Monday, January 25, 2010

Learning Communities

The National Staff Development Council (NSDC) includes learning communities as one of their "Standards for Staff Development," and this page on their website explains why. The site offers a quick summary of the importance of learning communities and their effectiveness to help staff development, citing reasons such as common focus, clear direction, and daily engagement in school improvement. Even more useful than this short summary is the annotated bibliography included on the page. The web page cites over 35 different research publications that have examined professional learning communities. For each citation, there is a short summary as well as information about how to find the source, including a direct link when available.

Looking through the references, one jumped out at me as being particularly related to this week's readings about the outcomes that result from learning communities and how these outcomes can be measured and evaluated. Hord's (1997) literature review has an entire section devoted to the outcomes of professional learning communities, and notes a variety of positive results for both staff and students. I found it interesting that the list of positive staff results (such as reducing isolation and increasing satisfaction) was actually longer than the list of positive results for students. It's great that there is research showing that professional learning communities not only positively impact student learning but also create a more work environment for teachers.

2 comments:

  1. Even though, I have only taught for 8 years, I have seen my share of fads that come and go. This article does a great job at expressing this phenomenon. In my experience, I have participated in so many initiatives that I can’t remember them all. The flaw has been not to follow through. They were all initiated for a good reason and with an end in mind but have not been adequately supported, either by providing time or by being replaced with a new plan. After reading the document you linked, I found myself laughing with the term “microwave oven”, a term that will adopt.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I really like how the article focused on positive long term changes. The "microwave oven" system of fad changes has ruled school districts for too long. There is a great book that I read about 8 or 9 years ago and reread about 2 years ago that discusses the way schools in Japan go about doing curriculum reform. It's amazing to read about the deliberate way in which the school district will focus on one lesson and the entire faculty will look at that one lesson and how best to teach it. (Look for TIIMS information.)
    -Lisa

    ReplyDelete