2. IMPROVEMENT REQUIRES CONTINUOUS LEARNING, BOTH BY INDIVIDUALS AND GROUPS

Collective learning needs an environment in which learning is the normal activity. The current structure of public education encourages isolated and individualistic learning. Distributed leadership needs to create an environment that views learning as a collective good. Individuals should expect to have colleagues look critically at their personal ideas and practices; and groups should expect the same thing from individuals. Privacy of practice produces isolation, and isolation is the enemy of improvement.

11 comments:

JanePafundi said...

We share "best practices" at our staff meetings. In this way we can see other effective methods being used and adapt them to our content.

Scott Holloway said...

Is there a best practice that you remember learning at one of these sharing sessions?

Amy Murphy said...

When I was originally hired in my district we did something like this. Teachers were given time to observe what the administration called a "master" teacher. We were then provided with time to meet with that teacher and ask questions etc. Then the "master" teacher would observe us and provide valuable feedback. I thought this was extremely helpful and miss having the time to do this.

Patricia Gonzalez said...

At LHS we are currently in the next stage of the Public School Choice Crisis in which we need to further prove our collaboration amongst teachers in an SLC. As an SLC we are dividing up into 9-12 grade groups and coming up with thematic lessons we will teach next year. Both as a group-SLC and as individual teachers we are improving upon our teaching by collaborating. In actuality, we are doing this because we are mandated to by the district to avoid reconstitution of LHS, but a lot of us in the various disciplines see this as an opportunity we have been wanting to collaborate with other teachers for years.

JanePafundi said...

Amy - that sounds awesome!

Scott, the 7th grade science teacher showed a lesson using the video cam to project what was under the microscope for everyone to see.

Mike Rivas said...

I think we need to have explicit opportunities to visit other teachers classrooms as Scott mentioned. There is nothing like seeing someone else do what you do in a different way.

JanePafundi said...

Patricia,

When do you meet to do this? Is it paid time?

Scott Holloway said...

Jane, the fact that you can remember something that you came away with that was useful justifies the power of this shared time. Great job.

Patricia Gonzalez said...

Amy, I like how you pointed out that it was the Admin who decided who were master teachers. We have a similar situation at LHS were student teachers teach for half of the time in a master teachers classroom. Sometimes there are actual improvements in the master teachers' class not because of the collaboration, but because in actuality the student teacher was more innovative than the master teacher. Some partnerings are quite good though.

Mark Pichaj said...

Dr. Rivas—I agree. One of the best days I spent as a first-year teacher was when my mentor got a sub for me, and made appointments for me to visit 6 other teachers in the science department, one each period. (I should have done this more often, but fell back into the rut of believing that if I left my classroom, something terrible would happen.)

Patricia Gonzalez said...

Jane,
Teachers who really want to make a difference find a way to make collaboration happen. We often meet during lunch, before school, after school etc. but it really starts to take away from time teachers have to just be human or have families. I have really enjoyed collaborative work with my colleagues, but until we actually can get paid for this valuable work, it won't be as wide-spread as it could be. So, no we usually are not paid unless we take over the PD set out for us by the Admin and say this is what we are going to do period. It is unfortunate, but sometimes being a teacher leader takes initiative huh?