Reflections from Professional Learning Retreat

from: http://learningshore.edublogs.org/

April 1, 2017

Last week I facilitated a mini-Retreat on Friday afternoon for our Mentors and Coaches and others with key roles in leading professional learning.

The Retreat Goals were:

How can we ensure that professional learning leads to action?

How can we continue to build collegiality and a shared mission?

Where can we push and challenge what we currently do?

We commenced by reminding ourselves of the School Aims and considering what we want for our students. We noted that many in the room were unfamiliar with the School Aims and these are not well known or widely referred to.

We reflected back on the development of professional learning over the past decade.

• The Master Assisting in Teaching Method program
• The Mentoring Program for new staff
• 2+2 observations
• Instructional Rounds
• Various iterations of the Coaching Program
• Timetabled Departmental Team Time, focusing more on learning
• Sharing internal staff expertise on staff days, the TeachMeet concept was regarded as especially worthwhile.
• Annual reflective goal-setting conversations
• Project Zero’s Cultures of Thinking work
• Project-based learning.

And more recently a focus on Student Voice, the appointment of a Director of Inclusion, and now consideration about what the next iteration of the Coaching Program might look like.

We reflected on Ron Ritchhart’s “Wants” of professional learning and this helped to frame the Retreat. We were particularly drawn to the passage from the book Facilitating for Learning:

“Nor should we consider it professional learning when teachers come together for the purpose of completing work tasks, designing implementation plans, or planning units. Such tasks are important, but they aren’t focused on learning how to be better teachers or helping us to be students of our students’ learning. Instead our precious time together needs to be clearly centred on going deeply into ideas and practices, reflecting on our ongoing efforts to apply ideas, raising questions and issues to which we truly want to be a party in finding the answers, and better understanding our students as learners and thinkers.”

There was much discussion about how well supported our staff are, via access to amazing learning opportunities and readily shared expertise, although there were also concerns that PD can be prescribed and spoon-fed. There is a desire for professional learning experiences to be engaging, relevant, adaptive, self-driven, based on growth, reflective, and collaborative. As you would expect, the issue of time was discussed, noting how grateful staff are for the use of casuals for exam invigilation, but then further noting the travails of email overload, increased meetings about students with special needs, tight report deadlines, and preparation time.

Key Takeaways

There was conversation about the strength of our Common Room and the power of collegiality and collaboration, particularly noting the value of shared expertise and collaboration between campuses. There were comments about the great things going on at our Northbridge campus and agreement that more interaction and collaboration between our three campuses is needed. Could this be achieved via a shared coaching model, where Senior School coaches do some coaching in the Prep and Prep Coaches do some coaching in the Senior School?

There was discussion about how we might enable and encourage more informal and incidental learning, such as the powerful and healthy professional discussions that often occur serendipitously over lunch. The cross-fertilisation enabled by our open plan Common Room was seen as a strength, though some people stay in the same seat for decades on end. Can we rotate the seating in Common Room stations?

There is a strong desire for departmental team time focused on teaching and learning, however this time too easily defaults to administration. Concern was expressed that it always seems to be the Head of Department who drives the agenda. There is a desire for PD to be initiated by all staff, not just the Head of Department. Effective facilitation is crucial for the long-term success of learning groups. The greatest success within our Coaching Program was after the coaches undertook formal training with Growth Coaching International. Similarly, the most successful use of departmental team time seems to have been with three Heads of Department who undertook a Harvard course on transforming teams. It is not possible to have everyone do this, however we clearly need to be more strategic about ensuring that our leaders have the skills to facilitate adult learning effectively. Annually we send a number of key staff to undertake Coaching Accreditation and this should continue. Simon Brooks may have a role to play in helping us develop more facilitation skills.

There is a clear desire for an expanded Coaching Program. We currently have two instructional coaches, one technology coach, a leadership coach, and next year possibly also an inclusion coach. There is a desire for the coaching to be more closely linked with our annual goal-setting (through the use of ISMART goals focused on a teaching and learning problem of practice, linked to AITSL standards). This could be achieved via a buddy system, someone who is nominated on the goal-setting sheet as a learning partner to share the journey via deliberate termly check-ins, reflection and documentation. In order to create a learning structure where teachers are more accountable to their peers than the hierarchy, there will need to be an impetus to create something, honest critique/feedback, and meaningful observations. Somehow we need to be able to connect staff who have similar puzzles of practice, maybe by advertising the interests of teachers by asking them to respond to the simple question, “I have been thinking about…”

There was also some discussion about how important it is to get new staff appointments right. How do we get people from other schools to come to us? What is our vision for a teacher? Can we articulate our values? Who should be involved in the process? Should there be standard questions and an assessment rubric?

Immediate Steps

During this same week, Zac Chase, our visiting Holtermann Fellow, modelled for us how to finish every professional learning meeting by asking everyone present to nominate one area for action and commit it to writing. This needs to become a more regular part of my practice when I work with teachers.

I will make use of the School Aims in my meetings with staff and I will try to get a simple image designed for each of the six aims, perhaps by making use of the Student Think Tank.

Our language is important and there was a suggestion that we use the language of “Learning and Thinking Time” which gives permission for time to be used as a space to be creative.

Perhaps the final minutes in Friday staff meetings could be used more effectively to share staff expertise and things that are being tried in the classroom?

Stop Doing

We need to also often ask ourselves what we can stop doing. Hearing from Lauren Sayer, who leads digital innovation at Haileybury College, a few weeks ago really highlighted the way that technology can be used to save time for teachers and students, if we have the skills and leadership to drive such change.