Why We Learn

I've spent the past three days at an OTES (Ohio Teacher Evaluation System) training. This system is being phased in over the next two years, and will serve as the vehicle by which all teachers in Ohio are evaluated. The workshop culminates with a post-assessment, taken some time after the classes end, resulting in licensure and the ability to evaluate instructional staff.

OTES is described by ODE as a system that will

provide educators with a richer and more detailed view of their performance, with a focus on specific strengths and opportunities for improvement.

I talked to a number of administrators and teachers who had already taken the training before attending. Without exception, they were all struck by the rigidity of the rubric. I agree, but there's more here. Any system that wields so much power must be realistic, honest, and rooted in the consensus of academic research. The OTES rubric fails this basic test.

Words Matter

Check out the Ohio Standards for the Teaching Profession (starting on page 16) approved in October of 2005. Now look at the OTES rubric. The first thing you will notice is that the OTES rubric has four levels, and that the Ohio Standards only have three. I think it's fair to say that the Ohio Standards did not include the lowest level. (The document says as much.) The top three levels of the OTES Rubric align with the three levels of the Ohio Standards. The snag? The terminology used in the OTES rubric. Proficient has been replaced by Developing, Accomplished by Proficient, and Distinguished by Accomplished. Each level has been relegated!

One might argue that this doesn't matter. But, it does. Teacher evaluations are public record. School performance, or at least the percentage of teachers that fall into each category, will be published. Newspapers will ask for names of teachers and their ratings. And, as we will see as I unpack the rubric in greater detail, the very best teachers are likely to fall into the Proficient category. What's the one relationship between public education and the word Proficient already burned into the minds of parents? The minimal level of performance required to pass the Ohio Graduation Test. Dishonest.

Recognizing Excellence

The OTES rubric is brutal. While the final determination of how many Accomplished ratings are required to achieve an overall Accomplished score is left to the district, it is clear that very few, if any, teachers will ever attain such a rating. The State has accumulated over 100 videos of lessons. Not one represents an Accomplished teacher. Trainers are telling trainees to forget about the Accomplished level when they take their assessment. My trainer stated that she's been told to expect between 0-2% of teachers to meet the requirements of this elite rating. (She also said that they've been working this model in her county for the past year and have yet to find a teacher that scores this high.) Unrealistic.

For fun, I looked at some other professions. By my calculations, between 4-5% of doctors and lawyers are recognized as "excellent" or the best in their field. (I used Castle Connolly for the doctor information, and Best Lawyers for the attorneys.) What other profession would policy makers have the audacity to humiliate in this way? What other group of professionals would be complicit in such humiliation? (Certainly, some from our ranks were consulted as OTES was developed.)

Academic Research

Here's where it gets complicated. As a Ph.D. candidate in educational psychology, I'm aware of the battles that take place between those from my field and the curriculum specialists. Typically, educational psychologists will cite quantitative research while the curriculum specialists will have less stringent requirements in terms of what is required for validity. However, it fairly clear that the sort of research that requires experimental design and statistical analysis has not been part of the body of work supporting learning styles and differentiated instruction, yet both are a big part of the rubric.

Learning styles are part of the accomplished ranking for Assessment Data, all rankings for Knowledge of Students, and both the Developing and Proficient levels of Resources. Learning styles have been debunked, full article here. The primary finding? The vast majority of Learning Style studies failed to randomly assign subjects, and many that did found evidence that contradicted the principles of the theory. And yet, OTES requires teachers to employ this discredited theory. Not supported.

Differentiated instruction (DI), one of the ten areas of the rubric, is a bit more troublesome. It also shows up in the Accomplished level of Assessment of Data, and the Developing, Proficient, and Accomplished levels of Assessment of Student Learning. Nascent in comparison to learning styles, DI is rooted in the work of Carol Tomlinson.

In an early piece, Tomlinson, after dedicating several pages to describing the ways in which teachers have failed to meet the "diverse needs of their students", implores teachers to "consistently, defensibly, and vigorously adjust curriculum and instruction in response to student readiness, interest, and learning profile" (p. 131). One of the three foundational areas within which Tomlinson (originally) suggested differentiation take place is the "learning profile", closely related to the debunked "learning styles". It is my understanding that she has focused more on the other areas of her theory in recent years.

Here's the thing about differentiated instruction. It significantly increases a teacher's workload, and it's not clear that real differentiation, as Tomlinson describes, is possible or more effective. In fact, Mike Schmoker argues that, "it is on no list, short or long, of the most effective educational actions or interventions". If you read Schomoker's piece, you'll learn that he corresponded with Tomlinson via email for a prolonged period of time, asking her to cite "research or strong evidence to support (DI's) widespread adoption". Tomlinson was unable to produce such evidence. Not universally supported.

To be fair, differentiated instruction is complex, and likely hard to assess via traditional experimental designs. Providing materials and support that put each student into their idiosyncratic "Zone of Proximal Development" sounds wonderful. But, to reach the Accomplished level on the OTES rubric, teachers have to demonstrate differentiation at the individual level. This is unrealistic. Why is DI included as a category on the OTES rubric? Why has it been embraced by the (public) education community? It sounds magnificent, and expecting one teacher to meet every need of every student is a lot cheaper than hiring additional staff to negotiate the individual differences teachers face every day.

Differentiation, at the Accomplished level of the OTES rubric demands individualization, and this is dangerous. As a professional community, we'd better be careful condoning this sort of expectation (a single teacher differentiating at the individual level), because while it is not likely that a human can do this sort of thing (see research related to the limits of working memory), technology can. And while Tomlinson's motivations appear honorable, policy makers' intentions are not as clear. Would they hesitate to turn over the education of our children to machines that don't get sick or ask for raises? Maybe.

What Does This Mean? (More Academic Research)

Let's say one buys into the notion that Ohio teachers, as a group, are subpar. What does academic research in the area of motivation tell us we should expect to observe when these "underperforming" individuals are confronted with the new evaluation system? In short, we should expect avoidance and distress, resulting the abandonment of any desire to apply the rubric in a meaningful way.

Goal Theory

Goal theory is an area of educational research that examines how goals affect learner motivation. Broadly defined, there are three categories of goals; mastery goals, performance goals, and avoidance goals. Mastery goals are the sort of goals that are set when an individual sees the inherent value in a skill or a domain of knowledge, and seeks to understand or attain competence due to this appreciation. Performance goals are selected when the primary driver of learning is to demonstrate competence, rather than to understand for the sake of understanding.

Finally, avoidance goals are selected when an individual lacks the confidence that they are able to complete a task. In these cases, avoiding notoriety is the principal objective. Individuals who face a rubric which, by design, eliminates any possibility of achieving excellence, are likely to avoid confronting this reality using any means necessary. They are unlikely to buy into the system as a means of professional growth. Rather, the chances are great that their will view the system with apprehension, confronting it and its prescriptions only when required to by their administrator.

Unattainable Goals

Isn't it ironic that educators' school years have traditionally begun with creation of SMART Goals, yet the state is requiring those same individuals to be evaluated using a framework thats highest ranking, by the State's own admission, is, for all intents and purposes, unattainable? (The "A" in SMART stands for attainable.)

Carsten Wrosch and colleagues have done a great deal of research on unattainable goals, finding that, "goal disengagement and goal reengagement tendencies can compensate for the distress associated with the occurrence of unattainable goals" (p. 1505). They conclude that unattainable goals are unhealthy and lead to distress. Further, those individuals who successfully cope with unattainable goals do so by giving up and selecting more realistic, though not necessarily related, attainable goals.

Self-Efficacy

Self-efficacy, part of Bandura's social cognitive theory, refers to the belief that one is able to accomplish the task at hand. Similar to the findings of goal theory, Bandura's work suggests that individuals who do not believe that they will be successful, those who have low efficacy as it relates to the task at hand, will avoid such task rather than confront their perceived certainty of failure. More precisely, Bandura states

Self-efficacy judgments, whether accurate or faulty, influence choice of activities and environmental settings. People avoid activities that they believe exceed their coping capabilities, but they undertake and perform assuredly those that they judge themselves capable of managing (Bandura, 1982, p. 123)

These areas of motivational research suggest that the vast majority of teachers, those who are not mastery oriented or who are not supremely efficacious in their pedagogical ability, are likely to look for other avenues to satisfy whatever professional growth aspirations remain after confronting OTES.

Conclusions

There are bad teachers, and those that need support so that they might reach all of their students. Raising the overall quality of instruction is an admirable goal. However, policy makers have overcompensated for their belief that the vast majority of Ohio's teachers are negligent, creating an evaluation tool that is dishonest, not fully supported by academic research, and, in some cases, unrealistic in its expectations.

Administrators have their work cut out for them if they hope to use OTES as a vehicle for professional growth. Teachers will be confronted with a rubric couched in language seemingly chosen to degrade the level of effectiveness attained. Some administrators have suggested that teachers are "just going to have to forget about the Accomplished level, and be content with Proficient". I don't think that will work.

The following is an exercise aimed at informing oneself of their values with regards to school administration.

Identifying My Core Values of Leadership

I was to first generate a list of values that I believe “guide my behavior”. That list, constructed over breakfast a couple of days ago, is below.

• Honesty
• Integrity
• Openness
• Commitment
• Inquisitiveness
• Compassion
• Fairness
• Strength
• Scholarship

Next, I was to read through a list of values and their definitions, and subsequently select my “top five values” from this list. The idea here (I think) is to force you into prioritizing. There was a total of 46 values, and while there was some redundancy built into the list, focusing on such a large number is unrealistic. My strategy (though I’m not sure I was supposed to pursue this task strategically) was to look for the most inclusive values. I then assigned the remaining values as subordinate members of the five groups identified by these “top-level” qualities. A visual representation of my work can be viewed below. Clicking on the image will load the original (PDF) file in a new window.

For the most part, the values that I originally listed showed up on the new list. Certainly, there were some items enumerated here that I had not considered originally. I’ve filled in the nodes corresponding to those items that I initially itemized. (A full-sized, unfilled in version of the chart can be obtained here.) Those qualities that did not have a counterpart are identified by the term (Added). I took some liberties, as I judged “Life-Long-Learning” and “Scholarship” to be one and the same. Similarly, “Initiative & Sense of Urgency” was deemed so close to “Commitment” that creating a new node seems unnecessary.

Identified Values Impact on My Behavior

Below I attempt to describe my values and beliefs about the people, ideas, and philosophies associated with school leadership.

• Leadership: I value leaders who have a vision, who are calculated yet take risks if need be, and who fight/stand up for this vision if challenged. I believe that this type of leadership is hard, tough psychologically (it wears on you), and nearly impossible to recover once one has moved towards a more political position.
• Students: I value students energy, their creativity, their compassion, and their stubbornness. I believe that students are right about school in more ways than we’d like to admit; I believe that many spend too much of their time on their own or in poor situations, and that considering these realities when engaging them in any way often determines the way in which they choose to respond.
• Staff members: I value staff member’s dedication to their students, their willingness to take work home (grading/planning), and their openness to new ideas. I believe that it is very easy to loose one’s passion (I know that I did at times), and that becoming less passionate about teaching can be self-reinforcing. I believe that the commitment of educators, as in any other profession, varies a great deal. And, this reality is problematic (for school leaders in particular) due to the large degree to which our future is based on their performance.
• Community building: Community building is important in that communities serve so many functions within an organization. They cultivate a feeling of togetherness; they allow individuals to feed of each other’s energy and to learn from each other. Community fights to remove the lines and divisions that so often and so easily materialize within organizations, helping return the focus to the individual and each person’s humanity, rather than their title or role.
• Curriculum, instruction & assessment: I value the interrelatedness of these pillars of teaching and learning, as I do their product instructional design. Their value cannot be overstated. But, without a teacher’s belief in themselves, their students, and a commitment demonstrated by the dedication of time required to cause real change, they grow brittle and weak, unable to bear their hefty responsibilities.
• Learning: I value the way in which learning opportunities arise out of the unlikeliness of circumstance, and conversely, the degree of concentration that learning often requires. I believe that learning can be implicit or explicit, that good teachers notice and act on learning opportunities as they arise, and that the best teachers learn with their students.
• Professional Development: I value the way in which traditional professional development allows staff to congregate and work towards a common goal. I value it’s ability to generate a sense of togetherness and a staff-wide understanding of large goals / initiatives. However, I believe that large, whole-staff professional development events, by their very nature, fail to reach a significant number of staff members. And, for this reason, I believe that individualized approaches to professional development should be pursued.
• Supervision: I value the supervisor’s ability to provide a vision and inspire an organization to meet the goals necessary to fulfill their potential. I believe that the qualities that make a good supervisor are not so different from those that make a good teacher; one must be caring, compassionate, honest, fair, and hard working. Most of all, good teachers and supervisors must be willing and able to critically assesses a multitude of variables, and subsequently act in ways that are empathetic and self-assured.
• Communication: I value thoughtful questions, and the ability of non-verbal cues to make all the difference when two human beings converse. I believe in what Rogoff called “intersubjectivity”, or shared meaning, though sometimes I fail to live up to these lofty expectations when involved in a heated exchange. I believe that that the most difficult things are those that need to be communicated most clearly and with the most care, and that regardless of our efforts and/or intentions, there will always be times when we must apologize because we have misspoke.
• Change: I value the ability of change to allow individuals to reinvent themselves and to encourage personal growth. I believe that change is the only constant, and that those who fight the “inertia” of change maintain a uniformly one-dimensional view of the world.

Personal Vision Statement

My school’s mission statement is worded in the following way.

Provide knowledge, skill development and experiences necessary for a lifetime of personal and professional growth.

From my perspective, there is a very real difference between a “mission” statement and a “vision” statement. A mission statement describes what we want to do. A vision statement is more about who we should be. My personal vision statement might be constructed as follows.

Public education’s future rests on its ability to harness the natural energy of the young, and the degree to which educators can cultivate a culture of collaborative participation based on openness, mutual respect, and citizenship.

It’s a bit wordy, I know.

The point is that we have to allow our students to participate/contribute in/to the online world. They know, even if it is only at the level of the subconscious, that something is wrong when school blocks out so much of the world. It’s really as simple as this: Would you rather write something for your teacher to read, or something for the entire world?

Comments and/or critiques are welcomed.

January 3, 2010

I spent 3 months tutoring a middle school student during my senior year of high school, and ever since I’ve believed that the one-on-one, face-to-face environment is uniquely suited for instruction. These feelings have been reinforced, my interest piqued once more, as I have read about cognitive apprenticeship and Rogoff’s Apprenticeship in Thinking. Vygotsky, in his work Thought and Language is fairly direct in his criticism of society’s disregard for what students might be able to accomplish with others

…even the most profoundest thinkers never questioned the assumption; they never entertained the notion that what children can do with the assistance of others might be in some way more indicative of their mental development than what they can do alone (p. 85).

He then instructs the reader as to the qualities of what he deems “good instruction”.

Therefore the only good kind of instruction is that which marches ahead of development and leads it; it must be aimed not so much at the ripe as at the ripening functions (p. 188).

Here he alludes to his well known Zone of Proximal Development, and the fact that students need to be pushed just beyond what they are able to do on their own. Daniel Willingham makes a similar point early in his new book Why Don’t Students Like School.

Working on problems that are of the right level of difficulty is rewarding, but working on problems that are too easy or too difficult is unpleasant (Kindle Edition, 310).

Recently, I’ve made the point that monitoring this sort of thing in a classroom of 20-30 students requires that we classify instruction as complex in nature. My reverence for the tutoring paradigm is so great that I’ve focused my inquiries on ways of using technology to generate time for teachers and students to meet face-to-face. Today I read Open for Learning: The CMS and the Open Learning Network, an article in the first edition of the open journal in education written by Jon Mott and David Wiley. They suggest that social networks might be able to replicate Bloom’s 2-Sigma Effect, which demonstrates that tutored individuals outperform their peers by +2 standard deviations. They begin with a critique of course management systems, predicated on three assertions.

• CMSs reinforce artificial time constraints
• CMSs are teacher-centric, as instructors control both content and direction
• CMSs isolate students from the outside (real) world

Instead of relying so heavily on CMSs, Mott et al. suggest that universities utilize open learning networks, described as the middle ground between PLEs and CMSs. In an OLN,

faculty, students and support staff would reap the benefits of enterprise, networked software for authentication, identity management, integration with SISs, etc. Additionally, they would be able to use a vast range of Web 2.0 apps, integrated into the OLN via web services and other sorts of integrations.

I find this to be a practical, if evolutionary, suggestion. The authors’ argument that students understand that their work within the CMS environment will not be added to or viewed after their course, and that this knowledge depresses the desire to contribute is believable. There is no question that CMSs act primarily as a conduit for the transmission of content, and that teachers make the majority of the instructional decisions. Their failure, however, to acknowledge the existence synchronous/asynchronous forms of communication, collaborative writing modules (wikis), and the ability to share/comment on files, is unfortunate. However, it is their second-to-last sentence that I find most surprising. (The entire paragraph is included for context.)

While the CMS tends to reinforce the knowledge-transfer model, long deemed the best and only way to teach large groups of students, the OLN poses as an intriguing alternative. Instead of limiting ourselves to knowledge transfer, we can leverage the affordances of the web to uncover content, to help students become more than just temporarily knowledgeable about a subject. We can do so by approximating — and perhaps even surpassing — the efficacy of one-to-one learning relationships. As the tradition-preserving CMS gives way to the OLN and the learning affordances it brings with it, Bloom’s challenge may finally be met.

In general, research tells us that tutoring is not homogeneous in application (some tutoring is better than others), that the act of tutoring is beneficial (one learns as they teach), and that tutoring is a skill (it can be learned and improved upon). Yet, here – one sentence from the end of their paper – Mott & Wiley suggest that implementing OLNs will “approximate – and perhaps even surpass – the efficacy of one-to-one learning relationships”? Isn’t this a rather bold statement?

Tutoring’s ability to produce positive results might be attributed to a variety of features. From a behavioral perspective, one might point to the benefits of being able to interpret both verbal (inflection, hesitation) and non-verbal cues as a session unfolds. A cognitivist might suggest that the intimacy of the environment requires that each participant is attentive, this facilitating thought processes (activation of long-term memory, combination of new information with activated LTM in working memory). The teacher might simply say that they are able to monitor the learner’s ability and knowledge more closely and accurately. Regardless of the perspective, tutoring remains unique; a simple and uncommonly effective instructional technique, rooted in the history of the apprenticeship, but generally impractical.

As I said initially, I agree with much of what the authors have to say. I don’t like CMSs, and my vision of what online learning should be is even more liberal than what they suggest. I don’t have a answer to the 2-Sigma question. (I don’t know if there is an answer.) That doesn’t mean that replacing CMSs with OLNs is unwise, or would not be beneficial. But, introducing such a bold, unsubstantiated prognostication two lines from the end of a scholarly work serves no purpose.

Comments and/or critiques are welcomed.

Classroom instruction is complex but do we treat it as such? Is “sensing” a priority of teacher education? How would an instructor who waits for “patterns to emerge” be viewed by their supervisor? As laid back? Aloof? And does outcome-based education (unintentionally) result in educators treating complex situations as complicated, or worse yet, simple in nature? These questions find their origins in the work of David Snowden and Mary Boone, as they apply the principles of Snowden’s Cynefin Framework to leadership in the 2007 Harvard Business Review article A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making.

Rather than summarize Snowden & Boone’s application textually, I’ve generated a graphical representation. Clicking on this smaller image will produce the full-sized document.

Initially, my interest in this article was peaked by a blog posting of David Clark in his series of writings aimed at describing how the tenets of Agile software development can be applied as a system of instructional design. The HBR article had the added advantage of using this framework as a lens from which to view leadership, a topic of focus for me now as I begin supervising staff at my school. However, its application to the classroom teacher is intriguing.

Aren’t teachers really classroom leaders, or leaders within a complex educational / instructional setting? David Williamson Shaffer, in his 2004 TCR article Pedagogical Praxis: The Professions as Models for Postindustrial Education states the following.

We know a great deal about some of the epistemological and pedagogical underpinnings of compelling learning environments. However, orchestrating these elements into a coherent whole remains a challenge (p. 1417).

Shaffer suggests that professions have unique epistemologies, or “ways of knowing”, and thus have the potential to be used as models for instruction. Daniel Willingham, in his new book Why Don’t Students Like School?, alludes to the complexity of the educational setting as well as he explains the disconnect between controlled experimental studies and the classroom.

But mental processes are not isolated in the classroom. They all operate simultaneously, and they often interact in difficult-to-predict ways (Kindle edition, Location 126).

Marzano et al., in their work Classroom Instruction that Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement discuss nine categories of instructional strategies.

• Identifying Similarities and Differences
• Summarizing and Note Taking
• Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition
• Homework and Practice
• Nonlinguistic Representations
• Cooperative Learning
• Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback
• Generating and Testing Hypotheses
• Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers

Throughout this work, the presented strategies are also (necessarily) related to content and instructional situation. Doesn’t this make instructional choices more complex? If we agree with Willingham, who differs from Marzana et al. in this regard, there’s another layer of complexity that must be superimposed onto the extant relationships between content and strategy, topic specific ability. He contends that we must present problems to learners that fall within a specific range, not too tough (which causes despair), or too easy (no satisfaction, nor release of dopamine), but just right. (Goldilocks analogies are welcome.)

Thus, we will seek out opportunities to think, but we are selective in doing so; we choose problems that pose some challenge but that seem likely to be solvable, because these are the problems that lead to feelings of pleasure and satisfaction (Kindle edition, Location 400).

At this point, I’ve identified several variables that must be considered by a teacher as they teach.

• What needs to be taught
• What has been taught
• What is to be taught in the future
• Individual abilities of students with regards to content
• Individual abilities / preferences of students related to instructional strategies
• Situation / relation between content and potential strategies (what “fits” best)

But there is another, most important factor, life outside of the classroom. What happens beyond the classroom walls, in other classes, and more significantly outside of school, affects each learner. The combination of these variables supports the idea that classrooms should be classified as “complex” with the Cynefin Framework. If we review the traits of “Complex” systems, it is clear that often times there is “no right answer” in terms of instructional choices, that classrooms are “systems in constant flux”, and that the “ability to understand” (from the teacher’s perspective) comes after class has been dismissed.

The ability to work within this complex system (the classroom) is typically part of the teacher observation process. For example, Domain 3e in Charlotte Danielson’s Framework for Teaching is entitled Demonstrating Flexibility and Responsiveness, and includes the elements Lesson adjustment, Response to students, and Persistence. However, outcomes are the focus of this work, not the manner in which those outcomes are reached. Admittedly, factors such as rapport and teacher-student interactions are also part of these assessments, and these might be considered constituents of “probing”. However, the emergence / identification of patterns is not addressed in any meaningful way.

Is there a need, then, to construct a formalized framework / structure for “probing” and “sensing (for emergent patterns)” specific to the classroom? Is this something teachers need to know how to do? Would familiarity with the tenets of the Cynefin framework lead to more effective instruction through appropriate responses to the different categories of complexity manifest within that setting?

Comments and/or critiques are welcomed.

An Overview

Professional development can be a sticky topic, sometimes bleeding into areas such as contractual obligations and monetary reimbursement. There is, however, lurking below the surface, a more implicit and problematic dissonance. Not all professional educators are consciously aware of this disconnect, but the contempt with which some view staff-wide professional development indicates that they “sense” its existence. I’m referring to the incongruity between how we ask our instructors to teach, and how we ask them to learn. The premise of this post is that the combination of Critical Friends Groups and Personal Learning Networks has the potential to offer deep and meaningful professional development.

Differentiated instruction is a term that is used to describe the instructional strategies / philosophy aimed at reaching the needs of every student. That is to say that the teacher takes into account a student’s

academic abilities, learning styles, personalities, interests, background knowledge and experiences, and levels of motivation for learning.

(No, I’m not going to comment on learning styles, but I’m aware of their unsubstantiated nature.) Thus, differentiation refers mostly to pedagogy – how we teach. But, at a more abstract level, aren’t teachers being asked to cater to the individualized / idiosyncratic needs of each student? And, does staff-wide professional development do the same? (Not typically.) Opportunities for instructors to attend workshops and conferences outside of the building are often better in this regard, but such opportunities aren’t frequent enough to cultivate intellectual growth.

Alternatives

Alternatives to structured, staff-wide professional development exist. Two such possibilities are Critical Friends Groups and Personal Learning Networks. These entities might be best described as “communities”, and differ in the relationship of the individual to the group, ranging from central (the focus) to the periphery. This vocabulary is derived from Lave & Wenger’s communities of practice, specifically the term ‘legitimate peripheral participation’. Their idea was that individuals move from the periphery towards the center as they become comfortable with the community and, to a lesser extent, the content / information. As an aside, these ideas have been around since the Middle-Ages and find their roots in the ideas of apprenticeship.

Critical Friends Groups were developed by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform in 1994. They focus on creating a professional learning community in which “teachers talk to teachers about teaching”. These discussions are led by trained practitioners who follow protocols (strategies) specific to the topic of deliberation. Marnie Curry’s 2008 work, entitled Critical Friends Groups: The Possibilities and Limitations Embedded in Teacher Professional Communities Aimed at Instructional Improvement and School Reform examines one school’s implementation of the CFG framework. A visual representation of her findings is below. Clicking on the image will produce the full sized version.

Curry’s judgement is that the ambitious nature of CFGs hampers their overall effectiveness. Further, she refers to them as “politicized entities” in which “in-depth attention to subject matter is unlikely” (p. 770). As such, she recommends careful considerations of the inherent constraints of the CFG framework. One can see from the visual representation of Curry’s findings that the strengths of the framework lie in its ability to cultivate community and a shared understanding (of school-wide initiatives), while it mechanistic and diverse nature impedes in-depth discussion of both subject-specific and emergent issues.

A Personal Learning Network, according to David Warlick:

involves an individual’s topic oriented goal, a set of practices or techniques aimed at attracting or organizing a variety of relevant content sources, selected for their value, to help the owner accomplish a professional goal or personal interest.

Kate Klingensmith identifies the potential components of PLNs. Her list includes the following technologies.

• Social networking sites
• Microblogging
• Professional profiles
• Wikis
• Blogs
• RSS Reader
• Nings
• Social bookmarking
• Webinars
• Backchanneling of conferences

It’s interesting to note that Kate doesn’t include face-to-face conversations with colleagues, as I would have. I think it’s unwise to exclude those with whom we interact everyday, especially if they are related to our topic of interest (our co-workers, for example). What is most interesting about PLNs is how they shift the locus of control completely towards the learner. This shift, combined with the corresponding sense of autonomy should, research tells us, lead to an increased desire (motivation) to learn. It’s important to note that contributing is a fundamental piece of the PLN. That is to say that the majority of the components listed by Klingensmith allow for both the consumption and creation of content/knowledge. Individuals who take PLNs seriously participate in this way.

A Hybrid Model

Administrators must prioritize their objectives as they consider professional development initiatives. An honest assessment of school-wide professional development workshops should make it clear that a significant percentage of staff don’t participate therefore making their experience meaningless. The interpretation of this reality is pivotal. Either (a.) the supervisor blames these staff members for their inattentiveness (often the case, I assume), or (b.) the supervisor blames his or herself for providing a “one size fits all” learning opportunity. If he or she chooses the latter, than a “community” approach might be considered in place of the traditional didactic conference.

At the end of Curry’s paper, she alludes to a potential solution to the inherent constraints of CFGs.

Instead, solutions may have to come from elsewhere, perhaps in the form of multiple and complementary CFG-like professional development opportunities in subject matter departments and academies (p. 770).

What if PLNs are used in conjunction with CFGs? The primary advantages of CFGs is the sense of community and an awareness of school-wide initiatives/events that they promote. Certainly, their ability to debate pedagogy in a general sense is a powerful attribute and an advantage as well. But, it is one that could be replaced via an instructor’s PLN, which would have the added benefit, if correctly constructed, of addressing subject-specific pedagogy, a weakness of the CFG. Combining these two constructs might allow the school to run abbreviated versions of the CFGs, focusing specifically on cultivating a sense of community through conversation of school-wide initiatives and individuals “reporting out” on their work with their PLN.

In summary, the suggested model is based on 3 tenets.

• A member’s CFG is the foundation of their PLN
• Individual’s learning objective(s) with (outside/online) PLN are determined by the individual
• CFG gatherings focus on tying each member’s outside PLN experience to the group and to the school as a whole

It is assumed that meetings with the CFG would lead, periodically, to revision of individual learning objectives. Comments/critiques are welcome.