Disciplined Collaboration: Professional Learning with Impact

■■■ A Question of Impact

Around the globe, every year, thousands of teachers routinely participate in hundreds of hours of professional development and training. The implicit assumption is that attending courses equates with professional learning and that by participating in these events somehow professional practice will change. Now without question, there are some good courses, powerful programmes and effective professional learning sessions. But the return on this large-scale investment, in the form of improved professional practice that leads to better learning outcomes, is still highly questionable. There are a number of key reasons.

First, many professional learning programmes or courses assume knowledge gained from such training can be readily transferred. In other words that ideas, knowledge and skills gained in one situation can be easily applied to another. Conversely, evidence would suggest that changes in professional behaviour or classroom practice are more likely to result from job embedded learning or learning in context. Second, teachers still tend go to external training or professional development events alone. They experience the training independently and however good that training might be, the possibility of convincing colleagues back at schools of its merits will be low. It is like telling someone about a really good film that you watched. Second hand, it simply doesn't have the same have effect.

Third, much depends on the quality of the training and its relevance to the participating teacher or teachers. Much of the professional learning field is still driven by commercial interest where profitability rather than applicability is the main goal. Consequently, the latest fads or fashions are quickly re-packaged, marketed and made available to teachers not because they are the best thing but simply because they are the latest thing. Finally and most importantly, there is still a predominant view that professional learning is primarily about the teacher and not the learner. Now clearly the teacher is important, as this is where professional expertise resides but the focus or endpoint of professional learning should be the learner. Can you imagine a doctor or dentist attending a training session on the use of a new drug or technique and then choosing not to apply that learning for the direct benefit of their patients? That would seem ludicrous. But so often, that is exactly what happens with so much professional learning and development. Teachers engage with the training, possibly enjoy it and even learn from it, fill in the happy sheet and leave. It is as if the training is the end in itself rather than a means to an end. While there are many programmes, courses and training sessions that are not like this but they are still in relatively short supply. There is still far too much professional learning without impact.

So what does professional learning with impact look like, necessitate and require? If you were to ask teachers this question, the short and honest answer is not a professional course, not an external programme not even a Masters degree. There is still little independent evidence to corroborate that these forms of professional learning correlate significantly with sustained changes in professional practice. Courses and programmes can develop professional knowledge and understanding. Masters programmes can introduce teachers to theory, research and forms of systematic enquiry. However, time and time again teachers say that it is relevant and appropriate guidance from a colleague that would be most likely to change their professional practice.

■■■ Meaningful Collaboration

Collaborating with colleagues in a systematic way on a real issue or problem is still the most powerful form of professional learning we have. Frequently, this is the response that school leaders and teachers give when asked the question, 'what has influenced your professional practice most?' It comes down to one thing and one thing only -the advice, expertise or guidance from trusted peers. Now before rushing headlong to the conclusion that 'coaching or mentoring' is the ready-made answer to professional learning with impact, think again. Even though coaching and mentoring is fundamentally about collaboration, mutual trust, professional dialogue etc. there is no automatic guarantee of impact. While a great deal of emphasis, and indeed investment, is placed upon mentoring and coaching as a productive form of professional learning, the many claims made about its benefits need some qualification. Any causal relationship between coaching or mentoring and improvements in learner outcomes remains largely unsubstantiated (Darling Hammond et al, 2009).

There are studies that show that when the mentoring or coaching activities have a clear instructional focus, then this professional interaction does enhance teacher performance and learner outcomes. For example, where coaches are used specifically to improve the teaching of literacy or maths in schools in a 'hands-on' way, they can make a difference. However, when coaching is a form of quasi counselling among professionals the sum is significantly less than the parts.

The important point here is that when coaching or mentoring has a clear instructional focus and that expertise, rather than just experience, is genuinely and authentically shared with others, the effects can be dramatic. Where coaching or mentoring is just a free fall into low-level emotional handholding then the opposite is true. If coaching or mentoring amounts to little more than a 'learning conversation' without substance, then once again the benefits claimed for this form of professional learning will not be fully realised. Where such conversations are content-free or where coaching or mentoring is little more than a form of mutual therapy the net effect will be zero, in terms of positive changes to instructional practice. Teachers may feel a whole lot better but this may be only tangible outcome.

A major literature review, conducted as part of an Institute for Education Sciences evaluation of the Reading First program, reported mixed findings on the impact of coaching on improving instructional practice. It was noted that unless the instructional practices promoted through the processes of mentoring or coaching are in and of themselves effective then a positive impact on teaching and learning is unlikely.

Changes to professional practice require much more than simply sharing or processing ideas or questions through mutual reflection or discussion. Even with clear guidelines or rubrics, much will depend upon the level of expertise of those participating in the 'learning conversation' and their skill at being able to analyse, reflect and co-construct through mutual dialogue.

■■■ Professional Learning with Impact

To have a true impact, professional learning, in whatever shape or form it takes, needs a clear model or theory of action to support, structure and guide the professional learning. Comments such as 'the collaborative work had an impact because teachers talked about positive changes in the classroom' or 'the collaborative work has made a difference as teachers say that they now communicate more and share materials between schools' is simply not good enough. These statements reveal a high degree of buy in or a 'belief' that change has happened but little more.

At this juncture, many would argue that not every professional learning experience or professional development programme can, or indeed, should have an impact on student learning. So then why on earth invest in it in the first place? Surely, the whole point of professional learning is to bring about positive change in the classroom, to improve learning, to have an impact on learners? Otherwise why bother? If we are serious about changing professional practice rather than simply confirming that practice, then it is imperative to invest in the most powerful forms of professional learning i.e. those that make a difference to learning and learners.

In Australia, a new programme is currently underway that aims to support professional learning with impact through using a model of disciplined professional collaboration (Harris and Jones, 2012). The 'Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership' (AITSL, 2013) is currently piloting the 'Disciplined Collaboration and Evaluation of Professional Learning (DCEPL)' programme with seven schools in six states across Australia. The programme commenced in November 2012 and the long-term aim is to generate local approaches to innovation and change that can be shared more widely across the system. The 'Disciplined Collaboration' work is part of the broader and extensive implementation of a 'Charter for the Professional Learning of Teachers and School Leaders'. This Charter states that a high quality professional learning culture will be characterised by 'a focus on the professional learning that is most likely to be effective in improving professional practice and student outcomes' (AITSL, 2013)

Based on international research, the Charter identifies effective professional learning as being 'relevant, collaborative and future focused' (AITSL, 2013). It also identifies the importance of developing a learning culture within a school and underlines that professional learning should be based on changing teachers practice to meet students' learning needs. As highlighted above, this is easier said than done. Consequently, the current programme of 'Disciplined Collaboration' is intended to provide a platform, an infrastructure and a way of working to support school leaders and teachers in turning the aspiration of professional learning with impact into a day-to-day reality.

■■■ Disciplined Collaboration

There is insufficient scope in this article to describe the 'Disciplined Collaboration' model in full, and so what follows is a very brief overview of the model with a few preliminary observations about the progress made, to date, by schools in Australia. Initially, it is important to clarify what makes the DC model a departure from previous or existing models of professional collaboration. It could be claimed that this is just old wine in new bottles -but there are two major differences.

First, within the DC model teachers are trying out new collaborative strategies while simultaneously trialling and refining new pedagogical approaches. In other words they are 'learning to connect' while developing, trialling and refining new professional practices. In other models, it is assumed that the skills of collaboration and the interdependent ways of working are natural, innate or self-evident. Not so. As in any form of team or group work, collaborative working is a skill that has to be learned. To collaborate or connect in order to learn, teachers need to first 'learn to connect'.

Second, unlike many other collaborative models, impact is built in from the outset. The DC model requires teachers to engage in continuous consideration of student data in order to monitor progress and gauge impact throughout all three stages. Within the DC model, impact is not an afterthought; it is not re-engineered or recycled feedback. It is not a bolt-on piece of congratulatory self-report. Impact is at the core of the DC model. It is embedded in each of the three stages through the continuous scrutiny of the evidence about student learning.

The three stages of the DC model are as follows:

Collaboration (establish the group; scrutinise data and evidence to define students needs; identify a focus and method of enquiry; agree impact measures), Innovation (enquire into new pedagogical practices and new collaborative approaches and then trialling them; relentless review of student learning to inform refinement of strategies and practice) and Impact (monitor, assess and analyse the impact on learner outcomes resulting from changes to pedagogy).

With disciplined collaboration (DC) teachers use a consistent methodology to share ideas, enquire together, to apply new knowledge and to refine their evaluative skills in a supportive environment (AITSL, 2013). The DC model is premised and predicated upon teachers working interdependently in order to address an issue or problem facing a specific group of learners, identified through the collective analysis of data. Through a process of systematic and focused collaborative enquiry, the aim is to trail, refine and test new classroom practices and approaches that can make a positive difference to learning and learners.

■ ■ ■ Evidence shows that the most effective collaborative teams or professional learning communities are not those that seek solutions to self-evident problems. Instead, they collectively enquire and investigate in order to highlight a problem to address in imaginative and new ways. Effective collaborative teams are problem seeking and not problem solving. This requires mutual enquiry, reciprocal accountability and risk taking -but it also requires discipline. If collaborative working is to be truly innovative, it also has to be rigorous and adopt a consistent and systematic methodology. Here systematic does not mean systematised with implications of control and routinized behaviour. Rather systematic means that the collaboration is focused, carefully planned and ultimately aimed at generating new ideas, understanding and knowledge that will make a difference to professional practice and ultimately to learner outcomes.

Initial data from the schools in Australia reveals that the DC model is increasingly defining and refining collaborative professional learning within the participating schools. Emerging evidence shows a shift in the extent, nature and density of collaborative professional practice and a consistent focus on creating new professional understanding, knowledge and skills focused upon improved learner outcomes. Inevitably, the schools are at different stages in the DC process but some of the schools are already able to demonstrate that their collective work is making a difference to teaching and learning.

In one school, the focus is upon improving spelling through using consistent, effective and transparent spelling strategies across the school and making these strategies explicit to learners so they can be better at spelling. This is not just a spelling policy but instead is a concerted effort to change pedagogy in order to improve learners' metacognitive abilities and their ability to spell. In another school, every teacher is in a collaborative team that has a specific learner need to address. These teams are adopting the DC methodology to frame their collective enquiry with the prime purpose of changing and improving pedagogical practice so that learner outcomes change. As the programme continues, the descriptions of DC practice will become richer and more detailed. Ultimately, the progress made will depend Disciplined collaboration is hard work, as those working in the Australian schools will testify. At the heart of the model is a fundamental belief that teachers working together in a systematic, rigorous and focused way can change professional practice for the better and in so doing can make a positive difference to learner outcomes. Other than focused professional collaboration, there is little else has the power to improve learning and teaching so significantly. Consequently, we know how to secure professional learning with impact. This is the good news. The challenge now is to make it happen. upon the teachers themselves and their collective will, skill and persistence to improve learner outcomes.