Leading Professional
Learning:
Challenges and Possibilities
Alma Harris
Director, Institute of Educational Leadership
Michelle Jones
Deputy Director, Institute of Educational
Leadership (International)
Professor Alma Harris
President
ICSEI 2013
This interactive session will
• Explore the relationship between
leadership, school improvement and
professional learning
• Introduce a model of Professional
Learning Communities used in various
countries
• Investigate the barriers to collaborative
ways of working
How do we ensure success for all students
in all settings?…
PISA
The Bad, the Good
and the Ugly
Old v New Reform
(Harris, forthcoming)
Old
New
 Standardisation
 Professionalisation
 Punitive
 Developmental
 Compensates for worse
 Advocates effective




practice
Control
Reductionist
Focus on Failure
De-Professionalisation




practice
Empowerment
Expansionist
Emphasis on success
Professional Collaboration
Drivers (Fullan 2011:5)
‘Wrong’
‘Right’
 Accountability
 Capacity Building
 Individual teacher and
 Group Solutions
leadership quality
 Technology
 Instruction
 Fragmented Strategies
 Integrated or systemic
strategies
Mc Kinsey
How the world's most improved school systems keep getting better’ 2010
The Most Powerful Levers
 Leadership Capacity
 Teacher Quality
School Improvement
 Does not occur without some change in leadership
or leadership practice
Leadership: What we Know
 Leadership is the key lever of high organisational
performance.
 Successful organisations have widely and carefully
distributed leadership.
 Effective leaders grow and manage other leaders
FIVE DIMENSIONS OF EFFECTIVE SCHOOL LEADERSHIP
(Robinson, 2008)
0.42
1. Establishing Goals and Expectations
0.31
2. Resourcing Strategically
3. Planning, Coordinating and
Evaluating Teaching and the Curriculum
0.42
4. Promoting and Participating in
Teacher Learning and Development
0.84
5. Ensuring an Orderly and Supportive
Environment
0.27
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
Effect Size
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
Leadership Matters
So Leadership Matters
But
 What type of school
leadership transforms
organisational performance
and outcomes?
But What Type of Leadership?
 Transformational
 Instructional
 Distributed
 Strategic
 System
15
Level 5 Executive
Level 4 Effective Leader
Level 3 Competent manager
Level 2 Team manager
Level 1 Capable individual
Level 5 Leaders
 Channel ego needs away from themselves
 Focus on larger goals
 Are ambitious for their institution and not
themselves
 Widely distribute leadership
 Facilitate the collaboration of others
Pause and Reflect
How far are you a level 5 leader?
Have you ever worked for a level 5
leader?
So we know
What is important and what to focus upon
But how do we make it happen?
Effective Leadership is
Distributed and Collaborative
Distributed Leadership
is concerned with
(Harris, 2008)

Building leadership capacityinter-relationships that build leadership
Distributed Leadership in context
(Harris, 2006)
• Leadership shifts according to need
• Collaborative teams formed for specific
purposes
• Team membership changes according to
task, roles and expertise..
•
Pause and Reflect
 How far is leadership distributed or collaborative
in your context?
Research suggests that professional development
is most effective when:
 it addresses the concrete,
everyday challenges involved in
teaching and learning
 Does not focus on abstract
educational principles or
teaching methods taken out of
context.
Professional Learning in the Learning Profession: A Status Report on Teacher
Development in the United States and Abroad Darling Hammond et al 2009
NSDC
Professional Learning
Communities
in Action
What’s in a name?
 Communities of Practice
 Professional Learning Communities
 Collaborative Learning circles
 Communities of Interest
 Professional Learning Teams
Professional Learning
Communities as
• A mechanism for distributing leadership
• An infrastructure for change
• A platform for professional learning
Connecting Professional Learning
 Working together on the barriers to learning through
collective enquiry, joint decision making and problem
solving.
Professional collaboration
Collaborative practice is about teachers and school
leaders working together to develop effective
instructional practices, studying what actually works
in classroom, and doing so with rigorous attention to
detail and with a commitment to not only improving
one’s own practice but that of others as well.
Disciplined Collaboration
 Disciplined collaboration means that teachers work
interdependently through a process of focused and
rigorous enquiry in order to improve their own
practice and the practice of others.
 In essence, disciplined collaboration enables teachers
to reflect upon their own learning, as teachers.
(Harris and Jones, 2012: Jones and Harris, 2013)
Disciplined Collaboration
 Focused collaboration that addresses the learning
needs of students.
 Professional learning that is most likely to improve
learner outcomes.
DC Model
 The DC model provides opportunities for teachers to
work as an effective collaborative team, in a systematic
and focused way, in order to generate new ideas and to
change practice.
 DC is about ‘next’ professional practice where new
ideas are created rather than simply sharing or
recycling old ideas.
 The DC model is premised upon interdependent
learning and it consists of three phases of professional
learning- implementation, innovation, and
impact.
DC
 Development and Research
 Generating new knowledge through professional
collaboration and interdependent learning
 Co-construction rather than prescription
 Sharing, refining and evaluating practices
Disciplined Collaboration: 5
Principles
 Diagnosis – how far is the collaborative work based on an




accurate assessment of learner needs?
Data – to what extent is the collaborative work informed by data
and data analysis?
Development – is the innovation, intervention or new initiative
that the collaborative group are proposing appropriate to address
the identified learning need? Is there a fit between the diagnoses
and the proposed development?
Distributed Leadership- to what extent is leadership within
the collaborative group distributed to best effect?
Drive- has the collaborative group developed an implementation
plan and considered how any changes would be sustained?
(Harris and Jones, 2012)
Professional Learning Communities
PLCs engage in processes of enquiry in order
to improve student outcomes.
Through using evidence from school self
evaluation, including data and teacher
assessments, members of the PLC identify the
strengths and needs of a group of pupils and
then determine the strategies and skills
needed to improve outcomes.
Characteristics of a PLC
Data informed
Distributed Leadership
Focused on Learner Needs
Experiment with Pedagogy / Instruction
Enquiry driven- outcomes lead to
change in practice and improved learner
outcomes
School Priorities
Effective Professional Learning
aligns with school improvement
priorities and goals.
Effective PL addresses school
improvement priorities in context
School
Priorities
Professional
Learning
Student
Learning
Phases of a PLC
Harris and Jones 2009
1.Establish
the Group
(Interchangeable
)
7. Sharing
Outcomes
2. Identify a
Focus
Implement
Impact
6. Refining
3. Action
Enquiry
5. Trialling
and
Feedback
Innovation
4. and
Change
Innovate
PLCs
 You do not DO PLCs once a week or once a term. Being
part of a PLC is an on going process where teachers
work collaboratively in cycles of collective enquiry /
action research to achieve better results for the
students they teach
Phases 1 and 2
Data informed
Finding a Collective Focus
 What is the group interested in finding out?
 Why do you want to know this?
 What data analysis has helped you to identify
this issue?
 Is it a reasonable focus to be considering?
Why?
 Will learners benefit if you focus on this issue?
How?
 Are there any ethical issues you may need to
consider?
What are the characteristics of a
‘good’ question of enquiry?
 Data Generated/Informed
 Specific
 Measurable
 Simply Stated
 Easily Communicated
 Linked to Improvement
Do these Pass the Test?
• Investigating Numeracy across the curriculum.
• How can we get all pupils in the Foundation Stage to get more
thoughtful
and
meaningful
readers
as
well
as
becoming
‘metacognitive’ or aware of their thinking while they read?
• Transition project yr 6 to yr 7
• How can raise standards in humanities subjects in Year 10 through
the introduction of a thinking skills programme?
• Focusing on Literacy KS 2
• What the factors contribute to the Year 8 dip and what strategies can
we use to overcome these?
Phase 3
What research is there on…?
Other teachers' practice
Where do we get more
information?
What do we do next?
Approaches to Enquiry
 Learning Walks
 Lesson Study
 Peer Observation
 Instructional Rounds
 Peer Triads
 Coaching and Mentoring
Phase 4
New strategies and
approaches trialled
by the PLC team
Phase 5
Keeping all staff
informed of PLC
activity and
progress
Phase 6
Practice and embed
new strategies
Assess impact
Phase 7
1.Establish
the Group
PLC team reports
findings and
recommendations
7. Sharing
Outcomes
2. Identify a
Focus
6. Refining
PLC team shares
outcomes with other
educators
3. Action
Enquiry
5. Trialling
and
Feedback
Innovation 4.
and Change
IMPACT
 The DC model is predicated on producing an impact
at three levels: learner, professional and
organisational
(Harris and Jones, 2012)
Impact of the PLC
Outcomes result in change:
Teachers
•Instructional Practice
Pupils
•Learning experiences /outcomes
7 Tests
 Clarity of focus
 Consistent and creative use of data
 Collaboration with purpose
 Communication of intent and outcomes
 Capacity building through engagement and
involvement of others
 Coherent action
 Change in practice
54
Without stones, there is no
arch.
Marco Polo
www.almaharris.co.uk

