To ensure a higher standard of learning, schools must insist on the best possible quality of teaching and create an integrated, collaborative, continual-growth faculty culture where practice and research unite (Barber and Mourshed).

The Critical Impact of Teachers in Schools

Recent research confirms what most of us already know—that high-quality teaching improves student learning and drives student success. Yet, although teachers are the lynchpins, the “final gatekeepers,” shockingly little is known about their professional learning and development. While the notion of teacher at the center of student learning appears beyond debate, teachers themselves are often left out of the conversation; they remain “the most affected, and least consulted” (Kooy, 2014) in the educational process. Teachers have the primary responsibility for student learning and indeed, “The quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers” (Barber and Mourshed, 2007). In this article, I will argue that restoring teachers to their rightful professional position and responsibilities will tip the balance in favor of teacher-driven professional development to transform and improve student learning (Cole, 2012).

Teacher Learning as Professional Development

The current and continuing force to “improve” education over the last twenty years (probably beginning with George Bush’s “no child left behind” movement) has driven the content, testing, and accountability movements. The recognition that change and reform cannot happen without teachers has led to increased emphasis on professional development even in the fiscal “more-with-less” environments. Reliance on the traditional “one-shot” workshop (Clark, 2001) remains the mainstay of professional development. Often planned by external agencies (school districts, for example) and led by an “expert,” they fall far short of the intended goal of affecting change in teachers (Clark, 2001; Fullan, 2006).

To put this into perspective, think back over the number of in-service training sessions, teacher conferences, workshops, and seminars that you have attended. Now, ask yourself some hard questions: “How much has my classroom today changed from what it was like ten or fifteen years ago? How different is my teaching? How many of the ideas, concepts, and skills presented and discussed in trainings actually have taken deep root in my classroom?” And to those questions, we can add: “Who is the expert on my students? Why do outside agencies presume to know my students, my school, my pedagogical knowledge and practices?” The message is fairly clear: Teachers need “fixing” and cannot be trusted to determine their professional learning needs. This is a powerful and compelling point of discussion for Christian teachers and school practices.

While the workshop model still predominates, some changes in structuring professional development includes the popular PLC model (professional learning community) that has been widely adopted across schools and districts. Informed by research on collaboration and social knowledge construction (Clark, 2001; Edwards, 2012; Kooy, 2012; Rentfro, 2005), PLCs consist of teacher groups who focus on issues directly related to their particular school.

While on the surface this appears a more suitable alternative to the workshop, closer examination reveals that PLCs are also often top-down and mandated with administration determining content, process, membership, and deadlines (see Vescio et al., 2008). Fullan (2006) observed that: “the term travels faster and better than the concept” (10) and that its implementation has outpaced the research and theoretical knowledge that informs it. Premature implementation, then, results in the continuing removal of responsibility and accountability for professional learning out of teacher hands; in turn, this blocks the building of authentic professional communities.

The conundrum, alive in most educational contexts, needs attention and radical reviewing, including problematizing traditional professional development practices, such as the following: (1) External agencies organize and dispense knowledge to teachers (“experts,” organizations, administrations, standardized testing companies). The message: Teachers cannot be trusted to make critical decisions for effective teaching without outside help and resources. (2) PLCs often consist of a group of teachers completing an assigned task. The message: teachers are unable to create a learning community that is active, dynamic, sustained and interdependent. (3) Professional knowledge developed by teachers has been neglected and underutilized. The message: teacher knowledge remains implicit, and therefore, teachers are neither accountable for what they know nor responsible for contributing to and learning from the professional teacher community.

Exploring principles of community from a Christian perspective opens avenues for authentic, collaborative professional learning that calls on teachers to act on their shared values and to develop an interdependency that allows them to flourish in their learning and development and to build professional knowledge in community. It means bending traditional expectations, moving from passive “presentations” to active networking and collaborative learning. Research indicates that teacher knowledge develops with active engagement in hands-on work, particularly when such work is relates specifically to local curriculum and policies (Darling-Hammond and Richardson, 2009).

For practitioners, transformative learning happens as they explore their own questions, dilemmas, and concerns in sustained collaboration with others. A critical oversight in the research is the need for teachers to experience and engage in intellectual activities for professional learning and knowledge development in communities (Cochran-Smith and Lytle, 2009; Kooy, 2009, 2012b, 2014; Little and Horn, 2007; Lytle, 2008). Unless teachers engage in sustained learning in communities of professionals, understand how learning develops in social contexts, create a shift in the culture of the school, share goals, and are driven to improve, collaborative learning in the classroom will not happen. Teachers need to understand social construction of knowledge (interdependency) before transitioning this into classrooms. Creating communities of teachers is at the heart of Christian schooling, which openly claims community as constitutive in its vision.

My Current Research on Teacher Learning Communities

Since 2000, I have been conducting research with teachers who meet in small communities of learning (Kooy, 2009, 2012, 2014) to construct and reconstruct their teaching through learning. The current research (2011–2015) consists of two K–12 volunteer teacher cohorts with eight teachers each. The research set out to investigate what happens to professional learning and development when teachers generate and conduct their own research questions relevant to their teaching, skills, schools, classes, and contexts, and maintain participation in a sustained community of teacher-learners.

The teachers meet face-to-face in three-day summer institutes to develop their relationships as they engage in critical and collaborative inquiries on relevant issues, update their research work, examine the findings of the larger research project, and share meals. The face-to-face time prepares the teachers for the two-hour monthly online meetings to describe, discuss, and seek both resources and direction for continuing their inquiries. Research funding allows each teacher a release day for the online meetings. The two-hour online meetings are part of a research day that engages teachers in activities such as readings, observations, plans, connecting with a colleague, writing proposals for research to support and move forward their inquiries. Between such online meetings/research days, teachers have access to a virtual PLC where they can engage with their colleagues through online meetings, reviewing the videotaped meetings, adding or requesting additional resources or demonstrations (using Edmodo in the class, for instance), adding articles, or meeting to prepare proposals for academic and professional conferences. This comprehensive network of support is fundamental to the research project.

Since 2011, we have been collecting and analyzing the data—visual, virtual, images (photos) and texts (field notes and observations, for example). We use NVivo 10, a qualitative data analysis program, to analyze a wide range of multimodal data. As we navigate through various data sets, we created nodes or themes that capture the essence of the dialogue, text, or interactions. Such themes may be dropped when there is no call for them in the analysis, or new themes added as they emerge. This provides a picture of change (topics, questions, problems, issues, etc.) over time.

In the third year of the research, these are the themes that arose from and across the various and multiple data sets.

1.  Teachers unequivocally resist the traditional one-shot workshops that are the mainstay of professional development.

“My involvement in teacher leadership began fairly early in my career and probably grew out of my frustration around what was currently offered to teachers in the way of professional development.” (Andrea)

“Outraged at being prevented from growing in my chosen profession, I sought to make my own opportunities and contacted my former professor at OISE.” (Kathy)

2.  Time and choice are the most critical aspects for professional learning.

“The monthly research day . . . enabled me to establish an onsite professional learning community with ten middle school teachers to build teacher learning capacities and share best practices.” (Andrea)

3.  Teachers transition from group to community through sustained learning experiences: face-to-face meetings, online meetings, and the virtual PLC.

4.  Membership in a teacher learning community requires active participation with mutual accountability and responsibility for sustained professional learning.

“Why am I so unhappy with my professional development? What do I hope to learn? When am I the happiest in my profession? In asking these questions, I endeavor to overcome my sense of isolation and build collaborative relationships within and outside of my school site. It is this professional dialogue that renews my commitment to teaching.”

5.  Teachers need time and opportunity to determine/choose research questions and processes related to their professional needs, contexts, and curricula with support from their networked colleagues.

“I feel truly empowered by hearing the questions, observations, frustrations, research and musings of other teachers. I’ve been given the time and freedom to explore my own questions and research—and for once, it’s not a shameful activity to keep to myself. Most of all, I feel less alone in my practice.” (Kathy)

6.  Teachers use the monthly online meetings with other professionals to network, question, support, update, and seek and provide resources.

“Under the auspices of doing a research project through OISE, I’ve been legitimized in asking probing questions of myself and my colleagues.” (Kathy)

7.  Professional learning develops through cultivating relationships, connections, and questioning in social contexts.

“And, most importantly, for me, someone who has the courage to question authority can ask questions that are counter to his or her own and experiences and judgment. So . . . the intellectual in us is being squashed and ignored. Andrea, you talk about the predominant top-down and how, instead, we need to be grassroots.” (Nina)

8.  Effective and sustained teacher learning has an impact on learning in classrooms and schools.

“Currently, each of us (research teachers from one school) formed a school-based professional learning community focused on a book study. Teachers suggested books that inspired or developed their knowledge of teaching. Conversations are often narrative, dynamic, and meaningful. Coaching has now become reflexive; that is, the longer I spend in discussion with colleagues, the more I develop the courage to transfer my ‘participant-driven’ learning experiences to my classroom.”

9.  Integrating face-to-face in technology-mediated environments seems to support existing research for sustainability, since it appears that the deeper the personal relationship between learners, the richer the collaborative learning experiences. In turn, it suggests that the relationships built may be strengthened through the group interactions using technology before and after a face-to-face meeting.

“I would like more face-to-face opportunities and perhaps even a time where we can all bring our resources to share.” (Lena, 2012)

“Summer institute did it for us—we found our voices—now do we let our voices be heard? How can we contribute? I’m beginning this year with a sense of excitement. This year will take me on a reflective journey as I blog about my experiences and participate in monthly online meetings with my colleagues as I move from middle to primary school.” (Andrea, 2012)

“Our three days were well spent—we all know where we want to go and some of us are already thinking of how year two will move forward into year three. Can’t wait to see how the year unfolds.” (Nina, 2013)

The study continues (until 2015) and as it does, I am consulting, learning, and changing through ongoing dialogue with the teachers (such as online meeting times, support for creating research, changing the VPLC, responding to their contributions on the VPLC). Teacher voice is the mainstay of the study, particularly as teachers engage in dialogue that challenges, opens new thinking, reveals insights into reconstructing a praxis that privileges neither theory nor practice, but with each reflected in the other.

Reflections

I focus here on the key thread running through this article—the concept and practices of community—and link this to Christian schooling in particular. While the concept of community is not unique to Christians, it resonates particularly strongly in the Christian view.

Building community is essential as a way to bring professional learning into a collaborative environment, one where interdependency becomes increasingly evident as professional knowledge is collaboratively constructed and distributed. This destabilizes traditional hierarchical models that are comparative and competitive (using scores, for instance), and places professional knowledge on a horizontal plane that welcomes difference and diversity. This, in turn, respects the unique individuality of teachers who come together not to compete but to construct collaboratively and extend knowledge for teaching through learning.

Teachers challenged to create questions collaboratively resist the traditional one-shot workshop model. Instead, they become activists for professional development that is relevant and meaningful within their contexts, marked by a collaborative community that develops and is sustained over time.

Accountability and responsibility for professional learning is strongly tied to teachers since they are at the forefront of bringing the vision of the school to life for students and ultimately, have the greatest impact on their learning. Rather than continuing to function as the single “gatekeeper” model, give the teachers credit. Work with the half-full cup, and recognize that teachers are better when they work together.

The community activity resonates far beyond the teachers themselves. As teachers begin to investigate their practices and their pedagogical knowledge and move toward making change an essential component of their professional development—the rest of the community notices. Teachers model their networked collaborations to the students, administration, parents, and the larger educational community. Moreover, in the experiences of community and learning, teachers are themselves able to carry the experiences into their everyday decision-making about how learning takes place and develops in their classes. Community is the thread that binds and holds Christian schools together.

Where to Begin

While the research evidence presented may well be convincing, it is essential also to know where to begin—what is the starting point? I present a straightforward process that may be helpful.

1. Hold professional development days before school starts. Teachers individually generate and submit (anonymously) a set of problems and issues that concern them in their teaching, the school, and curriculum (such as: novice teacher, new grade/subject area, inquiry-based learning).
2. Collect all the questions. Use a computer/whiteboard to register the issues and make them visible to all.
3. Collect, categorize, and prioritize the questions. This exercise can be done in small groups or individually—working until the categories are established and the related questions posted under each.
4. Rank the questions under each category. Small groups can be formed by category interest. Each category group determines the ranking of questions under their category (most to least important, alert to redundancy and similarity), negotiating until they reach consensus.
5. Join a small group. Each teacher signs up for one category issue/question to pursue.

Joining a group builds on the critical feature of teachers making the choice and decision-making (a fundamental element of learning) as it provides a vested interest in the area and an openness to learning in collaborative contexts. Each teacher responds distinctively to the challenges. (One research teacher did not contribute to the virtual PLC or to the online discussions at all until the last meeting of the first year when the dam broke, and she was able to share what she had learned from her colleagues. Patience proved valuable in this case.)

This brings us to the critical notion of community not as the divine right of Christians (or anyone else, for that matter), but the actual working out of what it means to take action. To transition from a collective (simply a group of teachers together), to becoming a critical and collaborative community requires time, meaningful work, opportunity, relationship building, flexibility, and sustainability. The structure of such communities is challenging to identify in that it best reflects the teachers, the issues investigated, the collaborations, and the needs. The two teacher cohorts currently in my research, while all experienced K–12 teachers, demonstrate significantly different qualities and expertise; yet, after two years, they determined to share their research, the space on the virtual PLC, and the summer institutes. Evidence for authentic community becomes visible in the growing interdependence, shared values and goals, as teachers work collaboratively to construct new knowledge for improving both their teaching and learning.

Works Cited

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