Teacher Professional Learning

       The proposed research builds on a longitudinal study (Kooy, SSHRC, 2000-2010) of sustained, in-service professional development that began with novice teachers (2000-2004). Findings revealed that: (a) teacher learning develops dialogically and socially; (b) relationships develop over time; (c) choice and teacher leading are central to motivation and engagement; (d) ongoing learning affects staying power of the teachers (e.g., all teachers in the study remain in the profession; one community of black girls (Grades 9-12) won the “exemplary practice award” in their school district; two groups of primarily black girls, without exception, graduated and entered college or university; in a new secondary school, students and teachers selected, read, and determined course and library texts). This study suggests that including students in sustained, dialogical interactions, established a culture of learning for teacher and students.           

 

      By extending and creating a larger scale research the study will be able to draw from multiple regions and school sites using a technology-mediated environment to enter a new way of learning, one in which technology, teaching, and the needs of teachers as learners converge. To that end, the research questions are:

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1. What aspects of a building a professional community have a beneficial impact on teacher knowledge and learning?

2. What supportive conditions for PLCs of a technology-mediated environment? contribute to, and/or constrain, the ongoing professional knowledge of teachers? What kind of knowledge does it privilege?

3. What identifying developments characterize the transition from professional to pedagogical knowledge? From pedagogical knowledge to teacher practice?

4. Does the participation of teachers in PLCs have an impact on teacher change and student learning? If so, what impact and how? 

5. Do the benefits of individual teacher participation in PLCs transfer on a larger scale (e.g., bridging with school)?

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Context

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Background and Context

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Over the last 20 years, a paradigm shift in the professional development of teachers has been gathering momentum (Borko, 2004). Fueled by the complexities of teaching and learning in climates of reform, change, and accountability, PLCs emerged to counter a culture focused on acquiring new knowledge and skill for teachers (e.g., “one-shot” workshop; Clark, 2001).

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            My longitudinal research began in 2000 with nine novice teachers who, with little or no support (due to “cutbacks”), collaboratively developed a meaningful place for learning over the course of four years (Kooy, 2006a, b). At this stage, several key findings emerged: (a) community is cultivated over time; (b) novice teachers collaboratively created narratives of teaching that shaped their evolving professional knowledge; (c) developing professional relationships is critical to the trust required to negotiate difference and dissonance for effective learning; and (d) teachers attested to the benefits of learning to direct their teaching.

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            In 2006, six of the same teachers created a learning community (book clubs) in a contextually relevant structure (mother-daughter, teachers, teacher and students, teachers and students) in her school, outside of regular classrooms. This unexpected development revealed new insights into teacher learning. From this dimension of the study I found: (a) on-site learning experiences address and reflect the individual teacher’s specific work environment; (b) including students produced more and richer data on teaching and learning; (c) choice reflected inclusion in the discourse (selecting topic, text, process) and strengthened commitment to the community; (d) developing relationships over time and through shared experiences builds trust and opens dialogical possibilities for learning; and (e) listening to and engaging with student voices heightens awareness of the benefits of engaging those most directly affected in educational practice and curriculum making whose voices have been largely unheard.

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Relationship to ongoing research

 

The site-based research (2006-2010) I conducted included teacher interviews. Teachers consistently attested to changes in their teaching practices, although they did not specifically identify the changes: They said: “I find my teaching has improved,” or, “I understand more about how and why I do things in the classroom” (Kooy, 2009, interview). The assumption that teacher inquiry in, and of itself, leads to change (Ermeling, 2010; Vescio, Ross & Adams, 2008) remains uninvestigated (my study relied on teacher interviews, e.g.). Cumming found no automatic link “between developing professional teaching standards per se, and living these out in everyday learning environments” (2002, 3). The gap exposed between professional learning (PLC) and pedagogical practice warrants critical inquiry since, ultimately, teacher learning matters only insofar as it improves student learning (Little, 2001).

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            Nevertheless, many studies define improved student learning through standardized test scores (Berry et al, 2005; Hollins, 2004; McLaughlin & Talbert, 2006; Phillips, 2003). Vescio et al advise caution since, “achievement texts assess a narrow range of learning and may fail to capture the breadth of impact of a PLC” (90). The dependence on scores as comprehensive evidence undermines the complex nature of learning and its multiple manifestations and underscores the necessity of developing a theory about the relationship among teacher knowledge, instructional practices, and improved student learning (Shechtman et al, 2010; Vescio et al, 2008).

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            The proposed research builds on findings from the earlier research and includes three of the teachers with long-term commitment to the inquiry (since 2000). The residual critical questions resonating in the larger field fuels this inquiry to understand and identify how: (a) a group becomes a community; (b) professional knowledge transforms into pedagogy; (c) pedagogical knowledge becomes teacher practice; and (d) teacher learning in a PLC improves student learning (Darling-Hammond, 1998; Porter et al, 2000).

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Contribution to Knowledge

 

The study will contribute to the limited knowledge about the effects of sustained collaborative teacher inquiry on teacher practice (Ermeling, 2010) and improved student learning (Eylon, Berger & Bagno, 2008). It aims to draw from the rich knowledge developed in the longitudinal study by: (a) developing multi-modal case studies for collaborative analysis and professional learning (Merriman, 1998); (b) contributing new knowledge to the development and nature of a professional community (McLaughlin & Talbert, 2006; Swan & Shea, 2005); (c) identifying indicators of transition from knowledge to pedagogy (what to how) and, (d) indentifying the complex marks of student learning (Supovitz, 2001). Investigating these questions with existing and new teacher/sites in a technology-mediated environment will make a strong contribution to emerging scholarship on, and conceptions of, teacher learning and development for improved student learning.

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Theoretical Approach and Framework

 

School reforms calling for improved student achievement sparked renewed interest in teacher learning (e.g., Hinden et al, 2007; McLaughlin & Talbert, 2006). The widespread calls for reform made teacher learning and knowledge a priority and with it, a dramatic rise in research on PLCs. Many educational jurisdictions introduced social models for teacher learning (e.g., Ontario Ministry of Education, 2007). This expanded the research and theoretical base on professional communities and their impact on teacher learning, professional and pedagogical knowledge, teaching practices and student learning.

 

Conceptions of Building Community

 

Teacher communities of learning have been a widespread phenomenon for over 20 years. The widespread adoption of the concept has been so ubiquitous that it is in danger of losing meaning. Assumptions that PLCs demonstrate a “culture of consensus, shared, values and social cohesion” (Achinstein, 2002, 421) are simplified and overly optimistic (DuFour, 2004).

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            Few research studies examine the specific interactions and dynamics that transform a teacher group to a learning community (Little, 2002). Certainly, legislating community cannot make it so. Achinstein (2002) found teachers’ initial collaborations frequently included conflict about professional beliefs and practices. Documenting, identifying, and analyzing the PLC (e.g., routines, symbols, stories, and other resources for engaging in teacher learning), in diverse settings, and at different points in their evolution will provide new understandings of how groups become communities and create a cornerstone for local learning systems (Mishra & Koehler, 2006).        

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            This study assumes that the teachers will begin as a group and build toward becoming a community through shared challenges that cause relationships to form through dialogical exchanges, collaboratively constructing new knowledge, reflecting and reviewing conceptions of learning and creating shared goals and visions. In this sense, communities are the intellectual, social, and organizational configurations that support teachers' ongoing professional growth by providing opportunities for teachers to think, talk, read, and write about their daily work, including its larger social, cultural, and political contexts in planned and intentional ways.

 

PLCs and teacher learning that matters

 

The quality of professional development is a critical issue that must be addressed (Fishman et al, 2003). Research evidence that PLCs positively and causally improves teacher knowledge and practice, we still know little about what teachers actually learn and this is important given that, ultimately, teacher enactment yields the evidence of improved student learning.

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            The concept of PLCs is grounded in dialogical and social constructivist theories (Bakhtin, 1981; Lieberman & Mace, 2010; Vygotsky, 1992). New learning occurs by associating past knowledge and present interaction with culturally valued activities (Chapman et al, 2005; Cohen, 2010; Eun, et al, 2008; Jurasaite-Harbison & Rex, 2010). Such actions are social, dialogical, active, and dynamic.

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            Professional Learning Communities: A Model for Ontario Schools (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2007), opens with: “The ultimate goal of a PLC can be summed up in three words: improved student learning” (1). The literature assumes that PLCs causally contribute to improved student learning (Ermeling, 2010; Jurasaite-Harbison & Rex, 2010; Levine & Marcus, 2010; Lieberman & Mace, 2010; Vescio, Ross, & Adams, 2008). Many researchers assume that ongoing, social inquiry leads teachers to “discover, create and negotiate new meanings that improve practice” (Skerrett, 2010, 648).

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            Yet, in 1999, Wilson and Berne, observed that the analyses “do not offer us explanation of why Ms. J. was able to learn as much as she did or why her knowledge took the form it did in her practice” (204). In a recent literature review, Vescio et al. (2008) found only two studies citing specific changes in teacher practice and even these did not identify teaching practices existing before the study, making comparisons ineffectual.   

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            Eylon et al (2008) call for teacher learning that matters through knowledge integration; that is, teachers learning through practice and through collaborative reflection, construct and implement pedagogical practices (Kooy, 2006). Robust social and intellectual means to challenge assumptions, encounter and understand multiple perspectives fosters increasingly critical perspectives for informed and transformative classroom practices. I would argue this re-professionalizes teaching, brings about social and educational change, and enlarges teacher roles to include decision maker, consultant, curriculum developer, analyst, activist and school leader.

 

From Professional Knowledge to Pedagogical Practice

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Cochran-Smith & Lytle’s (1999) concept, knowledge of practice, describes how: “teachers make problematic their own knowledge and practice as well as the knowledge and practice of others and thus stand in a different relationship to knowledge” (273; see also, Mezirow, 2000). Eylon, Berger and Bagnon’s (2008) evidence-based approach indicates that teachers’ examinations of their practice, “is a powerful tool for enhancing their teaching as well as their students’ learning” (619). In documenting teachers’ collective discourse, they found significant changes in teacher knowledge, views of students’ knowledge, and more learner-centered perspectives. My research assumed a link between participation and action yet none of the teachers took the linear leap from the professional community to the classroom. That left an unexamined, problematic space between professional knowledge and classroom pedagogy (Berliner, 2001; Kooy, 2009) and underscores the need to identify the complex features of learning that lead to improved student learning (Coburn & Russel, 2008; Lyle, 2008; Porter, et al, 2000; Rentfro, 2007).

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Student Learning

 

Since student learning is at the heart of teacher learning, considering how the movement to change and improvement occurs is critical. Participation in PLCs linked to improved student learning remains a pervasive assumption in the research literature (Dufour & Eaker, 1998; Hughes & Kritsonis (2007; Rentfro, 2007). A 2005 study by Meiers & Ingvarson of 10 professional development programs across Australia found, “Evidence of how changes in students’ learning might be an outcome of teachers’ implementation of the practices advocated by the professional development programs is more elusive.” (51). Vescio and her colleagues noted that: “Although few in number, the collective results of these studies offer an unequivocal answer to the question about whether the literature supports the assumption that student learning increases when teachers participate in PLCs. The answer is a resounding and encouraging yes” (87). Nevertheless, they conclude (as do Coburn & Russel, 2008; Kooy, 2009) only limited evidence exists “that the impact is measurable beyond teacher perception” (88).

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            While achievements tests remain the single most common measure of improvement, many teachers and university researchers recognize they assess a narrow range that fails to capture the breadth and depth of student learning (Fishman et al, 2003; Hughes & Kritsonis, 2007; Shechtman et al, 2010). Conceptualizing learning in ways that reflect the teaching, content, and goals, for instance, provides a richer, more complex understanding of student learning (Vescio et al, 2008; Fishman et al, 2003). 

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Technology-Mediated Communities

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Research in professional learning looks increasingly toward alternative approaches using new and emerging technologies. The research is attached primarily to distance learning (e.g., Palloff & Pratt, 2005). As Information and Communications Technology (ICT) becomes more commonplace in educational settings, computer mediated communication (CMC) among teachers is rapidly becoming a valid medium for professional development (Brindley et al, 2009; Charalambos et al, 2004; Dede, 2006).

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            The emerging trend raises “the need to understand better their design, use, impact and scaling up” (Greenhow, Robelia & Hughes, 2009, 281). Professional community building across multiple sites in technology-mediated environments has the potential to broaden and globalize the scope of PLCs for teacher learning. Few studies, however, move beyond self-report of positive impact (Vescio, Ross & Adams, 2008, 80). Amidst the enthusiasm for creating ‘virtual communities’ of teachers, little is known about how educational professionals use such resources in practice. While some research indicates wide use of the online forums for information and empathic exchange resource, many claims of establishing collectively focused virtual communities of teachers remain exaggerated as the forum was limited by a number of caveats associated with CMC groups in general (Selwyn, 2000).

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Nevertheless, technology-mediated communities have the capacity to recreate the scholarship on teaching (Dede, 2006; Selwyn, 2000). Linking remote sites offers new ways for teacher learning and professional development to evolve. Some research suggests that teachers benefit from the flexible time and places (Vrasidas & Zembylas, 2004), instant access to a network of professionals with useful skills and knowledge, continuous learning and professional development (Chapman, Ramondt, & Smiley, 2005).

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            One promising area of investigation centers on explorations into the unique affordances of synchronous online environments for social learning across multiple sites. Developing a virtual community requires complex relational and cultural negotiations to build belonging and trust—the support-pillars of a learning community (Kooy, 2006a; Charalambros et al., 2004) fundamental to the collective momentum required for the sustaining the will to construct meaningful change in teacher practice (Bonk & Graham, 2006[KG4] ) and student learning.

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Method

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Rationale

 

This qualitative study proposed to investigate teacher learning and development and transitions, the liminal spaces between group and community; professional and pedagogical knowledge; teaching to improved student learning. I will use ethnography create a relatively small scale study of teachers in multiple, technology-mediated, social contexts.The particular qualitative research methods are justified since they provide depth of understanding and extend the range of questions to explore (Freidas, 2002; Lyons & LaBoskey, 2002) using social, interactional processes (Lieberman, 1995; Darling-Hammond & McLaughlin, 1995[KG5] ).

 

             The proposed study builds on a longitudinal study that began with novice teachers in 2000, and thus, offers unique benefits. The challenges of doing longitudinal, qualitative research lies in the commitment and engagement of participants which, in this case, is very considerable (10 years). Hence, the study offers an exceptional opportunity to include three original teachers interested in continuing and interacting with new participants in the collective effort for further inquiry, professional learning and development, and transfer of knowledge.

 

Participants

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            Three teachers/school sites (two urban; 1 suburban) in the current longitudinal study will participate along with an additional five teachers/school sites. New teacher volunteers with learning community experiences in their classes have been contacted through university colleagues, former students, and specific schools with diverse student populations in Canada (e.g., a teacher in a public alternative Muslim school in Fort McMurray, AB). The particular grouping of teachers will bring and build on existing knowledge to dialogically develop new conceptions of learning and teaching.

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Data

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Data, gathered from a range of sources, will center on observation and dialogue among the teachers. Data will consist of: (1) Surveys on (a) teacher background, attitudes, school context, and classroom implementations and, (b) student surveys on learning. (2) Interviews: six teacher group interviews and four interviews with representative student groups (Year 2, 3); (3) Case Studies: video clips, transcripts, field notes, and interview data will focus on central themes (e.g., community development, learning, teaching, pedagogy, teaching practices); (4) Videotaped recordings of the technology-mediated PLC meetings; (5) Teacher Logs of classroom observations, assessments; (6) Field Notes developed in detail after each PLC meeting.

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Data Analysis

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The approach to data collection is unstructured only in that categories used for interpreting will emerge and develop organically. Data analysis involves interpreting meanings and functions of human actions taking such forms as verbal descriptions, visual representations, and explanations. Of particular interest will be data emerging from the case studies (at both macro [Hanna, 2006] and micro levels [Shen, Zhenm & Poppink, 2007]) developed from research conducted (2006-2010) including video, dialogical maps, field notes, and transcripts to be collaboratively analyzed. The analytical tool[KG7]  will be used to understand, evaluate, and conceptualize dialogical learning, sustained knowledge development, and transfer.

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            The objectives of the study require ethnographic techniques including: (1) inductive development of analytic categories grounded in continuous comparison of data while they are collected; (2) triangulation among different data sources (Oliver-Hoyo & Allen, 2006). More specifically, data will undergo a system of analysis that segments the discourse into steps: (1); constructing “maps” of each event (identifying time, speaker, topic, key words); (2) transcribing specifically relevant themes arising from the overview map (3) describing and explaining the observations (research texts). Recording and organizing the data in this way allow for sharing the data with teacher and researcher participants to identify multiple ways the learning community develops, changes, and creates pedagogical knowledge for transforming student learning.