Learning by Doing: An Examination of Teacher Collaboration Within a Statewide Professional Learning Community Initiative

• In Event: Change From Within: The Power of Collaborative Professional Learning

Abstract

Objective: Professional Learning Communities at Work® (PLC at Work®) in Arkansas is a partnership between Solution Tree Inc. and the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) to develop and expand PLC at Work at selected schools. Beginning in 2017-18, ADE selected 10 schools and one district to reflect the diversity of students and communities across Arkansas in the first cohort (Table 1). This paper describes how progress in schoolwide implementation of PLC at Work key activities improved school culture, instructional practices, and student engagement with learning after two years of implementation.

Perspective/Theoretical Framework: Research within school improvement recognizes teachers as central to “re-culturing” through collaboration and continuous learning for instructional improvement (Smylie & Denny, 1990; York-Barr & Duke, 2004). This study uses the PLC at Work framework (DuFour & Dufour, 2013), which utilizes schoolwide teacher collaboration for school improvement.

Methods/Data Sources: This study employed a mixed methods design (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011) to describe implementation across one cohort. This paper draws from descriptive analysis of staff survey data, and thematic analysis of interviews with school principals and PLC at Work coaches, and teacher focus groups. Analysis also included an independent-samples t-tests to explore relationships between activities and teacher outcomes related to trust, collective efficacy and responsibility, and tiered interventions for learning.

Results/Significance: All schools created a mission, vision and goals for school improvement, identified teachers to support implementation in the guiding coalition, and established regular times for teacher teams to collaborate on key PLC at Work processes. By the end of the second year of implementation, the following results emerged:

School leaders created structures and supports for ongoing school improvement activities. Administrators and guiding coalition members increased opportunities for teacher leadership, scheduled protected time for collaboration, and created sustainable processes for teacher collaboration. Survey respondents indicated either stability or growth in areas such as understanding of- and support for school improvement goals and having adequate time for the guiding coalition and collaborative teams to implement the process.

Teachers improved their ability to build a collaborative culture within their team and engage in cycles of inquiry to drive continuous improvement. Cohort 1 participants reported positive changes in their ongoing PLC at Work collaborative team meeting activities. These included changes in using agendas, sharing responsibilities, and documenting and storing collaborative work; identifying a clear set of essential content standards, designing and using common formative assessments, and discussing the results of these assessments; and creating a system of interventions to support student learning.

Collaborative team activities helped improve school culture, instruction, and student engagement with learning. Meeting at least weekly, improving schoolwide goal clarity, regular use of collaborative cycles of inquiry practices, and growth in distributed leadership practices were statistically significantly associated with improvements in teacher trust, collective responsibility, and efficacy to improve student learning (Tables 2-5). Additionally, staff reported improvements in perceptions that all students can learn at high levels, more “focused” instruction, progress in establishing a system of tiered interventions and extensions for learning, and increased student “ownership” in learning.

Author

• Kathryn Elizabeth Torres, Education Northwest