers of coaching.
cOMMITMeNT TO cOLLABORATION
There is no single recipe for effective coaching, and
approaches to coaching vary as widely as do the teachers,
coaches, and schools involved. What remains constant is the
teacher’s responsibility to become a consumer of coaching. A
commitment to creating a collaborative and rewarding
coaching relationship will help maximize its benefits.
ReFeReNces
Hansen, P. (2008). Mathematics coaching handbook:
Working with teachers to improve instruction. Larchmont, NY:
Eye on Education.
Hull, T. H., Balka, D.S, & Miles, R.H. (2009). A guide
to mathematics coaching: Processes for increasing student
achievement. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
February 2011 | Vol. 32 no. 1
how to be a wise consumer of coaching
WHAT DO TeAcHeRs NeeD FROM cOAcHes?
sample items from a teacher’s needs inventory used in mathematics coaching programs (Yopp, sutton, & Burroughs, 2010).
1. how confident do you feel creating and teaching mathematical applications and connections to other areas of mathematics?
Not at all
confident
1
2
3
4
Very
confident
i would not like to
partner with my coach
on this topic.
Not sure if i would like to
partner with my coach on
this topic.
i would like to partner
with my coach on this
topic.
5
-
0
+
2. how confident are you with the mathematical reasoning behind the mathematics you teach (understanding why we teach it),
how it relates to other mathematics topics, and why it is valid?
Not at all
confident
1
2
3
4
Very
confident
i would not like to
partner with my coach
on this topic.
Not sure if i would like to
partner with my coach on
this topic.
i would like to partner
with my coach on this
topic.
5
-
0
+
3. how confident do you feel managing a classroom where students are engaged in inquiry-based or discovery-based tasks?
Not at all
confident
1
2
3
4
Very
confident
i would not like to
partner with my coach
on this topic.
Not sure if i would like to
partner with my coach on
this topic.
i would like to partner
with my coach on this
topic.
5
-
0
+
Very
confident
i would not like to
partner with my coach
on this topic.
Not sure if i would like to
partner with my coach on
this topic.
i would like to partner
with my coach on this
topic.
5
-
0
+
4. how confident do you feel encouraging student participation?
Not at all
confident
1
2
3
4
5. how confident do you feel creating an environment where students listen to one another?
Not at all
confident
1
2
3
4
Very
confident
i would not like to
partner with my coach
on this topic.
Not sure if i would like to
partner with my coach on
this topic.
i would like to partner
with my coach on this
topic.
5
-
0
+
Knight, J. (2007). Instructional coaching: A partnership
approach to improving instruction. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Corwin Press.
Lockwood, J.R., McCombs, J.S., & Marsh, J. (2010,
September). Linking reading coaches and student
achievement: Evidence from Florida middle schools.
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 32(3), 372–388.
Morse, A. (2009). Cultivating a math coaching practice: A
guide for K-8 math educators. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin
Press.
West, L. & Staub, F.C. (2003). Content-focused coaching.
Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh.
Yopp, D., Sutton, J., & Burroughs, E. (2010). Teacher
February 2011 | Vol. 32 no. 1
needs inventory. Bozeman, MT: Examining Mathematics
Coaching (EMC), Montana State University and RMC
Research Corporation.
•
David Yopp (yopp@math.montana.edu), Elizabeth A.
Burroughs (burrough@math.montana.edu), and John
Sutton (sutton@rmcdenver.com) are co-principal
investigators of the Examining Mathematics Coaching
(EMC) project, NSF Discovery Research K-12 program.
Jennifer Luebeck (luebeck@math.montana.edu), Clare
Heidema (heidema@rmcdenver.com), and Arlene Mitchell
(mitchell@rmcdenver.com) are senior researchers on the
project. I
www.learningforward.org | JsD
53
theme / SCHOOL-BASED SUPPORT
5 key points
to building
a coaching
program
BY JIM KNIGHT
JIM KNIGHT, a research associate at the University of Kansas
Center for Research on Learning, is the author of Instructional
Coaching: A Partnership Approach to Improving Instruction
(Corwin Press, 2007). You can contact him at 1122 W. Campus
Rd., Suite 508, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, 785550-8708, fax 785-864-5728, e-mail: jknight@ku.edu.
26
JSD
WINTER 2007
VOL. 28, NO. 1
A
cross America today,
hundreds of instructional
coaches are being hired to
improve professional
practice in schools.
Preliminary results
(Knight, 2007) suggest
there are reasons to be optimistic about this
form of professional development. Since
coaches provide on-site professional learning,
they can adapt their approach to meet the
unique needs of the teachers and students in
the schools where they work. And, since
coaches can provide professional development
that addresses teachers’ concerns at different
stages of the change process (Hall & Hord,
2006; Prochaska, Norcross, & Diclemente,
1994), coaching can lead to sustained
implementation of new teaching practices in
schools.
The danger is that schools will imple-
WWW.NSDC.ORG
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
1. TOP-DOWN AND BOTTOM-UP
complete freedom to choose whether
to participate, those teachers who
most needed to change frequently
were the ones who chose not to participate.
Of course, a purely top-down
approach is not a practical alternative.
When leaders adopt a purely topdown stance, they risk introducing
what counselors refer to as an “ironic
process,” an approach that, “causes
the very outcome that it was meant to
avert” (Miller & Rollnick, 2002, p.
37). Telling teachers they must work
with an instructional coach actually
makes it more difficult for coaches to
assist teachers.
“When you tell teachers to do
something, they resent it,” said Ric
Palma, an instructional coach in
Topeka, Kan. (personal communication, August 29, 2004). “If they do it,
they’re going to do it in a half-baked
… manner. And others will just
refuse, because they don’t like to be
told what to do.”
Instructional coaches need a balance of bottom-up and top-down
strategies to be effective.
They should position
Instructional
themselves as equal partcoaches should
ners collaborating with
position
fellow teachers, basing
themselves as
their professional
equal partners
actions on partnership
collaborating
principles. Principals
with fellow
should support their onteachers, basing
site coaches by focusing
their
school change initiatives
professional
to make it easier for
actions on
teacher and coach to
partnership
work together on interprinciples.
ventions that have the
highest possibility of
impacting student achievement. Most
importantly, the principal and coach
must work together to ensure that
those who need help get it.
theme / SCHOOL-BASED SUPPPORT
ment school-based coaching too simplistically, underestimating the complexity of change initiatives. However,
if educational leaders recognize and
respond to the complexity of change,
in particular by paying attention to
five key points in building a coaching
program, school-based coaches can
make a difference. When coaching
programs are designed well, the
chances of making a significant difference are greater and the potential of
coaching can be realized.
In a 1997 study, teachers reported
that they were four times more likely
to implement teaching practices they
learned during partnership sessions
than those they learned in traditional
sessions (Knight, 1998). Partnership
takes an approach that:
• Professional developers and teachers are equal partners;
• Teachers should have choices
regarding what and how they
learn;
• Teachers should reflect and apply
learning to their real-life practice
as they are learning;
• Professional development should
enable authentic dialogue; and
• Professional development should
respect and enable the voices of
teachers to be heard.
In our ongoing study of coaching,
however, we have found that a purely
partnership approach that exclusively
relies on bottom-up initiatives has
limitations (Knight, 2007). A bottom-up approach that does not have
the principal’s guiding hand as the
instructional leader will lead to teachers adopting new teaching practices,
but unsystematically — with some
and not others implementing the
change so school improvement may
progress incoherently. A purely bottom-up approach also risks placing
teachers significantly out of step with
district and state mandates. When a
bottom-up approach offered teachers
In The Evolving Self, Mihalyi
Csikszentmihalyi (1993) says that for
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
800-727-7288
2. EASY AND POWERFUL
VOL. 28, NO. 1
WINTER 2007
JSD
27
theme / SCHOOL-BASED SUPPORT
28
an idea or innovation to supercede
another idea or technology, the new
idea must be easier and more powerful. “Ideas, values, technologies that
do the job with the least demand on
psychic energy will survive,” the
author states (p. 123). “An appliance
that does more work with less effort
will be preferred.”
Similarly, for teachers to abandon
an old teaching practice to embrace a
new one, coaches must offer a practice that is both more powerful and
easier to use than the current strategy.
Teachers will not adopt practices
that are difficult to implement. Thus,
one of a site-based coach’s primary
tasks is to do everything possible to
make it easier for teachers to implement new teaching practices. Coaches
highlight, simplify, and clarify practices described in teacher manuals,
prepare materials, make copies or
handouts if necessary, model in the
teachers’ classroom, observe teachers,
and provide feedback.
“My job is to remove every barrier
that might stand in the way of a
teacher implementing” a
new practice, said Tricia
When
McKale, a coach in
someone offers
Topeka, Kan. (personal
a service that is
communication, April 8,
easy to use and
2005).
that helps
To support schoolstudents,
based coaches in helping
teachers
teachers adopt change,
become
professional development
interested in
leaders must provide
using it pretty
coaches with the
quickly.
resources and time they
need to remove barriers
teachers face in implementing new
methods. Also, coaches and leaders
must evaluate the teaching practices
they are sharing with teachers to
ensure that they are making a real difference in children’s and teachers’
lives. When teachers have a chance to
implement a practice that really works
and that is easy to implement, they
usually adopt it quickly.
JSD
WINTER 2007
VOL. 28, NO. 1
•
Research on coaches
Since 1999, researchers at the
University of Kansas Center for
Research on Learning have been
studying instructional coaches
(Knight, 2007). In particular,
researchers have studied two
programs:
• Pathways to Success, in
partnership with USD 501 in
Topeka, Kan., and
• Passport to Success, in
partnership with the Maryland
State Department of
Education.
3. SELF-ORGANIZING
AND HIGHLY ORGANIZED
When coaches work with an open
mind, without a formalized, structured approach, and see their task as
spreading a healthy virus in schools,
they are more likely to succeed.
At Landon Middle School in
Topeka, Kan., for example, coach
LaVonne Holmgren shared writing
strategies from the Strategic
Instructional Model with a few pioneering language arts teachers when
she arrived at the school. After those
teachers were successful, others wanted to try the strategies, and soon a
majority of the language arts staff was
using the strategies. At that point,
Holmgren guided the staff in creating
a schoolwide curriculum ensuring that
all language arts teachers taught
grade-appropriate writing strategies.
Had Holmgren arrived at the school
with a plan to institutionalize the
writing strategies, she likely would
have met resistance or other roadblocks. By allowing the plan to grow
and develop based on teacher interest
and student need, she got deep commitment to a schoolwide plan that
every teacher implemented.
To help accelerate the spread of
“healthy viruses,” coaches should
ensure that:
WWW.NSDC.ORG
They share teaching practices that
are powerful and easy to use;
• Their first encounters with teachers are highly effective;
• Teacher leaders within the school
have opportunities to be early
adopters; and
• They use a variety of communication strategies (newsletters, emails, bulletin boards, word of
mouth) to ensure that teachers
know about successes when they
occur.
When someone offers a service
that is easy to use and that helps students, teachers become interested in
using it pretty quickly. Support coaches by allowing them time to build
rapport and respond to teachers’
needs. Once a critical mass of teachers
use what the coach has to offer, the
coach and principal together encourage the creation of more permanent
structures.
4. AMBITIOUS AND HUMBLE
Alex LeClaire (a pseudonym)
began his coaching career excited
about helping teachers use strategies
he had found extremely successful in
teaching writing. He began the school
year with a passionate presentation to
teachers about the power of strategic
instruction, and he quickly lined up
conferences with teachers in their
classrooms, in the staff room, and at
team meetings to convince them to
get on board.
The more LeClaire pushed, the
less enthusiastic his colleagues became
and the more barriers they put up. As
teachers turned away, LeClaire
became even more zealous in his
attempts at persuasion.
Eventually, he became frustrated
and began privately, then publicly,
criticizing his colleagues for failing to
do the right thing for kids. His criticism, of course, alienated staff even
more, and by the end of his first year,
LeClaire felt his efforts were wasted,
and he blamed the teachers, who he
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
her ideas. As time went by, Morgan
found she had very few teachers collaborating with her. She waited
patiently, but the right time never
seemed to come along. Morgan found
herself doing more and more busy
work within the school and less
coaching. At the end of the year,
Morgan realized that she had worked
with only eight teachers, and most of
those had made only a superficial
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
800-727-7288
attempt at new practices.
Successful coaches embody a paradoxical mixture of ambition and
humility, a mix of attributes similar to
those described by Jim Collins (2001)
for Level 5 leaders. Level 5 leaders
“are incredibly ambitious — but their
ambition is for the institution, not
themselves” (p. 21). Effective coaches,
like Collin’s Level 5 leaders, should be
“a study in duality: modest and will-
VOL. 28, NO. 1
WINTER 2007
theme / SUPPPORT
said “were too stubborn to change.”
Another coach, Lauren Morgan (a
pseudonym), was the embodiment of
humility. Morgan was determined not
to force herself on teachers and to
work with only those who wanted to
work with her. Morgan was careful
not to put herself out in front of the
staff; she preferred to stay in the background. Teachers liked her, but they
always seemed a little too busy to try
JSD
29
theme / SCHOOL-BASED SUPPORT
ful, humble and fearless” (p. 22).
Devona Dunekack, a coach in
Topeka, Kan., embodies both personal humility and willful ambition.
“I just ask teachers if they’re interested in an extra set of hands,”
Dunekack said (personal communication, March 16, 2004). “I never put
on airs that I know more than them.
… I’m just not trying to be anything
other than a colleague.”
Dunekack works to nourish relationships with each teacher in the
school, and builds up trust before
sharing ideas. She is supportive and
kind, but keeps charts on each teacher
and the extent of their commitment
to coaching. If a teacher does not collaborate with her, Dunekack doesn’t
take it personally, but sees that teacher
as a challenge, and through a forceful
kindness, almost always wins over
each teacher.
Not surprisingly,
more than 95% of the
Outstanding
teachers at Eisenhower
coaching
Middle School collaboprograms begin
rate with Dunekack, and
with outstanding
Eisenhower students have
coaches. Hiring
shown the greatest
coaches who
improvement on state
embody both
reading assessments in
ambition and
the Topeka district for
humility helps
each of the past three
create a
years.
successful
Outstanding coachexperience.
ing programs begin with
outstanding coaches.
Hiring coaches who
embody both ambition and humility
helps create a successful experience.
5. ENGAGED AND DETACHED
Lynn Barnes, coach at Jardine
Middle School in Topeka, Kan., is an
outstanding relationship builder. She
is positive, funny, warm, and very
supportive of others. She loves, she
says, “communicating with people …
making them feel good about themselves and what they teach” (personal
communication, July 14, 2005). Not
30
JSD
WINTER 2007
VOL. 28, NO. 1
Effective coaches have to care deeply about
teachers and students, and they also clearly have
to communicate to others that they care.
surprisingly, Barnes considers coaching to be “the perfect job to make
people feel good about themselves, to
feel good about their profession.”
Effective coaches have to care
deeply about teachers and students,
and they also clearly have to communicate to others that they care.
“You have to build a relationship
before you do anything,” Barnes said,
“and to do that, you truly need to
care about the individual you are
working with and their students.”
Yet coaches have to be careful not
to weave too much of themselves into
their jobs. As Ronald Heifitz and
Martin Linsky (2002) observed, “To
lead is to live dangerously because
when leadership counts, when you
lead people through difficult change,
you challenge what people hold dear
— their daily habits, tools, loyalties,
and ways of thinking. … And people
resist in all kinds of creative and unexpected ways that can get you taken
out of the game: pushed aside, undermined, or eliminated” (p.2).
Jean Clark, a coach at Bohemia
Manor Middle School in Cecil
County, Md., learned this firsthand.
Shortly after beginning her job, Clark
says she stepped into the staff lounge
in time to overhear a teacher say,
“The reason why there’s evil in this
building is because of Jean Clark.”
Clark had to learn to remain
steady and calm. She came to understand that leading as a coach put her
in the line of fire. “It’s not about me,”
she said. “This is their stuff. It’s not
personal. … Some people are going to
like me, and some people aren’t, and
in the end, they will come along
whether they like me or not, if they
see their children growing.” Clark
succeeded as a coach, and her school
has had the greatest gains in the county in the last two years.
The ability to connect with others
is a critical characteristic of effective
coaches. Principals and staff development leaders should provide training
on how to communicate effectively
and how to build that emotional connection with others. Coaches also
need a structured support network
with other coaches to support them in
the face of inevitable resistance.
WWW.NSDC.ORG
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
SUMMARY
More than a decade and a half
ago, Seymour Sarason published The
Predictable Failure of Educational
Reform (Jossey-Bass, 1990), a book
whose title captured the frustrations
experienced by many educational
REFERENCES
Collins, J. (2001). Good to great:
NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
Why some companies make the leap …
and others don’t. New York: Harper
Business.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1993).
The evolving self. New York: Harper
Collins.
Hall, G.E. & Hord, S.M.
(2006). Implementing change: Patterns,
principles, and potholes (2nd ed.).
Boston: Pearson Education.
Heifetz, R.A. & Linsky, M.
(2002). Leadership on the line.
Boston: Harvard Business School
Press.
Knight, J. (1998). The effectiveness of partnership learning: A dialogical methodology for staff development.
800-727-7288
theme / SCHOOL-BASED SUPPPORT
leaders valiantly promoting school
improvement initiatives. The preliminary positive results of coaching and
other promising professional development and school reform efforts suggest that there now is, indeed, cause
for optimism about future reform
efforts. When planners and implementers support coaches by recognizing and responding to the complexity
of change, in particular by responding
to the five paradoxes outlined here,
their chances of success improve
greatly.
Unpublished doctoral dissertation,
University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS.
Knight, J. (2007). Instructional
coaching: A partnership approach to
improving instruction. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Miller, W.R. & Rollnick, S.
(2002). Motivational interviewing:
Preparing people for change (2nd ed.).
New York: Guilford Press.
Prochaska, J.O., Norcross, J.C.,
& Diclemente, C.C. (1994).
Changing for good. New York: Quill.
Sarason, S.B. (1990). The predictable failure of educational reform:
Can we change course before it’s too
late? San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. n
VOL. 28, NO. 1
WINTER 2007
JSD
31
TOOL
Clarify
the
coaching
role
Use this chart to help teachers
understand the coach’s role
and the services a coach will provide.
A coach is ...
A coach is not ...
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"EBUBBOBMZTU
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"TVCTUJUVUFUFBDIFS
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Source:"EBNT'JWF4UBS4DIPPMTɨPSOUPO$PMP6TFEXJUIQFSNJTTJPO
Adapted from: Taking the Lead: New Roles for Teachers and School-based Coaches, by Joellen Killion and Cindy Harrison. Oxford, OH: NSDC, 2006.
XXXMFBSOJOHGPSXBSEPSHtt-FBSOJOH'PSXBSE'FCSVBSZtT3
t5
TOOL
Student achievement coach expectations
Use this list for more examples of how a principal or coach can clarify the expectations of the coach’s role.
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Adapted from: Taking the Lead: New Roles for Teachers and School-based Coaches, by Joellen Killion and Cindy Harrison. Oxford, OH: NSDC, 2006.
Teachers Teaching Teachers is published eight times a year by
-FBSOJOH'PSXBSE4-PDVTU4U0YGPSE0)
ª$PQZSJHIU-FBSOJOH'PSXBSE"MMSJHIUTSFTFSWFE
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QSPUFDUFECZ-FBSOJOH'PSXBSEBOENBZOPUCFDPQJFEPS
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BUOPBEEJUJPOBMDIBSHFUPNFNCFSTJOUIFNFNCFSTPOMZBSFB
PGUIF-FBSOJOH'PSXBSEXFCTJUF/PONFNCFSTNBZQVSDIBTF
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learning forward
TOOL 3:
Using the IC Maps as
a Self-Assessment
IC maps can be used as a self-assessment tool. Similar to the process described in Tool 2, Checking
Progress, an individual (or even a team) can use the same process to conduct a self-assessment.
Purpose: Conduct a self-assessment to check implementation progress of one or more standards and
compare current behaviors to the descriptions in the IC maps.
Group Size: 1 (or more, if conducting team assessments)
Time: 10 minutes (longer if more than one person is involved)
Materials: IC map for one standard for the appropriate role group.
DIRECTIONS
1.The individual identifies one or more standards to self-assess. If the school or a team has a goal for
improvement in one standard area, everyone might use the same standard with the appropriate role group IC map to conduct periodic self-assessments.
2.The individual reads the desired outcomes and all the variations and determines the level that best matches his or her current practice. He or she should record those levels on a separate sheet and include the date.
3.The individual can use this information to identify next steps or assistance necessary for improvement. More information on next steps is included in Tool 4.
276
www.learningforward.org
800-727-7288
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4
Level 5
176
• Engages others in
developing knowledge
and skills related to
research, theories, and
models of adult learning.
• Studies, with principal,
research, theories, and
models of adult learning.
• Studies research,
theories, and models of
adult learning.
• Reads periodically
resources about research,
theories, and models
related to educator
learning.
www.learningforward.org
• Shares knowledge, skills,
and practices associated
with 12 learning designs
with coaches, other learning
facilitators, and colleagues.
• Identifies and discusses
essential features of highquality learning designs
(e.g., active engagement,
reflection, metacognition,
ongoing support,
formative assessment).
• Develops, with colleagues
and principal, knowledge
about, skills to facilitate,
and expertise to implement
12 or more learning
designs.
• Develops knowledge
about, skills to facilitate,
and expertise to
implement eight
learning designs.
• Identifies and discusses
essential features of highquality learning designs
(e.g., active engagement,
reflection, metacognition,
ongoing support,
formative assessment).
• Shares knowledge, skills,
and practices associated
with eight learning
designs with coaches,
other learning facilitators,
and colleagues.
• Develops, with principal,
the knowledge about,
skills to facilitate, and
expertise to implement 10
learning designs.
• Identifies and discusses
essential features of highquality learning designs
(e.g., active engagement,
reflection, metacognition,
ongoing support,
formative assessment).
• Shares knowledge, skills,
and practices associated
with 10 learning designs
with coaches, other
learning facilitators, and
colleagues.
• Develops knowledge
about, skills to facilitate,
and expertise to
implement at least five
learning designs.
Desired outcome 5.1.2: Acquires and shares knowledge about multiple designs for professional learning. *
• Contributes to a
collection of resources
on educator learning for
personal, individual, team,
and whole staff use.
• Engages others in
developing knowledge
and skills related to
research, theories, and
models of adult learning.
• Studies, with principal
and colleagues, research,
theories, and models of
adult learning.
• Fails to develop
knowledge about
multiple designs for
professional learning.
• Fails to add to own or
others’ knowledge base
about learning theories,
research, and models.
Level 6
*See the Appendix (p. 262) for an explanation of this concept.
• Develops knowledge
about, skills to facilitate,
and expertise to
implement fewer than
five learning designs.
• Accesses resources
about educator learning.
Desired outcome 5.1.1: Develops and shares a knowledge base about theories, research, and models of adult learning.
Level 1
5.1 Apply learning theories, research, and models
School Leadership Team / Learning Designs
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Level 2
Level 3
Level 4
Level 5
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• Supports principal,
colleagues, coaches, and
other learning facilitators
to prioritize the factors,
influencing the selection
of learning designs.
• Identifies, with principal
and colleagues, factors
that emerged from
analyzed educator and
school data to consider
in selecting the learning
designs.
• Develops knowledge
about factors that
influence how adults
learn.
• Develops knowledge
about factors that
influence how adults learn.
• Identifies, with principal
and colleagues, factors
that emerged from
analyzed educator and
school data to consider
in selecting the learning
designs.
• Clarifies, with principal
and colleagues, the
learning outcomes,
including knowledge,
skills, dispositions, and
practices, expected as
a result of schoolwide
professional learning.
• Clarifies, with principal
and colleagues, the
learning outcomes,
including knowledge,
skills, dispositions, and
practices, expected as a
result of schoolwide
professional learning.
• Identifies, with principal
and colleagues, factors
that emerged from
analyzed educator and
school data to consider
in selecting the learning
designs.
• Acquires knowledge
about factors that
influence how adults
learn.
• Acquires knowledge
about factors that
influence how adults
learn.
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Level 6
*See the Appendix (p. 262) for an explanation of this concept.
• Fails to acquire
knowledge about
multiple factors
influencing the selection
of learning designs.
Desired outcome 5.2.1: Acquires and shares knowledge about the multiple factors influencing the selection of learning designs. *
Level 1
5.2 Select learning designs
School Leadership Team / Learning Designs
STANDARDS INto PRACTICE: SCHOOL-BASED ROLES
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4
178
• Supports colleagues to
select appropriate team
learning designs.
• Supports colleagues
to select appropriate
individual and team
learning designs.
• Selects, with principal,
learning designs that
align with expected
outcomes and influencing
factors.
• Selects, with principal,
learning designs for
schoolwide professional
learning that align with
expected outcomes.
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• Identifies the benefits
and limitations of
technology-enhanced
learning designs.
• Identifies and shares
with colleagues benefits
and limitations of
technology-enhanced
learning designs.
• Establishes and applies
criteria for selecting
technology-enhanced
professional learning
designs.
• Establishes and applies
criteria for selecting
technology-enhanced
professional learning
designs.
• Shares knowledge about
technology-enhanced
learning designs with
colleagues.
• Shares knowledge about
technology-enhanced
learning designs with
colleagues.
• Establishes and applies,
with principal and
colleagues, criteria for
selecting technologyenhanced professional
learning designs.
• Identifies the benefits
and limitations of
technology-enhanced
learning designs.
• Develops, with colleagues,
knowledge about available
technology-enhanced
learning designs.
• Develops, with colleagues,
knowledge about available
and emerging technologyenhanced learning designs.
• Identifies available
technology-enhanced
learning designs for
schoolwide professional
learning.
Desired outcome 5.2.3: Develops and shares knowledge about technology-enhanced learning designs.
• Identifies and discusses
essential features of highquality learning designs
(e.g., active engagement,
reflection, metacognition,
ongoing support, etc.) in
schoolwide professional
learning.
• Confirms the presence of
essential features of highquality learning designs
(e.g., active engagement,
reflection, metacognition,
ongoing support, etc.) in
schoolwide professional
learning.
Desired outcome 5.2.2: Applies knowledge about the selection of appropriate learning designs.
Level 1
5.2 Select learning designs
School Leadership Team / Learning Designs
• Fails to develop or share
knowledge about how
technology contributes to
professional learning.
• Fails to select
appropriate learning
designs for schoolwide
professional learning.
Level 5
Level 6
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Level 3
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• Recommends that
learning teams use
appropriate in-person,
blended, and online
learning designs.
• Supports colleagues to
implement appropriate
in-person, blended, and
online learning designs.
• Analyzes, with principal,
the relationship between
learning designs used and
results achieved.
• Models appropriate
in-person, blended, and
online learning designs
during meetings and
schoolwide and SLT
professional learning.
• Models appropriate
in-person, blended, and
online learning designs
during meetings and
schoolwide and SLT
professional learning.
• Models appropriate
in-person, blended, and
online learning designs
during schoolwide
meetings and professional
learning.
Desired outcome 5.2.4: Implements appropriate learning designs.
Level 1
5.2 Select learning designs
• Uses same learning
design for schoolwide
professional learning.
Level 4
School Leadership Team / Learning Designs
• Fails to implement
appropriate learning
designs for schoolwide
professional learning.
Level 5
Level 6
STANDARDS INto PRACTICE: SCHOOL-BASED ROLES
179
Level 2
Level 3
180
• Elicits colleagues’
participation in and
contribution to
discussions in team and
schoolwide professional
learning.
• Elicits colleagues’
participation in and
ontribution to
discussions in team and
schoolwide professional
learning.
• Models strategies and
protocols for active
engagement in individual,
team, and schoolwide
professional learning.
• Elicits colleagues’
participation in and
contribution to
discussions in individual,
team, and schoolwide
professional learning.
• Models and shares
strategies and protocols
for active engagement
in individual, team, and
schoolwide professional
learning.
• Assesses, with
colleagues, the
effectiveness and
frequency of active
engagement to make
improvements.
• Engages actively in
team and schoolwide
professional learning.
• Engages actively in
team and schoolwide
professional learning.
• Engages actively in
team and schoolwide
professional learning.
Desired outcome 5.3.1: Models active engagement in professional learning.
Level 1
5.3 Promote active engagement
• Engages actively in
team and schoolwide
professional learning.
Level 4
School Leadership Team / Learning Designs
• Fails to model and
promote active
engagement in
schoolwide professional
learning.
Level 5
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Level 3
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• Supports colleagues
in holding each other
accountable for active
participation in
professional learning.
• Recommends to and
supports colleagues to
use active engagement
strategies and protocols in
schoolwide professional
learning.
• Recommends to and
supports colleagues to
use active engagement
strategies and protocols
in individual, team, and
schoolwide professional
learning.
• Supports colleagues
in holding each other
accountable for active
participation in
professional learning.
• Establishes an
expectation that
colleagues participate
actively in team and
schoolwide professional
learning.
• Establishes an
expectation that
colleagues participate
actively in individual,
team, and schoolwide
professional learning.
• Supports colleagues
in holding each other
accountable for active
participation in
professional learning.
• Recommends to
colleagues active
engagement strategies
and protocols.
• Establishes an
expectation that
colleagues participate
actively in schoolwide
professional learning.
• Communicates the
expectation that
schoolwide professional
learning integrates active
engagement strategies
and protocols.
Level 4
Desired outcome 5.3.2: Supports colleagues to engage actively in professional learning.
Level 1
5.3 Promote active engagement
School Leadership Team / Learning Designs
• Fails to support active
engagement strategies in
professional learning.
Level 5
Level 6
STANDARDS INto PRACTICE: SCHOOL-BASED ROLES
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