Our school board has blessed us with both early release and waiver days to support adult learning opportunities as we continue our Classroom 10 journey. We must ensure that we make good use of this time for teachers to understand what 21st century learning looks and sounds like in the classroom. We need to provide opportunities for staff to learn, observe, practice, and receive feedback and reflection time as they engage in this work.
Who plans and facilitates these learning opportunities? There are not enough administrators to perform this function because of the numbers of teams that form on any given day. I also don't believe that building level administrators are always best positioned for success in this work. They may not have the content knowledge or understanding of the learning targets that are necessary to support the adult learning.
Since there are not enough administrators, we must utilize the expertise and experience of teachers to support the collaborative learning of their colleagues. In our system, this is one of the primary functions of teacher leaders; planning for and facilitating these learning opportunities. We have experienced varying degrees of success in this work. Some of what we have learned is that these teachers need:
- Learning opportunities to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to support effective communication. Learning to stay in skillful discussion and dialogue and to avoid debate and polite discussion. Learning how to balance advocacy and inquiry, how to make themselves and others aware of their mental models and ladders of inference, and how to bring private thoughts into the room instead of the parking lot are essential for sustaining a focus on this work.
- They need to understand the stages of the change process because we are asking teachers to make significant changes to practice. Support over time is necessary to ensure that the changes sustain.
- They also need support in creating the lesson plan for these meetings that aligns short and long term goals with active processing strategies with adult learners. Facilitating adult learners is not easy and is not something that we learn in college.
In our system, we provide opportunities for teachers to acquire this knowledge and skill set and we have observed success when they do. We have also seen a lack of success in the absence of this knowledge and skill set. Though there are many other variables that influence this work, this foundational set of knowledge and skills is essential.
Even with this work, however, we still have teachers that are uncomfortable in these roles and do not want to be perceived as a leader by their colleagues. At a time when we need to have the highest levels of support we can achieve it is not always possible because of teachers who are unwilling to assume these leadership positions.
What gets in the way? What do they believe will happen if they do assume these roles? Is it about more work and added stress? Is it about what they perceive their colleagues are thinking and saying about them? What do we do to create cultures where it is expected and appreciated when those best positioned for these roles perform them? After all, isn't this what professional learning communities do; commit to doing what is necessary to support colleagues, seeking support wherever possible, and holding each other to high standards?
3 comments:
A couple things get in the way, I think. Unclear sponsorship is one. As a teacher we accept our leadership role in our classroom, but when we move outside that realm some become uncomfortable when provided with a formal leadership opportunity unless formal/clear sponsorship from building level administration is communicated--to the teacher leader, and just as importantly, to the teachers he/she will be working with. Another challenge: time. Time away from one's classroom, time to prepare to be an effective leaders/facilitator, etc. We have to figure out a way to acknowledge and lessen the burden being away from one's classroom is for teachers. It takes hours to write sub plans that may or may not be followed, then when the teacher returns to school, there's often work to be done that wouldn't be necessary if the teacher hadn't been away. In my leadership roles over the years, I often wished I had the opportunity to attend a meeting outside the school day. As for the planning, etc. I think one of the best parts of the Leadership Institute was the way afternoons were reserved for planning time, instead of expecting teachers to do the planning on their own time. We need to offer more trainings and meetings that work like this. I know time will always be an issue for schools and teachers, but I also think we can be creative and innovative thinkers. Many districts are moving to having one half day every week were some of these meetings/trainings could take place. We can plan and offer as much training as possible during the summer. We can explore alternative ways to pay teachers for their time outside the school day that still acknowledges and respects their time, but isn't as expensive as the per diem a teacher is paid for teaching. We can offer teachers choices.
The leadership opportunities in this district are exciting and we are, indeed, lucky. We just need to make sure the teachers that assume these roles are supported in ways that clearly acknowledge the extra time, responsibility, and challenge these opportunities represent ( and that this is on top of the time, responsibility, and challenge being a teacher represents).
I also think that our “ladder” that teachers don’t want to participate in the leadership roles is based on old information. I have more people who would like to step into the role than I have place for. I completely agree with the training portion. The leadership institute is an important part of this. I would like to see specific strategies given for meeting facilitation. We have worked on general discussion skills, but I would like to go through the facilitation book or give strategies for “too much of a talker”, “the negative voice”, “the passive member”. Also an opportunity to share strategies they have tried and worked with each other.
I also agree that the extra work on these people cannot be emphasized enough. It isn’t the facilitation planning, it is the work in the classroom they have to catch up on. However, since most of my people also have families, I don’t think outside of school is the option either.
Just as you say, we don't have enough administrators, I think of our elementary principals who have too much on their plate. I believe we need to add more administrators to the elementaries just as the middle schools recently have. If you take Lake Wilderness as an example, we have many many teachers and students and one administrator. She does a wonderful job, but I think would be able to do even more to assist with student learning if there was help. Just a thought.
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