The experience of a professional community: teachers developing a new image of themselves and their workplace (original) (raw)
Related papers
2011
This paper describes a school’s participation in a project designed to support critical reflection of teachers’ beliefs about best practice in early childhood education, and how these beliefs and practices intersected with shifting policies and trends in the broader early childhood field. The “Professional Learning” Project (PL project), was conducted in collaboration with a local university. As the project unfolded, multiple influences were found to affect its ultimate outcomes, including the tensions associated with day-to-day classroom commitments and varying levels of willingness to engage in what were at times confronting and challenging discussions. As a result, engagement, collaboration and participation ebbed and flowed
Some aspects of school seen as a Professional Learning Community
Practice and Theory in Systems of Education, 2016
Each school is part of the community and at the same time, a provider of education services. This makes school a Learning Community for both teachers and students. While in the case of students this is a mission accomplished, in that of teachers’ things seem to be a bit more difficult. The latter ones should see themselves as members of a Professional Learning Community (PLC), where each teacher should cooperate with the other to achieve common goals, engage in common research activities for the progress of their school, take part in evaluating school results and propose plans to improve them etc. This research aimed to identify teachers’ perception of the role of school as a Professional Learning Community, to identify how school boards support and encourage this idea through participative management and to identify lines of joint research in which teachers are involved. The instrument used was a questionnaire having 30 close-ended items, administered to pre-university teachers fro...
Teachers’ perceptions of their schools changing toward professional learning communities
Journal of Professional Capital and Community, 2021
PurposeIn professional learning communities (PLCs), teachers collaborate and learn with the aim of improving students' learning. The aim of this study is to gain insight into teachers' perceptions of their schools' changing toward PLCs and conditions which support or hamper this change.Design/methodology/approachQuestionnaires were completed by a total of 2.111 teachers from 15 Dutch secondary schools for three years. With the use of multilevel regression analyses, the research questions were answered.FindingsAlthough the development of a school toward a PLC seems to be a slow process, the findings demonstrate the influence of school conditions on this development. Human resource management (HRM) stands out, as this school condition has a direct and longitudinal effect on the change.Practical implicationsThe main recommendation is to embed PLC elements in HRM policies such as facilitating teachers to collaboratively work and learn and aligning teachers' professional ...
This study explores the culture of a new primary school, as it is engaged in the process of setting its policies, developing pedagogies and introducing organisational structures. Specifically, it examines the Professional Learning Community (PLC) model which is reported in the literature to create a collaborative culture aimed at improving both the educational environment and students' achievement. The study critically analyses the literature in the field of PLCs, and the principles extracted from it guided the methodological approach adopted in this study. The research approach was action research, with the aim of changing practitioners' practices, their understandings of their practices, and the conditions in which they practice to improve the learning experience of the students. Finally the study outlines the leadership implications to develop and support a PLC in the local setting.
Professional Development in Education
In order to support professional development of their teachers 14 Dutch secondary schools developed and implemented a series of interventions. The concept of School as Professional Learning Community was used to frame these school interventions. Data were collected through project documents, interviews with school principals and project leaders, group interviews with teachers and focus groups with project leaders. Interventions can be grouped into five clusters: 1) Shared school vision on learning; 2) Professional learning opportunities for all staff; 3) Collaborative work and learning; 4) Change of school organisation, and 5) Learning leadership. Interventions aimed at teacher-leaders, team leaders and school principals were relatively rare. Interventions belonging to the clusters Professional learning opportunities and Collaborative work and learning were the ones most frequently mentioned including formal and informal teacher groups working and learning together. In general, we conclude that the more embedded an intervention was in the organisation and culture of a school, the more sustainable it appeared to be.
Issues in Educational Research, 2011
This paper describes a school's participation in a project designed to support critical reflection of teachers' beliefs about best practice in early childhood education, and how these beliefs and practices intersected with shifting policies and trends in the broader early childhood field. The "Professional Learning" Project (PL project), was conducted in collaboration with a local university. As the project unfolded, multiple influences were found to affect its ultimate outcomes, including the tensions associated with day-to-day classroom commitments and varying levels of willingness to engage in what were at times confronting and challenging discussions. As a result, engagement, collaboration and participation ebbed and flowed. metropolitan primary school, to reflect on their early childhood practice, at a time when there were changing policies and practices at the national level. Berrivale Primary School conducted this process in partnership with a local universi...
Teachers as drivers of their professional learning through teams, communities and networks
Engaging teachers in cooperative and collaborative processes through which they learn from each other is fundamental in rethinking professional development as being ‘done’ to teachers compared with teachers ‘doing’ or driving their professional learning. This rethinking is underpinned by opportunities that have arisen through social networks and the pervasiveness of online media but also from the shift in valuing the exploration of individual interests and needs as well as in the pedagogical reform process. The tenents of effective professional learning, that being, active engagement, teacher voice, creation and collaboration, inquiry and reflection, will be explored in this chapter through two modes of discourse. First, a reckoning of what counts as professional learning activities is propositioned to establish the driving force or purpose for teacher learning. This is then developed further in the second part of this chapter where we discuss the various approaches to professional learning with a theoretical analysis of teacher collaboration, teacher teams, communities of practice and broader social networks. Understanding the genesis, development and purpose of professional engagement and interaction is key to supporting teachers as the ‘deliverers’ of educational reform who are those tasked with transforming education through ICT.
Innovations, Technologies and Research in Education, 2019, 2019
In the context of the general education content reform initiated in Latvia, which also provides change of learning approach, involvement in mutual professional learning activities at school has raised the issue of teachers` professional growth. In the scientific literature the concept of the professional learning communities (PLC) is considered to be an effective organizational system for school staff development, school change and improvement on the basis of two considerations. First of all it is presumed that teachers` professional knowledge is a part of their everyday experience and that this knowledge is best understood in a critical exchange of ideas with other teachers, who have the same experience. Secondly it is assumed that teachers who are actively involved in the PLCs will be able to increase their professional knowledge and competence, thus contributing to students` learning and their learning outcomes. The main goal of the research is to find out whether and to what extent teachers in the Latvian general education institutions take part in the PLCs. The article discusses theories of the concept of PLC and analyses the results of 489 teacher surveys. The results of empirical research do not show significant differences in the mean values of the PLC scales in primary and secondary schools. The data shows a very significant difference in the average values of the PLC scales in schools of the same level of education.
A Retrospective Analysis of a Professional Learning Community: How Teachers- Capacities Shaped It
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), 2008
The purpose of this paper is to describe the process of setting up a learning community within an elementary school in Ontario, Canada. The description is provided through reflection and examination of field notes taken during the yearlong training and implementation process. Specifically the impact of teachers' capacity on the creation of a learning community was of interest. This paper is intended to inform and add to the debate around the tensions that exist in implementing a bottom-up professional development model like the learning community in a top-down organizational structure. My reflections of the process illustrate that implementation of the learning community professional development model may be difficult and yet transformative in the professional lives of the teachers, students, and administration involved in the change process. I conclude by suggesting the need for a new model of professional development that requires a transformative shift in power dynamics and a shift in the view of what constitutes effective professional learning.
American Journal of Education, 1998
A study examined the impact of school professional community on the intellectual quality of student achievement (authentic achievement) and the relationship of professional community to the technical and social organization of the classroom, including the mediating relationship of these classroom organizational features on authentic achievement. Professional community is a school organizational structure with an intellectually directed culture typified by shared values, focus on student learning, collaboration, deprivatized practice, and reflective dialogue. Data were collected as part of the School Restructuring Study of the Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools. Eight elementary, eight middle, and eight high schools were selected. Surveys were completed by 910 teachers, and the instructional practices of 144 teachers were studied according to a view of authentic pedagogy. School professional community was found to be most characteristic of elementary schools and least characteristic of high schools. Findings strongly support the conceptual model posited, that the organization of teachers' work in ways that promote professional community has significant effects on the organization of classrooms for learning and the academic performance of students. Professional community among teachers was associated with both authentic pedagogy and social support for achievement among students. Appendixes discuss the construction of study variables and correlations among variables. (Contains 2 figures, 3 tables, and 75 references.) (SLD)