RSA 2: Critical and Transformative Practices in Professional Learning Communities

RSA 2: Critical and Transformative Practices in Professional Learning Communities

http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/EJ810651.pdf

            This weeks readings from DuFour focus on PLC goals, assessment results and using relevant information to improve results.  One of the most effective strategies for schools to incorporate district goals is for the schools to link school goals with district goals. There is a beneficial acronym, SMART, that helps schools accomplish this task. SMART goals are: “Strategic, Measurable, Attainable, Results oriented, and Time bound” (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many, 2010). These goals will help teachers to focus on the results, rather than the activity. Improved results are the very reason why schools are being a professional learning community. Analyzing assessment results is key for examining evidence for student learning. Dufour et al. (2010) states “a PLC is designed to continuously improve the collective capacity of a group to achieve intended results.”

In a professional learning community, “teachers work collaboratively to reflect on practice, examine evidence about the relationship between practice and student outcomes, and make changes that improve teaching and learning for the particular students in their classes” (Servage, 2008). However, there is no assurance that these changes indicate that teachers comprehend the philosophies behind them (Servage, 2008). Therefore, there is doubt in maintaining this change. Servage suggests the idea of a transformative learning theory, which is “a deep and profound altering of one’s world view” (2008). Transformative learning for teachers requires that they be willing and able to critically explore, articulate, negotiate, and revise their beliefs about themselves, their students, their colleagues, and their schools” (Servage, 2008). Only then will teachers in professional learning communities be able to understand and critically evaluate best practices, the philosophies behind them, and any consequences that accompany them (Servage, 2008).

            One of DuFour’s elements in a professional learning community is that “improved professional practice will require educators to change many of their traditional practices” (2010). Servage advocates that professional learning communities won’t be as complex to initiate and maintain with the transformative learning theory, which emphasizes “the psychology of profound personal change” (2008). This theory helps teachers recognize that learning is threatening and difficult. Servage states that knowing this “liberates us from the strategic blindness and defensiveness that keeps us, as organizations and individuals, stuck in self-perpetuating, dysfunctional patterns that actively work against change” (2008).

References

DuFour, R., DuFour, R., Eaker, R., Many, T. (2010). Learning by doing: A handbook

            for professional learning communities at work (2^nd ed.). Bloomington, IN:

            Solution Tree Press.

Servage, L. (2008). Critical and Transformative Practices in Professional Learning

            Communities. Teacher Education Quarterly, 35(1), 63-77.