Leading professional learning: An introduction John Munro

1. Leading professional learning: An introduction John Munro

2. A climate for professional learning The climate recognises that professional learning • needs to take account of the culture of the school • is student referenced • can follow a chaotic path • requires a systematic set of learning opportunities • involves valuing, distilling past professional experiences • involves thinking innovatively about possibilities and options. • involves professional collaboration • acknowledges that individuals differ in how they learn. • involves building and drawing on the relevant group knowledge • involves identifying what has learnt about how to learn professionally. • involves trust

3. The climate for PL takes account of culture of school How the culture affects PLThese include : • demographic factors; • the personnel; • socio-political factors; • pedagogic factors; • economic factors; • management factors.

4. Ensuring that PL is student referenced. The goal of the PL is enhanced student outcomes. The PL climate needs to allow ‘the student voice’ to inform PL. This may include • student evaluation of the teaching, • student achievement data and • procedures for fostering in students a positive disposition to the outcomes of PL.

5. The climate for PL takes account of its chaotic nature PL can follow a chaotic path. It can move in unexpected directions and have unanticipated outcomes. This may worry some staff. School leaders need to know that while they cannot control or totally plan PL, they can put in place the conditions most likely to foster it.

6. The climate for PL allows a systematic set of learning opportunities PL requires a systematic set of learning opportunities. A PLC requires a carefully sequenced set of PL activities through which staff enhance their pedagogic knowledge in the context of the school. The learning actions described earlier recommend a systematic set of PL activities.

7. The climate for PL encourages use of earlier experiences PL involves distilling past professional experiences. During their professional careers, teachers store a bank of professional experiences or ‘episodes’. The climate needs to encourage staff to • recognize, value, reflect on and interrogate the experiences of staff; • contribute their unique experiences of a topic or issue to the group’s PK • trial and evaluate the distilled outcomes of experiences, map them into possibilities or up-dated ‘virtual experiences’ for improved professional practice

8. The climate for PL encourages thinking innovatively PL involves thinking innovatively about possibilities and options. Novel solutions and genuine learning are less likely without this thinking. Issues and problems need to be approached by taking account of the context and by knowing what has worked for others. The climate for PL needs to focus on the problem/issue and on possible options for solutions. It needs to maintains a balance between creative innovative thinking and retaining what is known.

9. The climate for PL needs to foster professional collaboration PL has often been individual. The climate needs to foster a balance between this and team learning, shared responsibility for learning and for peers learning from each other. Useful activities include collegiate scaffolding through activities such as reciprocal teaching and peer coaching. School may need to • establish opportunities for authentic PL collaboration. • provide staff the opportunity to build their confidence as professional learners and to learn professional respect and valuing for the knowledge of colleagues. • model collegiate dialogue and encourage self-reflection and analysis. • foster professional trust.

10. The climate for PL allows multiple ways of learning • PL acknowledges that individuals differ in how they learn. • The climate needs to acknowledge the influence of multiple ways of learning and provide the opportunity for learning in different ways.

11. The climate for PL fosters group knowledge PL involves building and drawing on relevant group knowledge. PLTs share, collate, synthesize and value the knowledge of peers. This becomes group knowledge. The climate encourages reflection. Two aspects : • reflect evaluatively on what they have learnt and select those outcomes that they might trial in their practice. • reflect 'into the future, contemplating possible directions for future learning.

12. The climate for PL fosters group knowledge This activity serves several purposes in PLC: • It communicates the expectation that each teacher will engage in PL and that their learning outcomes are valued by the community. • It helps the community see where it is on its pathway to its goals for learning. • It allows staff to examine how the new knowledge might enhance its work more broadly and inform a code to teaching practice. A school can examine how well its staff shares, assembles or collates, recognizes and values what it has learnt and how well it develops a community knowledge.

13. The climate for PL fosters learning how to learn professionally Professional learning involves identifying what has learnt about how to learn professionally. The PLT and the community can identify what it has learnt about how to learn. This helps them become self managing and directing learning communities. A community that builds a knowledge of how to learn professionally is more likely to keep learning in the future. This assists in future problem solving and assists the PLTs and the school to see that professional learning is manageable and frequently motivational.

14. The climate for PL fosters trust Professional learning involves trustTrust is a key aspect of developing and sustaining a capacity for PL.  PL occurs in a network of trust. Teachers need to • trust their leaders and the community to allow them to learn professionally, • trust themselves; believe they can learn new teaching procedures successfully, • trust their fellow team members to accept and support them as professional learners and to allow them to operate as learners.

15. The climate for PL fosters trust The SLT can • ‘do professional trusting’. • show they trust the change process to assist progress to the desired outcomes. • understand the role of trust in PL and the actions they can take to strengthen it. • recognize the indicators of trust such as the quality of what is said + done during PL, the valuing members feel in their relationship with the organization, the empowerment they experience and the extent to which they feel encouraged to own professional knowledge and practice . • recognize that professional trust is subject-specific. • allow staff to learn to trust colleagues in PL activities.

16. Leading professional learning : MLsOPL • Middle leaders of professional learning (MLsOPL) build the learning capacity of individuals and groups. • MLsOPL provide the metacognition for professional learning. They • plan how PLT will learn, • monitor how effectively the learning is progressing, • change direction if necessary, • use selectively the actions judged to be most effective, • integrate, review and consolidate their new knowledge.

17. Leading professional learning : MLsOPL • If the future success of a school depends on improved pedagogic practice, the school leadership will need to provide their staff with access to leaders who can foster professional learning effectively. • MLOPLs need • to be seen as leaders by their colleagues the authority • standing to lead their colleagues. • MLOPLs work at the interface between the SLT and individual classroom activity. They have an in-depth knowledge of the focus of the learning and how to facilitate professional learning.

18. Leading professional learning : MLsOPL The knowledge necessary for MLOPLs

19. The areas of MLOPL knowledge An in-depth understanding of the domain in which they are leading the learning. MLOPLs need an in-depth knowledge of the topic in which they will lead the learning before they begin to work with the PLT on the topic. • Part of this is an understanding of student learning in the area: • how students learn in the area, • what successful student learning in the area would ‘look like’, • how to identify when it is occurring and to organise student learning progress on a pathway, • the conditions under which student learning is enhanced and • how to analyse the goals of both the school and the PLT in terms of gains in student learning.

20. The areas of MLOPL knowledge An understanding of adult professional learning in both group and individual learning contexts. MLsOPL need to know, for example, the conditions for the group to learn and the procedures necessary to foster PLTs in a community. • This may include • o how to lead group learning action plans, • o how to facilitate on-going group and individual learning, recognising and handling multiple ways of learning in the group. • o how to coach and mentor interventions for improved teaching for individuals and groups, to scaffold professional learning, encourage sharing outcomes, graduated assistance gradually shifting responsibility to the team members. • o the types of dialogue scripts that encourage teachers to reflect critically on their learning and professional practice.

21. The areas of MLOPL knowledge • Some staff may need to learn how to think innovatively about their professional knowledge; they may have had little previous thinking experience in this area. • As well as ‘how to think’ for change, the MLOPLs may need to assist some staff to • see the personal value in engagement for them and to take steps to foster intrinsically motivated innovative thinking about pedagogy. • communicate their novel ideas to colleagues in ways that ‘bring the group along’ with them and do not threaten or alienate themselves or their ideas.

22. The areas of MLOPL knowledge A knowledge of effective pedagogy and how teachers can map conceptual knowledge and attitudes into pedagogy • The MLOPLs need to assist colleagues to convert their new conceptual and attitudinal knowledge into teaching procedures that they can trial and evaluate in their teaching and then use their outcomes to add to their repertoire of effective teaching procedures. • They may need to demonstrate, model and coach their peers to develop new teaching procedures. They need to be able to form an impression of what effective pedagogy would ‘look like’ when the desired changes have been put into practice.

23. The areas of MLOPL knowledge A knowledge of how to develop and foster a learning community from a group of individuals. • Knowing how to help a group of individuals • to learn how to operate as a community, the actions that learners in a community actually ‘do’, • to build ‘goal congruence’, to help a group of individuals develop purposes and reasons for being a learning community (developing an identified focus, negotiating and accepting a purpose or goal), developing a set of attitudes that define the learning community, • to build trust in the community by letting individuals in the community need to see that they are trusted with aspects of the community’s work.

24. The areas of MLOPL knowledge knowledge of the school as a learning organization and how professional learning links to the work of the school and the work of individual teachers. MLOPLs reflect on how to link the work of PLTs with the SLT. They may know more of the learning and pedagogic aspects of the focus than the SLT. They may need to guide and coach the SLT to operationalise and contextualise the improvement focus in the work of the school • To communicate with SLT the MLsOPL • decide how they will communicate both their knowledge of the topic and the progress made by their PLTs to the SLT and to the school community. • put in place procedures for their area to develop as a learning community aimed at enhancing professional knowledge and skills. • identify how they will learn and apply in their area knowledge from other PLTs. • examine policy passed from SLT in both its relevance for the community and what it would like in practice in the context of their school. • link the learning outcomes of their group with the school’s outcomes and to negotiate the school’s goals with those of the PLT.

25. The areas of MLOPL knowledge • To communicate with individual teachers: the MLsOPL • firm working relationship with the classroom practice of each member of PLT, professional trust such that individual teachers’ knowledge and individual classroom practice influences and is influenced by the knowledge of the PLT. • implement effective instructional leadership, put in place supportive environments with area-wide action plans for growth and for facilitating teachers' thinking about practice, inquiry-focused activities that involve a critical analysis of classroom interactions, collaborative learning • have strategies for valuing the experiential knowledge of more experienced teachers, for leading the group to value this knowledge and assisting them to display the breadth of what they know. Knowledge of the school as a learning organization and how professional learning links to the work of the school and the work of individual teachers.

26. The areas of MLOPL knowledge A knowledge of how to foster ‘change’ or ‘improvement’ thinking. MLOPLs need to catalyse and guide thinking that leads colleagues to question aspects of pedagogy, how to learn effectively and their attitudes to it • This may need an understanding of the thinking strategies that make up ‘change’ or ‘improvement’ thinking, for example, • big picture imagery’ thinking, • ‘changing elements imagery’; visualise modifying particular aspects of their teaching • ‘action exploration’ thinking; reflecting on particular actions they might take • far transfer; thinking about possibilities that are distant from the context; • using multiple perspectives thinking strategies; using procedures such as de Bono’s Six Hats to generate possible options • analogistic thinking ; making an analogy with another experience and transferring the teaching procedures used there. • using critical thinking to investigate, trial and test novel ideas.

27. The areas of MLOPL knowledge • Some staff may need to learn how to think innovatively about their professional knowledge; they may have had little previous thinking experience in this area. • As well as ‘how to think’ for change, the MLOPLs may need to assist some staff to • see the personal value in engagement for them and to take steps to foster intrinsically motivated innovative thinking about pedagogy. • communicate their novel ideas to colleagues in ways that ‘bring the group along’ with them and do not threaten or alienate themselves or their ideas. A knowledge of how to foster ‘change’ or ‘improvement’ thinking.

28. The areas of MLOPL knowledge An understanding of the influence of context on professional learning. Teaching procedures and learning strategies cannot be simply transferred from one context to another. Instead, they need to be ‘contextualised’. • MLOPLs need to decide the the contextual readiness for particular teaching outcomes; they need to know how to ‘read the context; and interpret signs from it’. As leaders, they also need to know how to help the context of the learning community to ‘become more ready’. • MLOPLs lead the staff to reflect on and analyse their relevant experiential knowledge (both successful and unsuccessful), to identify features shared by successful and unsuccessful episodes, to see their existing experiential knowledge is valued and relevant, to generate ‘self-statements’ about effective pedagogic practice and to map these into up-dated ‘virtual experiences’ or scenarios. • MLOPLs may need to indicate to the SLT the readiness of the learning community and the PLT to make particular gains by learning specific pedagogic knowledge

29. The areas of MLOPL knowledge An understanding of how to use resources. • MLOPLs need to understand how to make optimal use of the resources available. • These include time, space, teaching materials, human and technology resources. • A range of resources are frequently available in the broader community, but are not always readily visible to the MLOPLs. • An action plan for collating a catalogue of the resources available and for using these most efficiently may be important for MLOPLs.

30. The key tools used by effective MLOPLs • Dialogue; instructional dialogue that will foster further professional learning. The MLOPLs shapes discussions about learning and facilitates communication networks. • Professional enquiry ; the MLOPL encourages a problem-solution based approach to professional learning, and may teach the skills of action research, questioning and investigation of pedagogy and the conditions most likely to optimise learning. Risk-taking, learning by trial and error are encouraged. • Linking the professional learning activities with the on-going realities of teachers' work and their workplace. The goals of the professional learning are aligned with goals in teachers’ classrooms. • Reflection; both retro-actively on earlier practice for evaluation purposes and affirmation and pro-actively to speculate about possibilities and options.

31. The key tools used by effective MLOPLs • Modelling and demonstration, both of pedagogy and of effective professional learning practice. • Goal setting for individuals and PLTs and operationalises these into group action plans and learning pathways. The team pathways have multiple entry points. • Monitoring of the professional learning both of individual teachers and of professional learning teams. • Strategic listening, again both for the professional learning team and for individuals.

32. Section 12 A learning framework or blueprint to guide PL

33. A blueprint for professional learning How can an individual teacher, a PLT or a school learn its way systematically through a particular issue ? The framework or blueprint for professional learning

34. How does a PLC learn professionally ? The PL framework or blueprint Different community members learn different outcomes Four main areas or domains of PL in a school, each defined by its functions in the community, that it, what it does: • the SLT function. • the individual classroom practice or implementation function. • the PLT level. • MLsOPL Schools planning to modify practice can identify activities for each learning action at each function.

35. PL framework for each function

36. Using the blueprint Schools planning to modify practice can identify activities for each learning action at each function.

37. A challenge or reason for PL

38. Vision of the outcomes of learning

39. Use existing knowledge

40. See a pathway to the goal

41. PL in specific contexts

42. Decontextualise what they have learnt

43. Invest positive emotion in new knowledge

44. Identify how they learn

45. Store what they have learnt in memory

46. See progress being made

47. Transfer, apply and generalise new knowledge

48. Using the blueprint Each cell in the framework leads to explicit learning outcomes. Both the SLT and the PLTs can decide and negotiate these outcomes for a school. The outcomes at each phase inform subsequent learning and can be improved. They indicate the quality of PL at any time, the progress made, where the community is on its learning journey and how to take diagnostic actions if necessary.

49. Using the learning framework to guide PL The learning framework can underpin continuing PL in a range of ways and to target some of the traditional barriers to PL. It has been used to • coach and mentor colleagues, to identify the areas of learning and teaching that need to be coached. • provide a practical and systematic means for distributing leadership for PL. • collect feedback from students and to use the student voice as an indicator of the effectiveness of pedagogy.

50. Using the learning framework to guide PL It has also been used to • develop a set of teaching procedures that have been used to give teachers options for improving their classroom teaching. • help PLTs to be self managing and regulating. • cater for multiple ways in which professionals learn. • analyze, evaluate (and diagnose if necessary) professional learning.