Professional learning that Professional learning that supports and sustains supports and sustains learning organisationslearning organisations

Associate Professor Kerry BissakerSchool of Education Flinders Universitykerry.bissaker@flinders.edu.au

Overview of the sessionOverview of the sessionResearch on learning and

professional learningPrinciples of planning for

effective PLCase study: lessons for

organisationsLeading PL

“Educational change is dependent on what teachers do and think, it’s as simple and complex as that” (Fullan, 1991,p. 117)

Organisational change depends on what the members of that organisation do and think too!

Kegan & Lahey, 2001, p.3Kegan & Lahey, 2001, p.3

It is very hard to bring about significant change in any human group without changes in individual behaviour.

It is very hard to sustain significant changes in behaviour without significant changes in individual’s underlying meaning that may give rise to their behaviours.

A powerful message….A powerful message…. ‘Learning cannot

be designed: it can only be designed for - that is, facilitated or frustrated.’

Etienne Wenger (1998:229)

Learning…Learning…links with links with identityidentity“ A great mystery about humans is that we confront learning opportunities with fear rather than curiosity and wonder. We seem to feel better when we know rather than when we learn.”

Costa & Kallick (2005)

‘What we perceive is what we are prepared to perceive, and what we are prepared to perceive is what we have perceived in the past. How then does one ever come to perceive anything new?’

John Mason (2002, p.239)

The learning processThe learning process Moon’s (1999) Map of Learning

Noticing

Making sense

Making meaning

Working with meaning

Transformative Learning

Wow!

Surface level________________________Deep level

Reflection

Wenger (1998)Wenger (1998)

Social perspective on learning◦ Learning is inherent in human nature◦ Learning is first and foremost the ability to negotiate new

meanings◦ Learning creates emergent structures◦ Learning is fundamentally experiential and fundamentally social◦ Learning transforms our identities◦ Learning constitutes trajectories of participation◦ Learning means dealing with boundaries◦ Learning is a matter of social energy and power◦ Learning is a matter of engagement◦ Learning is a matter of imagination- Learning is a matter of alignment- Learning involves an interplay between the local and

global

Powerful learning…•Personally meaningful•Challenging (and the challenge is accepted)•Appropriate to developmental level•Personal ways of learning valued, choices and a sense of control evident•Building on from current knowledge•Opportunities for social interaction•Helpful feedback•Positive emotional climate•Environment supports the intended learning outcomes

Brandt, 1998

A link to the DECD Literacy & Numeracy Strategy

GREAT START, STRONG FOUNDATIONS & POWERFUL LEARNERS

Do students understand how to become a powerful learner?What are the links to the characteristics proposed by Brandt?

Evans (1987:22)

“Adult learning is voluntary in all its dimensions – participation, acquisition, and outcome.”

However, as Wenger reminded us, adult learning can be facilitated or frustrated!

12 principles and practices to begin, 12 principles and practices to begin, maintain and nurture dialogue (Vella, maintain and nurture dialogue (Vella, 2002:4)2002:4)

Needs assessment – participation of the learners in naming what is to be learned

Safety – in the environment and process Sound relationships – connected to ‘safety’ but more than

this Sequence of content and ‘reinforcement’ of key messages Praxis – action with reflection and learning by doing Respect for learners as decision makers Ideas, feelings and actions: cognitive, affective and

psychomotor domains all considered Immediacy of the learning Clear roles and role development Teamwork and use of small groups Engagement of the learners in what they are learning Accountability – how do they know they know?

Changing paradigms and Changing paradigms and languagelanguage

“Professional development as a term and as a strategy has run its course. The future of improvement, indeed of the profession itself, depends on a radical shift in how we conceive learning and the conditions in which teachers and students work.” Fullan, (2007:35)

“If schools are to change to meet their increasingly urgent needs teachers will have to move from being trained or developed to becoming active learners. Professional learning requires a new action plan for systems that are engaged in improving so that all children can learn.”

(Easton, 2008)

Lois Easton Brown (2008:755-756)

“The word development may be an improvement [on training], but just a small one. It evokes images of what someone does to someone else: develop them. In education, professional development has, in fact, often been what someone does to others.

…Such development activities…are neither bad or wrong. But they are not sufficient.

…It is clearer today than ever that educators need to learn, and that’s why professional learning has replaced professional development. Developing is not enough. Educators must be knowledgeable and wise. They must know enough in order to change. They must change in order to get different results. They must become learners, and they must be self-developing.”

International Research on teachers’ perspectives of effective professional learning

Teaching and Learning in Schools: OECD report (2009)http://www.oecd.org/education/preschoolandschool/43023606.pdf

“In many other fields, people enter their professional lives expecting their practice to be transformed by research, but the patterns of participation in professional development [learning] and in the evaluation of teachers and their practices hint that this is not yet the case in education.”

“Relatively few teachers participate in thekinds of professional development which they

find has the largest impact on their work,namely qualification programmes andindividual and collaborative research.”

TALISTALIS

Close associations between these factors:

Positive school climateTeaching beliefs Cooperation between teachersTeacher job satisfactionProfessional developmentAdoption of a range of teaching

techniques

More from TALIS (OECD, More from TALIS (OECD, 2009)2009)

The hardest issues to grapple with related to actually improving

teaching practice

How do teachers effectively improve their practice?

• Companion document to the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, the Australian Professional Standard for School Leaders and the Australian Teacher Performance and Development Framework

• A resource for planning, design and evaluation of professional learning

• www.aitsl.edu.au/professionallearning

• Affirms the importance of learning in improving the professional knowledge, practice and engagement of all teachers and school leaders to achieve improvement in student outcomes

• Articulates the expectation that all teachers and school leaders actively engage in professional learning throughout their careers

• Describes the characteristics of a high quality professional learning culture and of effective professional learning

Hawley & Valli (1999:138)Hawley & Valli (1999:138) 8 Principles of Effective Professional Learning

Teachers clearly identifying their learning needs Driven fundamentally by goals and standards for student

learning Primarily school based and integrated with school operations Processes that involve collaborative problems solving Organisation based on the continuous and ongoing

involvement of a cohesive group Opportunities to develop theoretical understanding of new

knowledge and skills Integration of professional development within a

comprehensive change process including the facilitation of student learning

Incorporating evaluation of multiple sources of outcomes for teachers, students and organisations.

Change perspective…Desimone, 2009Change perspective…Desimone, 2009

Core features of professional [learning]:-Content focus-Active learning-Coherence-Duration-Collective participation

Increased teacher knowledge and skills: changes in attitudes and beliefs

Change in instruction

Improved student learning

Influenced by context such as teacher and student characteristics, curriculum, school leadership and policy development

Influenced by context such as teacher and student Influenced by context such as teacher and student characteristics, curriculum, school leadership and policy characteristics, curriculum, school leadership and policy developmentdevelopment

“We have been brought up to accept hierarchy, certainty, cause-and-effect relationships, either-or-thinking, and a universe that works as a machine – in short, mechanistic thinking. It is a shock for most of us to consider a universe composed of energy that is patterned and spontaneous, the certainty of uncertainty, “both/and” thinking and the connectedness of everything. This is quantum thinking.”

Vella (2004:29)

Moving from mechanistic models to quantum thinking

Case study of a dynamic and Case study of a dynamic and generative adult learning generative adult learning environment environment - with some self-review - with some self-review questions questions

Affordances….for PLAffordances….for PL James Gibson (1977, cited in Wenger, 1998),

initially used the term to define the many possibilities of action when an actor interacts with an environment. Gibson provides the examples of a human coming together with a set of stairs as providing an affordance for climbing, similarly the claws of a squirrel and tree also provide an affordance for attaining a goal. An affordance is generated when the environmental conditions match well with the actor using the environment to achieve a goal.

4 key domains within any school

Underlying affordances shaping and driven by overarching domains

Underlying affordances

Contextual conditions – self review questions

• How does your school’s physical environment promote or inhibit teacher engagement and learning?

• What attention has been paid to developing deep understanding of the vision of the school?

• How would you describe the culture of the school and how has this emerged? Where does teachers’ learning fit within this culture?

• How does leadership prioritse teachers’ learning?

• What learning do leaders engage in?

• Does the school have a shared language that describes the learning process?

• What networks are accessed to promote teachers’ learning?

Organisational elementsOrganisational elements

How is teachers’ learning supported, managed and encouraged?

How is the school designed (organisationally) to promote teacher interaction and learning?

How do teachers describe their professional learning opportunities?

What specific strategies are in place to promote teachers’ learning?

How does teachers’ learning fit with the overall vision for the school?

Teacher characteristicsTeacher characteristicsHow are individual strengths and passions

identified and used to support professional learning of self and others?

What do the leadership team understand about individuals sense of personal agency and how this could work for or against PL?

What do people understand by purposeful listening and how evident is it in the school?

What do people understand by trust and how it is, or can be developed?

RelationshipsRelationshipsHow are relationships viewed and valued in

the school?What information would emerge from a

‘relationships audit’ of the school? (Type and quality)

What explicit strategies are in place to understand relationships and how they can be fostered as a foundation for improved outcomes at the classroom, school and community level?

How is conflict and contested views perceived by members of the school community?

‘the time teachers spend with each other and other knowledgeable professionals – engaged in thinking about teaching and learning- is just as important to students’ opportunities to learn as the time teachers spend in direct facilitation of learning.’ Darling-Hammond (1999:33)

….Schon (1983) suggested competent practitioners usually know much more than they can say and that uncertainties, far from being external indicators of a need for professional progress represented an opportunity for enhanced effectiveness/practice.

Enhanced practice is founded on perceived wisdom and not on deficiencies.

What is the message to take from this advice?

The role of leadersThe role of leadersDevelopmental

leaders…have a greater capacity to notice… ‘a receptive alertness rather than a stand-back analysis’

Perkins (2003, p. 217)

Perkins (2003, p. 217)Perkins (2003, p. 217)An ideal developmental leader tries to

adopt progressive [interactions] regardless of what others are doing. When giving feedback, the person offers communicative rather than negative or conciliatory feedback. When collaborating with others to start a project the person brings to the table not fully developed ideas but trial balloons or sacrificial plans held loosely to avoid the danger of early retrenchment.

Perkins (2003, p. 219)Perkins (2003, p. 219)

Developmental leaders…◦Act visibly◦Function as exemplars, facilitators,

encouragers, mentors, coaches◦Have a clear understanding of the vision◦Act progressively…alerting, exposing,

explaining◦“raise consciousness casually in the

natural flow of working together” (p.225).

The challengesThe challenges‘In times of stress, when cognitive load

is high, behaviours tend to regress towards simpler earlier-learned behaviours. And it’s hard to be progressive when the other guy is being regressive. Both progressive and regressive practices stimulate their own kind but regressive practices tend to stimulate regressive practices more than progressive practices provoke progressive practices.’

Perkins, 2003, p.247.

Brighouse & Woods 1999 Brighouse & Woods 1999 (cited in Fullan 2005 p. 37- 38)(cited in Fullan 2005 p. 37- 38)

Energy creatorsEnergy neutralsEnergy

consumers

Energy Creators…Energy Creators…Are enthusiastic and always positiveUse critical thinking, creativity and

imaginationStimulate and spark othersPractice leadership at all levelsAre able and willing to scrutinize their

practices and willing to make their practices accessible to others

Wish to improve on their previous bestBrighouse & Woods 1999 (cited in Fullan 2005 p. 37- 38)

Energy NeutralsEnergy Neutrals

Competent sound practitionersWilling to [address] the taskGood at ‘maintenance’Sometimes uncomfortable accepting

examination of their own practice by others

Capable of improving on their previous best

Brighouse & Woods 1999 (cited in Fullan 2005 p. 37- 38)

Energy consumers…tend toEnergy consumers…tend toHave a negative view of the worldResent change and practice blocking

strategiesUse other people’s time excessivelyNot feel good about themselvesBe unable and unwilling to critically examine

their teaching [or leadership] practiceAppear not to want to improve on their

personal bestBrighouse & Woods 1999 (cited in Fullan 2005 p. 37-

38)

Vision Skills Incentive ResourcesAction Plan

Change…recognise and acknowledge feelings…they are answers that may help attend to areas of greatest need

Confusion

Anxiety

Frustration

Gradual Change

False Starts

Source: Lippett, (2003) Leading Complex Change –see pdf

Some final thoughtsSome final thoughts“When schools become places for teachers to

learn, the also become schools on the way to improvement.” Will Hawley

We will never have all the answers…rather than panic about this we need to embrace the opportunity to learn…remember we are in a GROWTH industry…

Keep learning BUT analyse the features of the PL before committing…maintain a critical mind…ask questions!