Professional Learning
What do we mean by professional learning?
"The quality of teaching is arguably the single most important thing that teachers and school leaders can focus on to make a difference in children’s learning. The difference between really good teaching and less effective teaching makes more difference to learning than any other factor within school. High-quality teaching narrows the advantage gap. Crucially, it is also something that can be changed: all teachers can learn to be better." (Wiliam, 2016, Leadership for Teacher Learning. West Palm Beach, FL: Learning Sciences International)
For CPD to be effective, it needs to be prioritised by leadership. (Cordingley P, Higgins S, Greany T et al.,2015, Developing great teaching: Lessons from the international reviews into effective professional development. London: Teacher Development Trust.)
(Image source: Download Circle, Colorful, Cooperation. Royalty-Free Vector Graphic - Pixabay)
This section of the website is devoted to how you develop the professional learning of staff and the organisation as a whole. It's focus is therefore on Adult Learning and How to facilitate adult learning.
Heads Up!
The IB sometimes refers to developing effective 'professional learning communities PLCs)'. This is a technical term, and in some parts of the world has been taken to be an organisational term, namely to refer to how staff are grouped into professional learning communities.
In order to avoid misunderstanding, I prefer to speak about how you develop professional learning in your school as a 'learning organisation'. Go to Schools as 'Learning Organisations' to read about the origins of this term and how it has informed the Revised Standards and Practices (2020) and subsequently the new Heads of School (Category 1) and Leaders of Learning (Category 1 and 2) workshops that will be rolled out in late 2020.
'Professional' has its roots in profess (= to claim a body of knowledge or expertise as one's own). 'Community' has its roots in common. Professional community implies that the body of knowledge or expertise is shared amongst a group of people. It is about building up collective practice.
Developing the school as a professional learning organisation is important because of the positive impact it can have on student outcomes: "An effective professional learning community has the capacity to promote and sustain the learning of all professionals on the community with the collective purpose of enhancing pupil learning." (Bolam, R, McMahon, A, Stoll, L, Thomas, S, & Wallace, M, with Greenwood, A, Hawkey, K, Ingram, M, Atkinson, A, & Smith, M, 2005, Creating and Sustaining Effective Professional Learning Communities, DfES Research Report).
"At my school we refer to professional learning communities as impact teams. In these teams which comprise of subject grade levels we are asked to really focus on what is the goal for students to learn each unit. Focusing on the outcome allows us to share our expertise, materials, and really focus on what will make the best learning environment for students. " (Jennifer Cain)
School leaders play a central role in creating and sustaining school cultures that embrace professional learning. You will investigate different approaches to developing IB focused professional learning organisations.
We look at the nature of learning organisations, how they allow difficult issues to be talked about, questions about teaching and learning asked and how adults can actively learn from each other. We explore how you build, nurture and sustain professional learning in your school.
Professional Inquiry
- What are the key features of professional learning?
- How do professional learning organisations evolve, grow, network and become sustainable?
- How do school leaders lead the development of professional learning? How do they establish a climate of trust and promote collaboration and effective teamwork? What are the causes of collaborative advantage and collaborative inertia?
- To what extent is my school a professional learning organisation? How central is learning in our community? Which professional learning opportunities can our school offer to its educators? How networked is our school community?
- To what extent should professional learning be an integral part of the schools performance management process?
- How can networking and external networks and partners enrich our professional learning?
- How does the philosophy and practices of professional learning communities resonate with an IB World School? What opportunities exist in the wider IB community for networking?
- Why are there specific challenges in creating and sustaining a professional learning organisation in cross cultural communities?
What does it mean for teachers to have agency and to have the ability to act agentically? The OECD has emphasized the important role of teachers as the most significant within-school influence on school improvement. Recently there has been a renewed vision of teachers as active developers of curriculum. However, teachers work within systems (school | regional | national) that sometimes deny teachers the ability to act agentically (e.g. the way they have actively deprofessionalised teachers through highly prescriptive curricula, assessment and inspection regimes).
References
A great introduction to agency can be found in THIS article. HOWEVER, an even better article is Priestley, M., Biesta, G., & Robinson, S, Teacher agency: what is it and why does it matter? That can be found HERE. This article provides an alternative view of teacher agency, developing an ecological conceptualization of agency that emphasizes the importance of both agentic agency (a teacher’s motivation for and ability to be agentic) and agentic spaces (the environment | systems that allow for it and support it). It considers agency from the point of view of the school ecosystem.
"[T]his concept of agency highlights that actors always act by means of their environment rather than simply in their environment [so that] the achievement of agency will always result from the interplay of individual efforts, available resources and contextual and structural factors as they come together in particular and, in a sense, always unique situations."
The pages in this section on professional learning contain many resources. However, there are two series of documents that you may wish to keep in one place.
The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership has produced an ‘Essential Guide’ series to professional learning. It provides insights and practical strategies to help teachers and school leaders engage in effective professional growth. There are four documents in this series:
- The essential guide to professional learning: Leading Culture, AITSL (2017).
- The essential guide to professional learning: Collaboration, AITSL (2017).
- The essential guide to professional learning: Innovation, AITSL (2017).
- The essential guide to professional learning: Evaluation, AITSL (2017).
The National College of School Leadership (UK) has produced a series of booklets on professional learning communities. I attach them at the end of this page, but also include the URL links below.
What is a professional learning community? A summary, Louise Stoll, Ray Bolam, Agnes McMahon, Sally Thomas, Mike Wallace, Angela Greenwood and Kate Hawke
Booklet 2: Creating and sustaining an effective professional learning community, Louise Stoll, Ray Bolam, Agnes McMahon, Sally Thomas, Mike Wallace, Angela Greenwood and Kate Hawkey
Booklet 3: Setting professional learning communities in an international context
Booklet 4: Broadening the learning community: key messages
Booklet 5: Exploring the idea of professional learning communities
Booklet 6: Investigating the culture of your professional learning community
Booklet 7: Comparing your preferred future and reality
Booklet 8: Deciding where you are as a professional learning community
Booklet 9: Planning your professional learning community
Booklet 10: Developing your professional learning community
Booklet 11: Bringing about change: starting out, developing and sustaining
Booklet 12: Reflecting on the progress of your professional learning community
Booklet 13: Assessing the impact of your professional learning community
David Lovelin, High School Principal at Hong Kong International School, shares weekly articles to shape discussion in his school community. His list for 2018-2022 is well worth checking out. It is a great idea. Click HERE.
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Tags: learning organisation, professional learning community, PLC, agency