Creating and Leading Learning Communities

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Creating and Leading Learning Communities

• A Focus on Learning

2
Essential Question

• How do I create the structure and environment to
  enhance and support
• on-line learners?

3
The Day at a Glance

• Introductions
• Jumpstart Your Thinking
• Characteristics of Learning Communities
• High Quality Professional Development
• Strategies Frameworks for Learning Communities
• Assessment Task
• Closure

4
Standard

• Declarative
• Understand the importance of community in
  learning experiences
• Understand the characteristics of quality
  professional development
• Understand the strategies and actions for
  building community
• Procedural
• Define the needs of adult learners engaged in
  on-line learning
• Create norms to support the development and
  on-going support of community
• Establish effective meeting strategies and
  processes
• Identify appropriate learning structures in which
  to engage on-line learners
• Facilitate learning community dialogue

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Assessment Task

• In pairs, select an envelope with a profile of
  teachers needing to be in a learning community.
  Create a plan to build and support a learning
  community for this team of on-line learners. Be
  sure to include structures that allow for best
  practices in learning and strategies to create
  supportive environments.
• Briefly describe to another group the plan you
  created.

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Introductions
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Introductions
Getting in Shape! Form a trio and determine who
will be circle, who will be square and who will
be triangle.
Share commonalities or high points with the large
group!
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Personal Goal Setting

• Given the standard for this session and the task
  you will be asked to accomplish at the conclusion
  of this session, what personal learning goal will
  you set for yourself?

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Jumpstart Your Thinking
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Jump Start Your Thinking

• Think of a time when you were involved in a true
  community . . .
• What was the context? How did you feel about it?
• Share your example with 2 or 3 others.
• What are the commonalities in your examples?
• What characteristics stand out as noteworthy?
• Create a metaphor for Community. Share your
  metaphor with the large group.

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Community

• Community is a movement and not a condition, a
  voyage and not a harbor. It is rooted in a
  sense of place, history, and trust through which
  the people are in a reciprocal relationship with
  their environment. As such, a community is a
  lively, ever-changing, interactive,
  interdependent system of relationships. Because a
  community is a self-organizing system, it does
  not simply incorporate information, but changes
  its environment as well.

Chris Maser, The Trumpeter (1998) http//trumpeter
.athabascau.ca/content/v15.1/maser.html
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Why Learning Communities?
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The Case for Powerful Professional Learning
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Learning Organizations
. . . organizations where people continually
expand their capacity to create the results they
truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of
thinking are nurtured, where collective
aspiration is set free, and where people are
continually learning to see the whole together.
Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline (1990)
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Professional DevelopmentWhat needs to be in
place to support the learning part of the
community?
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The Learners

• The learner is a person who wants something.
• The learner is a person who notices something.
• The learner is a person who does something.
• The learner is a person who gets something.

John Dollard, in Kidd 1975, p. 17
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The Learners

• So, who are we as learners?
• Think of your best learning experience ever
  describe the characteristics of it that were
  engaging for you.
• What would the facilitator of your learning
  experience say you needed as an adult?

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Pedagogy
Andragogy
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The Learners

• How does your experience link to the principles
  of adult learning?

Common Ground
Principles of Adult Learning
Personal Learning Experience
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The Learning

• In any learning situation, learners undergo some
  type of CHANGE, and understanding the nature of
  change is also important. Research on the
  implementation of innovations has defined
  elements of change that can be applied to staff
  development programs

(Hall and Loucks 1978)
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The Learning

• Change is a PROCESS, not an event. Introduction
  to and training in new ways of doing things does
  not assure that people will immediately begin to
  do them. Change is a process that must unfold
  over time.

(Hall and Loucks 1978)
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The Learning

• Change must be understood in terms of what
  happens to INDIVIDUALS. Understanding how
  individual staff members and administrators may
  respond to changing their behaviors and practices
  is critical.

(Hall and Loucks 1978)
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The Learning

• Change in individuals is a highly PERSONAL
  experience. Each person perceives, feels about,
  and reacts to change in an individual way.

(Hall and Loucks 1978)
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The Learning

• Change by individuals entails GROWTH, both in
  terms of how they feel about the change and their
  skill in applying any innovations. This
  incremental growth is part of the process of
  change which an individual undergoes over time.

(Hall and Loucks 1978)
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Structures, Practices/Actions, Strategies,
Beliefs or Guidelines
Carousel Brainstorming Bringing it all Together
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High Quality Professional Development
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NSDC Standards
Context Standards

• Learning Communities Staff development that
  improves the learning of all students organizes
  adults into learning communities whose goals are
  aligned with those of the school and district.
• Leadership Staff development that improves the
  learning of all students requires skillful school
  and district leaders who guide continuous
  instructional improvement.
• Resources Staff development that improves the
  learning of all students requires resources to
  support adult learning and collaboration.

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NSDC Standards
Process Standards

• Data-driven Staff development that improves the
  learning of all students uses disaggregated
  student data to determine adult learning
  priorities, monitor progress, and help sustain
  continuous improvement.
• Evaluation Staff development that improves the
  learning of all students uses multiple sources of
  information to guide improvement and demonstrate
  its impact.
• Research-based Staff development that improves
  the learning of all students prepares educators
  to apply research to decision making.

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NSDC Standards
Process Standards

• Design Staff development that improves the
  learning of all students uses learning strategies
  appropriate to the intended goal.
• Learning Staff development that improves the
  learning of all students applies knowledge about
  human learning and change.
• Collaboration Staff development that improves
  the learning of all students provides educators
  with the knowledge and skills to collaborate.

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NSDC Standards
Content Standards

• Equity Staff development that improves the
  learning of all students prepares educators to
  understand and appreciate all students, create
  safe, orderly and supportive learning
  environments, and hold high expectations for
  their academic achievement.
• Quality Teaching Staff development that
  improves the learning of all students deepens
  educators' content knowledge, provides them with
  research-based instructional strategies to assist
  students in meeting rigorous academic standards,
  and prepares them to use various types of
  classroom assessments appropriately.
• Family Involvement Staff development that
  improves the learning of all students provides
  educators with knowledge and skills to involve
  families and other stakeholders appropriately.

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What does it take to be a Learning Community?
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A Professional Learning Community is
Characterized by

• Shared mission, vision and values
• Collaborative teams
• Collective inquiry
• Action orientation / experimentation
• Commitment to continuous improvement
• Results orientation

DuFour and Eaker, Professional Learning
Communities at Work, 1998
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People are guided by one of two maps
Shared mission, vision and values

• Vision Map
• Default Map

Debbi Ford, Shadow Coaching
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Simply being collaborative does not make change.

• Members of a Learning Community must call on each
  others knowledge, skills, and aspirations to
  address their goal.

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Collaborative Teams

• Meaningful experience
• A sense of being part of something larger than
  the self
• A sense of being connected
• A sense of being generative

Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline (1990)
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Collective Inquiry

• Relentless questioning of the status quo
• Seeking new methods testing them
• Reflecting on the results
• Maintaining a sense of curiosity and openness to
  new possibilities
• Recognizing that the process of searching for
  answers is more important than having answers

DuFour and Eaker, Professional Learning
Communities at Work, 1998
37
Collective Inquiry Conversations

• Standards for Student Learning
• SMART Goals for student achievement
• Assessment strategies for monitoring progress
• Intervention strategies for addressing gaps
• System readiness

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Action Orientation/ Experimentation

• Turn aspirations into action
• Refuse to tolerate inaction
• Experiment develop and test hypothesis aimed at
  improvement

DuFour and Eaker, Professional Learning
Communities at Work, 1998
39
Commitment to Continuous Improvement

• Innovation and experimentation are not viewed as
  tasks to accomplish or projects to complete, but
  as ways of conducting day to day business
  forever.

DuFour and Eaker, Professional Learning
Communities at Work, 1998
40
Grade 8 Reading Trend Data
Results Orientation
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Grade 8 Reading
Results Orientation
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A Professional Learning Community is
Characterized by

• Shared mission, vision and values
• Collaborative teams
• Collective inquiry
• Action orientation / experimentation
• Commitment to continuous improvement
• Results orientation

DuFour and Eaker, Professional Learning
Communities at Work, 1998
43
What else will help the group do the work?
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Developing Norms

• Roles
• Expectations
• Discussion guidelines (courtesies in conversation)

• Timeliness attendance
• Confidentiality
• Decision Making
• Responsibilities

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The 33 Minute Meeting Results, Mike Schmoker

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Collaborative Learning Opportunities

• Curriculum mapping
• Lesson study
• Common Assessment development
• Action research

• Cognitive coaching
• Mentoring
• Study groups
• Examining student work

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• Reculturing is the key to successful school
  improvement. Schools that function as
  professional learning communities are our best
  hope for reculturing schools.

DuFour and Eaker, 1998
48
Assessment Task

• In pairs, select an envelope with a profile of
  teachers needing to be in a learning community.
  Create a plan to build and support a learning
  community for this team of on-line learners. Be
  sure to include structures that allow for best
  practices in learning and strategies to create
  supportive environments.
• Briefly describe to another group the plan you
  created.

49
Debrief
How the day Shaped up! Form a trio and
determine who will be circle, who will be square
and who will be triangle (may be different from
AM).
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Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
committed people can change the world. Indeed, it
is the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead
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T'd UP!
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Ting it up for Trainers
T'd UP