The most powerful and ample resource for change in education is teachers' own expertise. Yet, teachers are regularly overstepped when it comes to leading school improvement.
In the United States, less than one-fourth of teachers feel that they have great influence over school decisions and policies in seven different areas, as noted in the National Center for Educational Statistics' Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) database for 2003–04 reported by the National Staff Development Council (NSDC) in Professional Learning in the Learning Profession: A Status Report on Teacher Development in the U.S. and Abroad.
U.S. teachers also perceive little control over the content of their own professional development (PD). The NSDC concludes that "teachers' lack of influence over school decisions means teachers are less likely to be engaged in collaborative problem solving around school-specific issues."
In other competitive nations, such as Finland, Sweden, and Switzerland, this isn't the case. Teachers there have substantial influence on school-based decisions, especially in the development of curriculum and assessment, and on the design of their own professional learning. For instance, schools in Sweden have moved from prescribed teacher training models defined by the central education ministry to teacher-designed projects focused on meeting real challenges in teachers' own classrooms. The NSDC reports that Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Singapore also encourage this sort of action research. Embedded, ongoing, collaborative, capacity-building PD is the norm, the NSDC says.
The study suggests that the simplest way to start building a collaborative culture is by teachers observing and discussing one another's teaching—through videos; professional learning communities, like Critical Friends Groups; and school-based coaching programs.
Teacher Leaders Open Doors
At Southfield High School in Southfield, Mich., teacher leaders open up their classrooms as demonstration models and record instruction to share with other teachers. They also lead schoolwide workshops on teaching strategies, with differentiation as a main focus.
Teacher leader and Southfield English teacher Zerrick Lake says he feels a certain level of validation from teaching his colleagues. He also says that teachers are often more open to teacher-led PD because they can relate to their colleagues who are modeling the best practices.
One of the big benefits of teacher-led PD is that you've identified an in-house resource that colleagues can easily turn to. "I'm in the trenches doing these strategies, I'm videotaping them and providing evidence that they work in our school setting, and I'm right here to help if anyone needs it," Lake says.
Even so, there are always at least a few skeptics in the bunch who look at a teacher like Lake, with 10 years' experience, and ask, what can he teach me? Those people need a forum too, says Lake, who worked with his colleagues to develop their own evaluations to solicit concerns from peers that can then be used to improve future PD offerings. And, as professionals working in the same building, teacher trainers are more able to follow up individually in a way that both honors their colleagues' observations and moves the conversation forward to improving teaching practice.
There's the potential to break down many of the barriers between different teachers' work, Lake says. "As secondary educators, especially, we tend to close our doors. It should be the total opposite. We should want people to come in and see the good things we're doing," he says.
Kimberly Rodriguez, a physics teacher at Cypress-Fairbanks School District in the Houston, Tex., area leads PD focused on differentiated instruction. "Teacher-led PD is more personal, more tangible," she says.
When Rodriguez teaches teachers, she's sure to include examples of what didn't work along with what did. Sometimes large, impersonal PD workshops come off as too polished, and teachers tune out scenarios that seem canned, Rodriguez says. "When it's a teacher talking and we can honestly show student examples, teachers really respect that." They're also more likely to ask nuanced questions about implementation and how you tell what's working, she adds.
Lead-It-Yourself for Less
Peter Pappas, the educator behind the Copy/Paste blog (http://peterpappas.blogs.com), works with schools to help them build local capacity to lead their own PD, especially where shrinking budgets make hiring trainers more than just a luxury.
"When I return to a school, my goal is to serve as a catalyst for dialogue that can be self-sustaining (read: no consultant required)." Lake says his district leadership envisions similar goals: "to become fully self-sufficient, our own consultants." Administrators scaffold that vision by hiring substitutes to provide release time for teacher leaders to observe and instruct in other classrooms.
These days, teachers aren't necessarily waiting for the district green light to lead their own learning. They're holding free online conferences on websites, such ashttp://k12onlineconference.org; finding each other on Ning; and broadcasting knowledge via blogs, podcasts, and websites such ashttp://teachersteachingteachers.org. To problem solve and share best practices and resources, teachers are forming Personal Learning Networks on sites like Twitter. ASCD also recently launched its own free, social networking site for educators, ASCD EDge (http://ascdedge.ascd.org), where educators can form special groups to delve into specific topics.
Educator and blogger Bill Ferriter (http://teacherleaders.typepad.com/the_tempered_radical) calls Twitter his "favorite tool for differentiating [his] own learning." If he has a question about a lesson or wants to share a resource or idea, Ferriter says he can quickly reach out to members of his Personal Learning Network there. For teachers new to Twitter, Ferriter suggests joining with a group of colleagues so that "you know someone is listening and you can extend conversations and discoveries in real life."
Teachers learn best in the same ways that most students learn best: actively, drawing from prior knowledge, and in a comfortable environment, observes Washington State University Assistant Professor of Education Jason Margolis in the February 2009 Educational Leadership article "How Teachers Lead Teachers." What's more comfortable than the convenience of your own home computer or handheld device?
Whether face-to-face or in cyberspace, Margolis suggests that teachers lead PD and use real situations as examples, without limiting it to their own experiences. He also identified things to avoid in teacher-led PD, such as talking too much; presenting too many strategies at once; narrowly focusing on your own classroom; and asking shallow reflection prompts, such as, "Any questions?"
Lifelong Leaders Wanted
Where active professional learning communities have taken shape in U.S. schools, student absenteeism and dropout rates were reduced and achievement increased significantly in math, science, history, and reading, NSDC reports in Professional Learning in the Learning Profession. Further, teachers' professional learning communities that exhibit a shared sense of intellectual purpose and a collective responsibility for student learning were associated with narrowing achievement gaps in math and science among low- and middle-income students, NSDC concludes.
In addition to student achievement gains, new and veteran teachers are attracted to collaborative professional communities where they have the opportunity to lead their own learning. MetLife's 2009 Survey of the American Teacherreports that teachers in schools with higher levels of collaborative activities are more likely than others to have high levels of career satisfaction (68 percent versus 54 percent who report being very satisfied). Likewise, highly satisfied teachers are stronger proponents of shared responsibility and collaboration in schools.
For change to take root in education, educators need to see the benefits to their students, but they also need to share ownership and be supported in carrying out reforms, says Doreen Knuth, ASCD Scholar and elementary school principal at Bloomer Elementary in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
