Supported Collaborative Teacher Inquiry

1
Supported Collaborative Teacher Inquiry

• David Slavit
• Tamara Holmlund Nelson
• Washington State University
• dslavit_at_wsu.edu

Support for this work has been provided by a
Mathematics Science Partnership grant from the US
Department of Education and by the National
Science Foundation Grant ESI-0554579. The
opinions expressed are solely those of the
authors.
2
Defining the Crisis

• Large percentages of Washington students in Grade
  4, 7, and 10 do not score a 3 or more on the
  WASL.
• More than half do.

Washington State Report Card, WA OSPI, 2006
3
Defining the Crisis

• NAEP shows Washington is doing favorably vs. rest
  of U.S.
• It is not true that most U.S. students lack a
  basic knowledge of math

The Nations Report Card, National Center for
Education Statistics, 2005
4
Defining the Crisis

• TIMMS shows Washington is on par with the rest of
  world

Linking The National Assessment of Educational
Progress (NAEP) and The Third International Math
and Science Study (TIMSS) Eighth-Grade Results,
National Center for Education Statistics, 1998
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Defining the Crisis

• Qualities of PD that intensify the effects on
  teacher instruction
• 1) Ongoing teacher networks or study groups
  rather than workshops or conferences
• 2) Consistency with teachers goals, other
  activities, and materials and policies
• 3) Same-subject, grade, or school group
  participation

The PD math and science teachers normally
receive 1) Average time span of activity is
less than one week 2) Median number of contact
hours per PD activity is 15 3) Most activities
had no theme or coherence, focus on content, or
active learning opportunities 4) Most activities
had no group participation
Garet , M., Porter , A., Desimone , L., Birman ,
B., Yoon, K.S. (2001). What makes professional
developmentt effective? Results from a national
sample of teachers. American Education Research
Journal , 38(4), 915-945.
6
Characteristics of Effective PD

• Have established norms and dispositions that
  allow for trust building and risk-taking
• Grounded in the work teachers do in support of
  student learning goals
• Engage teachers in inquiry and reflection
• Are collaborative, supported, and ongoing
• Are meaningfully connected to other school and
  district initiatives
• Darling-Hammond and McLaughlin (1999), Hawley and
  Valli (1999), Little et al. (2003)

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Defining the Crisis

• The majority of teacher PD is curriculum
  alignment activity, training on a specific
  curriculum or instructional technique, and
  content knowledge development
• Teachers have little time to inquire about and
  reflect on their own instructional practice, or
  on their students work
• The simple fact is that the structures for
  ongoing community do not exist in the American
  High School (Grossman et al., p. 947).

8
Defining the Crisis

• Using TIMMS data, Jim Stigler and Jim Hiebert
  argued that there exists a teaching gap between
  the U.S. and some other nations
• Could it be that there is actually a professional
  development gap?

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Some models of PD based on collaborative teacher
inquiry

• Communities of practice
• Professional learning communities (PLCs)
• Teacher teams (vertical teams, horizontal teams)
• Coaching (of groups)
• Lesson study
• Peer observation
• Book study
• Collaborative action research

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PRiSSM - Partnership for Reform in Secondary
Science and Mathematics

• Partnership WSUV, 22 schools in 6 districts, ESD
  112, support from ESD 114
• Funding US DOE Title IIB through Washington
  State OSPI
• Goals 1. Establish a vision of HQLT
• 2. Improve student learning
• 3. Development of PLCs
• 4. Plan for continuous improvement

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PRiSSM Year 1 (June, 2004 August, 2005)

• 45 Teacher Leaders from 6 districts
• Summer academy, August, 2004
• Academy focus on collaborative inquiry
• protocols for LASW
• exploring high quality learning and teaching
• identifying an inquiry focus based on existing
  data
• learning to be a PLC to facilitate a group
• Cross-disciplinary, cross-grade level PLCs
• Facilitation throughout year
• Further information on year 1 Slavit, David
  Nelson, Tamara (2006). Dialogic teacher change
  Two cases of supported collaborative inquiry.
  Working Papers on Culture, Education and Human
  Development, 2(2). http//www.uam.es/otros/ptcedh/
  

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PRiSSM Years 23 (Aug, 2005 June, 07)

• 45 original LTs form 35 new PLCs with 100
  colleagues
• Summer academy for LTs
• LTs lead introductory sessions (2-8 hrs) for
  colleagues in each district
• PLCs determine when they meet, how often, and
  their inquiry focus
• Project facilitators continue to work with PLCs

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PRiSSM

• Professional Learning Communities
• Characterized by trust, sharing, participation,
  fellowship, reflection, and continuous learning
  and improvement
• Teacher-initiated questions for inquiry across
  math/science and middle/high school
• Teachers in the PLC define the scope and focus of
  their PD, which emerge from and in support of
  their collaborative inquiry
• Support of teacher inquiry provided by
  facilitators and other PRiSSM staff (including
  time)
• Support to engage teachers and their inquiry work
  in broader educational contexts (e.g., go
  school-wide with PLCs, vision up the teachers
  ideas)

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PRiSSM Findings General

• Teachers need dedicated time to conduct
  collaborative inquiry on teaching and learning
• Teachers need technical support for doing inquiry
  work
• Teacher buy-in requires specific approaches and
  techniques teacher-driven inquiry is a key to
  buy-in
• Teacher collaboration can be enjoyable
• Collaborative teacher inquiry is mentally,
  physically, and emotionally taxing
• Difficulties and assumptions about measuring
  impact on student learning emphasis on
  large-scale achievement data
• Teacher work does not always immediately mesh
  with larger initiatives and contexts but some
  schools and districts also adapt to and embrace
  the inquiry work of teachers

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North Evergreen Question Dichotomy
Student Question
Question is Off Topic
Question is On Topic
LEVEL 1 Question
LEVEL 2 Question
Question Does Not Make Sense
Question Makes Sense
Question Has Already Been Covered in Class
LEVEL 3 Question
Question Expands Students Current Knowledge
Makes Connections With Former Concepts
Makes a Bridge to Future Concepts
LEVEL 4 Question
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The Power of Teachers Working With Teachers
(March 2005)

• Erica I think its getting teachers together to
  be open enough to discuss their practice and try
  to improve their teaching. I think validating how
  important it is by creating such great
  opportunities to do it rather than just saying
  we really think you guys should get together and
  have conversations. Like, its important enough
  to their goals that they are creating lots of
  opportunities for us to do that.
• Sam In a very specific way.
• Erica Uh hum.
• Karen Well, it just seems that teachers have
  taught in isolation for so long, and just the
  whole professional development piece. You know,
  we go to workshops or we go to classes but, um,
  fortunately I work in a building where we do take
  data from our students and, even though our staff
  meetings I sometimes dread. But because, we work,
  and it is professional development and its based
  on student data and its real and its meaningful
  to us, its not somebody elses stuff, and yeah
  yeah yeah, you know, its our own students that
  we work with day in and day out. And we get to
  see the growth. I mean, its exciting, that piece
  of it, and its very focused.

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The Need for Support

• Teacher collaborative inquiry is possible without
  support that is external to the teacher team.
• A dedicated, knowledgeable, passionate, and
  focused group of teachers can unite through a
  common line of inquiry to address important
  instructional and curricular concerns.
• Teachers can meet outside of the school day in
  support of this process.
• Teachers can collectively facilitate the
  logistics of regular meeting times and the
  maintaining of quality, inquiry-focused
  interactions.
• Teachers can provide each other with a critical
  lens necessary to move the inquiry forward.
• But these are extremely difficult and demanding
  challenges to face, particularly in our current
  era of high-stakes teacher accountability.

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Defining Support - Two Key Areas

• Support for the teacher collaborative inquiry
  process
• Enhancing the interface between the teacher
  inquiry and broader educational contexts

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SCI Enhances Teachers PD Time

• First, support can increase the amount of time
  available to teachers to enact inquiry. This can
  be done in direct ways through the provision of
  specific time in the school day and year for
  collaborative inquiry, or it can occur with the
  presence of a dedicated facilitator responsible
  for supporting the logistics and facilitation of
  meeting times and schedules, freeing teachers up
  for responsibilities closer to the inquiry focus.

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SCI Enhances Teachers PD The Inquiry Process

• Second, individuals who provide intellectual
  support can draw on resources to increase teacher
  awareness of existing research, suggest and
  oversee specific types of data collection and
  inquiry approaches, and provide a critical lens
  to the work of the teacher team designed to
  ensure reflection and critical analysis in the
  collaborative inquiry process.

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SCI Enhances Teachers PD Enhanced Vision

• Third, supported collaborative inquiry can
  influence teachers abilities to vision,
  challenge beliefs, and broaden the critical lens
  framing the work.

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SCI Enhances Teachers PD Teacher Community

• Fourth, support can help to establish a
  productive set of collaborative norms and inquiry
  goals as well as assist in the actual logistics
  of the inquiry process.

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SCI Enhances Teachers PD Interface With Larger
Contexts

• Fifth, support can allow teachers to couch their
  inquiry in larger initiatives (School Improvement
  Plans, District Initiatives, Large-Scale
  Assessments), but also construct conduits for
  positioning the teachers and teacher inquiry to
  impact larger educational contexts.

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Often Overlooked Factors

• Support is needed for the support providers
• Teachers need support for the public-valuing of
  their work
• Teachers can hold naïve views of data
• Supported collaborative teacher inquiry requires
  enormous amounts of time

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WA House Bill 2327, Senate Bill 6023

• Current discussion in Washington to replace WASL
  with skills-based, objective test.
• Educational problems will not go away until the
  way state and federal governments pay for
  education is changed.
• The real work is not about testing, its about
  teaching and its about funding our education
  system. If we do not change the focus of our
  funding I fear we will be in the same situation
  in five years.
• WA State Rep. Ross Hunter, Medina
• March 13, 2007, The Columbian, p. A4

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• It is difficult to take the notion of teacher
  professionalism seriously when teachers lack the
  time and support necessary to act professional.

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• Thank
• You!
• David Slavit
• dslavit_at_wsu.edu