Category: Building Professional Learning Communities (Fall 2007)

Dr. Goldberg holds a PhD in physics, and spent 30 years working as an instructor, manager, and internal consultant at IBM. He has been associated with the Yeshivah of Flatbush family for over 30 years as a parent, husband of a teacher and principal, and briefly as a high school teacher.

Dr. Edward Deming had a key role in transforming Japanese society into the great success it is today. Here, some of his ideas are applied in a Jewish Day School setting.

The last several decades have been periods of accelerated change and our use of new technology has found its way into every aspect of our lives and even altered the way we receive and use information. Industry and even government have learned how to absorb these new ideas and make them a part of their daily operations. There are many areas in which we have the potential to improve our schools. Cognitive psychology and studies of brain-based learning have given us new insight in the way we absorb information. Multimedia, information, and communication technologies have brought to our children and to us a brand new set of experiences. All of this has exploded in what appears to be an instantaneous time period to most of us. How will our lay leaders, principals, and instructional staff incorporate this into educational frameworks, and determine what will work best and to then make it a part of their institutions?

The approach used in industry to accelerate the transition to new technology is called “technology transfer”. Technology transfer has taught us how we can stimulate and speed up the cycle of the acceptance of innovative ideas. The last several decades have been periods of accelerated change and new technologies have brought us a brand new set of experiences. A school is a much more complicated organism than most of us imagine. A large school compounds the problems of a smaller institution by adding in more personnel interactions that need to be taken into account, even beyond the purely technical concerns associated with fulfilling its mission. A day school that strives for excellence in both Jewish studies and secular studies raises that difficulty. If we are to satisfy our responsibilities to our students, the newest knowledge and technology must be first understood and then rapidly brought to bear. This can only happen when the complete community of educators works together.

The prescription from technology transfer suggests the paradoxical combination of standardizing the way we organize and manage ourselves while stimulating, even insisting on, individual freedom to study, question, learn, and communicate among dedicated professionals. The simplest reason why this is true is that to know where to go we must first understand where we have been. What this paper will attempt to do is identify the key characteristics of the environment, of today's students, and potential architectures of a learning community.

Brain Research

Recent research in learning theory has shown that children’s brains are “hard wired” at an early age by the way they experience the world. We often hear the plaintive statement that today's students are not as good as previous generations. Certainly these students come from the same gene pool as their parents and should therefore have similar capabilities. What, then, is the difference? Some blame parents and their involvement, or lack thereof, in their children's education.

In previous generations, children were raised in a linear world of books where the primary means of gathering experience was through reading and discussion. Radio is linear, you hear things sequentially and not through random access. Even games were linear, as each player took a turn and followed set rules. People communicated by writing, talking, or phone calls, so that conversation was linear and one to one, and teaching was one to many. The traditional means of teaching that matched that style were lecture, exposition, and continuous practice (homework, worksheets, drill, quizzes, etc.), and it worked, more or less.

This generation lives with multimedia. Television and movies have complex plots that are often ambiguous and thrive on special effects. Computers deliver information in a totally different way. Whereas previous generations of teaching used a “push” methodology, computers expect a “pull” methodology where each individual user searches for and brings the information to his or herself. Popular computer games either require lightning fast reactions or are role playing interactions with a great many (often otherwise invisible) participants and/or simulations that require multi-dimensional decision making with rules and success indicators that change as the game progresses. These decisions must be made in the absence of complete information or in the presence of ambiguities. If a student's brain is “hard wired” by experience at an early age, then based on the above, how will they react to the traditional means of teaching through lecture, exposition, and continuous practice?

If the environment has changed so drastically over the last 20 years then somehow those who teach need to adapt to these changes. Learning communities suggest the simple idea that those who share a common responsibility such as teaching 3rd grade Bible need to keep learning what is new, what works best, and what tools are newly available that can be applied more effectively. The community needs to share experiences, learn together, and reinforce each other. The hallmark of a true professional is to have an inherent drive to always be better at what you do. That means never assume that what has worked well in the past will still be equally effective in the future. True professionals recognize that they have a responsibility to their profession to extend the knowledge and capabilities of all of their peers. The training received by the two faculties, Jewish studies and secular studies, differs in many ways yet the students are the same.

The Origin of Learning Communities

The idea that every member of an organization has some real and important role in making certain that the desired goals are reached in the most effective manner began with quality circles and teams in Japan in 1962. The intent was to tap the unused potential of the Japanese workman in improving both the process and the quality of the products produced. Dr. Edward Deming, an American statistician whose ideas on quality were not initially accepted in the US, was an important contributor to the Japanese miracle after World War II. He returned to the US and was an outspoken voice in attempting to create a quality culture equal to that which had made Japan prosperous. His key ideas were listed in the following 14-point approach – adapted for an educational setting – which is pertinent to the idea of learning communities:

1, Create a consistency of purpose to improve education, with the aim of becoming more effective.

2. Adopt a new philosophy of cooperation (win-win) and implement it by teaching it to faculty, administration, and laymen alike.

5. Improve constantly, and continuously, the system of education. This will improve student achievement and decrease costs.

6. Institute continuous training.

7. Adopt and institute leadership for the management of people, recognizing their different abilities, capabilities, and aspiration. The aim of leadership should be to help people, processes and technology do a better job. Leadership of management is in need of overhaul.

8. Drive out fear and build trust so that everyone can work more effectively.

9. Break down barriers between departments. Abolish competition and build a win-win system of cooperation within the organization. People in the classroom, administration, and support areas must work as a team to foresee problems that might be encountered.

13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.

14. Put everybody in the school to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody's job.

The ideas which where contained in the simple list paraphrased above gave rise to a generation of efforts in industry where specific tangible products were created in a competitive world. The idea that improving quality through cooperative efforts will lead both to reduced costs and product advantage are now standard. The application to environments like education arose more slowly. The national imperative to improve the quality of our students and the advent of new tools which can be used in classrooms, requires the adoption of techniques to speed the diffusion of best of breed ideas and the use of technology in the classroom.

The discovery of the close relationship between brain based learning and achievement leads to another area where ideas need to be spread so that we have even better methods to reach students. Sharing of ideas between practitioners is a very effective way of disseminating these ideas and shaping them so that they are useful across the entire school.

Every school has its own primary concern. In some it is how to coordinate across the grades so that there is a smooth flow of skills and capabilities. In other, perhaps larger schools, it may be coordination across a single grade so that each class masters the same or similar material as they make the transition to the next level.

Inhibitors

Inhibitors fall within the following categories:

• Ego
• Ownership of materials
• Time
• Organizational boundaries
• Lack of professionalism

People who work in a school belong to the general category of knowledge workers. They differentiate themselves by what they know and what they can do. This is a distinction that people who are not knowledge workers do not have. They differentiate themselves by what they can physically do and the distinction stays with them and is not readily given up by transferring it to someone else. Knowledge workers pride themselves on having unique capabilities and if they share that specific idea, technique, method, or process they lose their distinction. They claim ownership of that set of ideas. Lesson plans, projects, even the ability to use a “tool” better become advantages which make them a star. The first inhibitor that needs to be eliminated is therefore the sense of ego and the idea of ownership of the materials used in education.

Time is an inhibitor. The day is always too short to achieve all of the goals needed to satisfy the mandates of programs like required state tests. When you add the time to review work, plan for the next day’s lessons, how can you get a group of people together to voluntarily spend an hour or two a week identifying problems and sharing ideas and new strategies.

Even if the time is available and the people are willing, some places have teacher organizations that frown upon putting in extra time without extra pay. In some cases if the administration wants to be involved in solving a problem or accepting a new way of doing things that same organization may even prohibit this type of sharing. In environments in which there is a flow between lower school, middle school, and high school, history may make it difficult for these communities to work together.

True professionals are driven by the need to improve their craft. This means that they are not driven by any of the factors listed above. A culture shift is required which leads to a new drive for individual excellence. This needs to become the norm rather than the exception. This is particularly challenging in an environment in which pay and advancement are directed by the calendar and not by individual performance.

First Steps

Beginnings are always difficult. Two things need to be identified to get started, first an area of concern and second the advocates for fixing the concerns. Examples of an area of concern may be the decision to implement a new math curriculum such as Singapore Math across a grade or a school. If you begin with a lower grade, say 2nd and there are several classes on that grade then the initial professional learning community would meet periodically and review student progress and share the best techniques for getting the ideas across. As the years roll by you add the 3rd grade teachers who need to understand what the previous year learned about the difficulties and then share successes. In this way you fine tune your approaches and have continuity of skills and ideas.

The first example, solely within the 2nd grade is an example of what can be called a horizontal learning community. Once you move to another grade and as you extend the community you have created a vertical learning community. If the process is isolated to a single school then you are dealing with a local environment and if many schools, even in multiple geographies, you have expanded to a global learning community. The use of information and communication technologies certainly make it easier to reach further to share and even to asynchronously discuss topics so that time is used more effectively.

In the day school environment the techniques used in either Jewish studies or secular instruction may be different and each may have a specific advantage that can be transferred between faculties.

An idea taken from most graduate school departments may be another avenue for beginnings. Specific groups can meet periodically to discuss the current literature. Each person gets a turn in describing some new idea and then the group as a whole discusses it. There is no commitment to use, the only to continue to learn and this becomes addictive (in the best sense of the term).

In each case the inhibitors need to be removed. It is crucial that there be at least an advocate who passionately believes in both the idea being discussed and the benefits of sharing. To get the process underway administration must work in tandem with the advocate, supplying time and recognition of the passion and work involved. The first topic tackled must be of perceived importance and amenable to improvement. In this way an initial success builds a foundation for trying other, more difficult topics.

If these first steps are taken and the process becomes natural then you have made the transition from an occupation to a profession!

Critical Success Factors

The critical success factors are the mirror images of the inhibitors. When do you know that the idea of a learning community is successful within your school?

• Passionate advocates. Each topic must have at least one individual who will push very hard to get this idea across. When people volunteer to become advocates and fight for that role then you have satisfied this factor.
• Willing participants. There must be a cadre of teachers who willingly participate in the sharing and application of ideas. When your peers are eager to participate then this factor is satisfied.
• Recognition for effort. There must be some understood recognition for the effort and that recognition needs to be non-monetary and somehow related to the effort employed.
• Supportive administration. The administration needs to publicly provide time and some resources to support the effort.
• Lay leadership involvement. If parents or lay leadership have something to contribute then they must be given every opportunity and encouragement to contribute
• Acceptance of recommendations. If a consensus is arrived at and it requires administrative and/or lay leadership approval then they are given a full hearing and reasons if the recommendations are not accepted

Conclusion

The methods that are standard in industry are beginning to migrate into K-12 education. The tools are there and now we need to be able to tailor them to become usable for the classroom. Theoretical knowledge from brain based learning and psychology are making specific recommendations on ways to improve learning. Using a learning community as the means by which professionals establish a continuous improvement process is a good first step. It is not enough to say we want the best possible school. We need to oversee and steer the processes that make that happen. It is hard work, time consuming, often gut wrenching, and cannot be put in place over night. It must be migrated into the institution from a master plan that may take several years to implement. The challenge as always is to stick to the plan even though there will be roadblocks and reeducation as the lay leadership changes and faculty and staff come and go. Keeping a steady course as these changes occur is a major concern. Often leadership personnel change more rapidly than the time needed to institutionalize a new approach. If the people coming in keep changing course no progress will be made. The ability to keep a steady focus is the most crucial critical success factor and a necessary condition for success. The result will be a more responsive school and better-educated student body.