This year our board decided to take a different approach to school improvement and professional development. We have moved away from a top down approach were PD was delivered centrally at the board office to a bottom up approach which is rooted in student need. A small group of my colleagues and myself were excited about the possibilities that this new approach would offer and decided to embrace the process head on, take a risk and organize PD for our Family of Schools. We decided to meet at a group of administrators to begin initial planning. During our first session my colleague Dave Fife @DavidFifeVP leaned over to me at our initial planning meeting and said what I had been thinking “What about an Edcamp type format?” From there our journey began.
We wanted teachers to have control and to work to develop problems of practice that would address some of their most urgent student needs. We began with the FDK teachers who were already familiar with the cycle of inquiry. We asked them to come with an idea and a couple of problems of practice they wanted to work on. We asked them to write and post their problem of practice on a post-it. We then used the post-it notes to create general categories and asked teachers to do a gallery walk and decide on a topic/problem that they wanted to focus on. Teachers were then grouped in these broad categories. We then worked the teachers through a graphic organizer that looked at: their current reality, desired outcomes and challenges. After a brief discussion in these areas we moved on to creating problems of practice that were manageable and narrow. This was the messy part. As facilitators we had to challenge thinking, clarify focus, push back and create discourse all in an effort to guide teachers through the process of creating a deep and meaningful inquiry based problem of practice. This was hard work that required discussion, discourse, refinement and reflection by the facilitation team before, during and after each session.
We repeated the same process with our primary teachers and found it was more difficult for them to come up with deep and meaningful problems of practice. They had not had the experience or understanding of inquiry. We also discovered there was some mixed messages and background knowledge that teachers brought to the table. As facilitators we found this process difficult and took some time after the session to debrief with our Learning Superivisor Sue Bruyns @sbruyns. She pushed our thinking and challenged us to look at things with student need at the centre. We thought we had been doing that but upon reflection we discovered we were approaching it from the needs of our staff and the problems of practice were more focussed around their needs not those of their students. So, we decided to change direction. We decided to start with the student at the centre.
For our junior and intermediate networks we asked teachers to write down their top three student needs based on their professional judgement, data and observations about their students. We gave table groups time to discuss these needs and to discover commonalities and differences. We then asked teachers to write their most pressing, burning student need on a post-it and stick it up on the wall. We then grouped the post-its by student needs. Teachers were asked to do a gallery walk and write their name on the student need that they wished to focus upon. Teachers then met in their working groups. We again walked them through the graphic organizer. When we got to the point in the session in which teachers developed their problem of practice it seemed easier, more focussed and manageable. Teachers were able to create rich problems of practice that directly related to the urgent needs of the students in their classrooms. We facilitated from an arms length asking clarifying questions and pushing them to go deeper but it seemed the process was easier and more teacher driven. They led the dialogue and asked for assistance and clarification when needed but we did not have to push their thinking or bring the focus back to students it was already there.
What did we learn?
When given control and freedom to collaborate with colleagues and investigate strategies to improve student learning, teachers are engaged in rich professional dialogue and seem excited and motivated to investigate and try new things to better meet students’ needs.
When developing problems of practice we must start with the student at the centre.
As a team of facilitators we had to stop,discuss, reflect, and refine our process based on the needs of our teachers.
The process is as messy for the administrators in charge as it is for the teachers.
The process is meaningful and gets to the heart of what is happening at the classroom level.
What next?
1. Continue to coach, guide and monitor progress as teachers work through their problem of practice.
2. Celebrate successes.
3. Learn from failures and try a different path.
4. Encourage teachers to continue to take risks as we work together to better meet student needs and improve student learning.
5. Continue to develop an understanding and clarity around collaborative and problems of practice.