(Component Three: continued)

The final guideline deals with evaluation of professional development.

7. The impact of professional development on the implementation of new practices and student outcomes should be evaluated so professional development provided in the future can be made more effective.

Data on the success of an implementation is essential to deciding professional development activities. If the teachers do not use the new process or if they modify it in such a way that it is different from what was intended, then an evaluation of the impact on student outcomes will be misleading. So the first challenge is to measure implementation. This can be done by direct observation, but a less time-intensive way is through self-reporting by teachers and staff. This may be done through journals, minutes from team meetings where implementation is discussed, and collectively-developed checklists in which each aspect of the new strategies that is being used can be easily identified (Collins). On the other hand, utilizing observations provides another way to confirm or "triangulate" the self-reported data. Building in opportunities for teachers to observe each other also reinforces the idea of being a professional learning community.

The planning team might address these questions:

• How will the use of the new practices be measured? What student outcomes are the new practices intended to produce?
• How will these outcomes be measured?
• Can we measure student outcomes (using the same assessment tools) before and after the new practices are implemented so we can see how much growth has occurred?

Some contend that schools will never change unless those within them feel a sense of urgency. These critics call for doomsday strategies that threaten the very existence of public education. But while such a struggle for survival can generate a feeling of urgency, that feeling is likely to last only until the crisis has passed. A more enduring catalyst for change is a compelling picture of what the school might become—one that projects positive images and practical alternatives that are clearly superior to the status quo. The concept of a professional learning community can provide that picture. DuFour and Eaker, 1998

The evaluation measures growth in student learning to document the impact of comprehensive school reform efforts. This requires assessing student achievement before teachers start using the new practices and measuring again with the same instruments after the new strategies have had time to make an impact (Collins, Guskey, Sparks).

For more on professional development evaluation read "Assessing and Monitoring Progress" in SERVE's Achieving Your Vision of Professional Development. 

Creating a Strong Context for Change through Professional Development

Roland Barth describes a professional learning community as a place where all participants—teachers, principals, parents, and students—engage in learning and teaching. School is not a place for important people who do not need to learn and unimportant people who do. Instead, it is a place where students discover, and adults rediscover, the joys, the difficulties, and the satisfactions of learning.

As the school engages in comprehensive school reform, it will be filled with daily examples of people learning from each other, sharing what they are learning, and being excited about and participating in what others are learning. For the school's teachers, staff, and administrators, all of these learning experiences represent professional development. But what does this learning look like? Here are four diverse examples:

Example one: The most common form of learning that is driven by comprehensive school reform efforts is the implementation of new instructional strategies. Implementing new strategies involves taking what is learned through training or some other form of professional development and actually putting it into use in the classroom. The critical component of this aspect of teacher learning is continual assistance, the support teachers receive after their initial training with the new strategy. Teachers who are part of a professional learning community may form peer-coaching study teams to provide each other with the necessary support and assistance to actually begin using a new instructional strategy. This level of support helps teachers persevere through the initial stages of trying something new when their performance may be awkward or not up to their usual standards. The key characteristics of continual assistance are the following: support, clarification of new strategies through observing examples of effective use, collaboration, sharing of ideas, and encouragement.

Example two: A committee of teachers, administrators, and parents may examine different organizational patterns to find one that fits the needs and strengths of the school. Individuals would fan out to locate alternative organizational structures and bring them back to the group for review. As the group members pull together what they have found and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each organizational structure, they are demonstrating one of the key characteristics of learning community members: they are learning from each other, with each other, and for each other.

Example three: Throughout the process of comprehensive school reform, groups gather to talk about what is important to them about school reform and what they believe about schooling in general. These activities—whether their product is called a vision, a mission statement, or a set of tenets or beliefs—are a type of learning or professional development that is part of creating a professional learning community. Identifying and coming to consensus on values and beliefs represents another key characteristic of learning within a professional learning community: open dialogue on important issues and concerns.

Example four: A professional learning community exists when a group of people commit themselves to continual learning and to supporting each other in continual learning. Each of the above examples reveals some aspect of this idea that learning is a joint activity shared by all. Another feature of a professional learning community illustrated by these examples is the job-embedded nature of teacher learning. In a professional learning community, professional development is so intertwined with the day-to-day work of teachers that the distinction becomes blurred. Professional development ceases to exist as an "add-on" that occurs only on designated days of the year and becomes an integrated function of being a member of a professional learning community.

How to Create a Professional Learning Community

Because each school differs in its existing context or professional culture, it is not wise to prescribe a series of steps as "the" way to build a professional learning community. The following ideas were collected from studies and firsthand experience in school renewal and professional learning communities. They are not sequential steps to follow but rather represent a collection of ideas.

• Share with teachers and others the key characteristics of a professional learning community and the benefits that can be realized through building a professional learning community. Stress how this type of professional culture makes it easier to learn new ways of teaching. Use the description of a professional learning community at the end of this section or create your own description. Ask teachers what a professional learning community might look like at your school. Use their ideas as building blocks for creating a vision of the kind of learning community they would want to join (DuFour, Eaker).
• Encourage teachers to engage in discussions of the new teaching practices that make up the comprehensive school reform model being implemented. Provide opportunities for sharing ideas and time for teachers to watch each other teach. Making these sharing times a regular part of how the school operates is important. Providing a structure for these activities, such as asking teachers to respond to a set of questions or perform a specific task, will increase the effectiveness of teachers' time together. Look for ways to enable teachers to work collaboratively on planning for instruction using the new practices associated with the model. Initial efforts at collaborative planning can be structured by a sequence of questions adapted from those developed by Joyce and Showers. Invite teachers who share a subject area or grade level to work through these questions:

• Ask teachers to develop collaboratively common assessment tools for measuring how students respond to the new practices. As teachers who teach the same subject generate common tests or performance tasks, they talk about the content, the way in which each presents that content, and how learning can best be assessed. A common assessment also allows teachers to compare how their students are learning. This can be a highly sensitive matter, so it is wise to encourage teachers to talk openly about this practice and their expectations before getting started.
• Make copies of samples of student work and have a study team of teachers grade the samples independently and then compare their assessments. Teachers may want to develop a standardized rubric or other grading practices as they talk through how they approach evaluating student work.
• Find ways to involve the entire faculty in making important decisions, such as selecting the focus and procedures of collective inquiry or the content of upcoming professional development activities. Deciding together what will be studied, how it will be studied, and what will be done with the results makes a strong statement of shared responsibility and commitment to one another's learning.
• Reinforce leadership that emphasizes problem solving over problem hiding or assigning blame. Speak positively about efforts to experiment with new ways of teaching and new approaches to solving long-standing problems.
• Encourage shared responsibility for student learning. Collaborative planning and teaming are strong methods of developing shared responsibility.
• Engage in collective inquiry and collective action as a way to solve problems that arise in the implementation of the comprehensive school reform model. It is likely that teachers are working independently to solve the same problems. Provide opportunities for them to bring their concerns and questions out in the open and tackle them as a group. Then, help them share the results openly.

Also see Steps to Becoming a Professional Learning Community, Murphy, C. U. and Lick, D. W. (1998). Whole-Faculty Study Groups: A Powerful Way To Change Schools and Enhance Learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, Inc.

Conclusion

The professional development needed to transform a whole school involves building a school culture in which everyone is involved in ongoing collective inquiry into how their school can become more effective in using new strategies and practices, and that is a challenging task. This component provides guidance on adult learning and explains how to set up and maintain a culture of continual improvement, a professional learning community.

The following are additional links for professional development: NCREL's Professional Development: Learning from the Best: A Toolkit for Schools and Districts Based on the National Awards Program for Model Professional Development  The Knowledge Loom: What Works in Teaching and Learning, In the Spotlight·Professional Development

References

Barth, Roland S. Improving Schools from Within: Teachers, Parents, and Principals Can Make the Difference. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990.

Brookfield, Stephen. Understanding and Facilitating Adult Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1986.

Collins, David. Achieving Your Vision of Professional Development. Greensboro, North Carolina: SERVE, 1997.

DuFour, Richard and Robert Eaker. Professional Learning Communities at Work. Bloomington: National Educational Service, 1998.

Guskey, Thomas and Dennis Sparks. "What to Consider When Evaluating Staff Development." Educational Leadership 49, no. 3 (1991): 73-76.

Joyce, Bruce and Beverly Showers. Student Achievement through Staff Development. White Plains: Longman, 1988.

Little, Judith Warren. Organizing Schools for Teacher Learning. Paper presented to the AERA Invitational Conference on Teacher Development and School Reform, 31 May 1996.

Murphy, C. U., and D. W. Lick. Whole-Faculty Study Groups: A Powerful Way to Change Schools and Enhance Learning. Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press, 1998.

Raywid, Mary. "Finding Time for Collaboration." Educational Leadership 51, no. 1 (1993): 30-35.

Snyder, K. J. "Competency Development: Linking Restructuring Goals to Training and Coaching." Clinical Supervision: Coaching for Higher Performance. R. Anderson and K. Snyder, eds. Lancaster: Technomics, 1993.

Sparks, Dennis and Susan Loucks-Horsley. "Five Models of Staff Development for Teachers." Journal of Staff Development 10 no. 4 (Fall 1989): 41-58.

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