Taking a Learning Stance: The Role of Professional Learning Communities in Leading Equitable Curricular Change

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

Abstract

Objectives: This study examines well-established PLCs in seven “positive outlier” districts in California in which students across racial/ethnic groups consistently outperformed students of similar racial/ethnic backgrounds from families of similar income and education levels in most other California districts.

Framework: Past research suggests that exemplary districts use professional learning to build teachers’ instructional capacity (Leithwood, 2010; Burns, Darling-Hammond, & Scott, 2019). The current study builds on this research and uses case study evidence to examine how PLCs work in times of change, as instruction shifted to meet the needs of individual students working toward the more complex standards of the Common Core.
Methods/Data sources: As part of a larger mixed methods study in which qualitative data explained quantitative results (Creswell & Clark, 2011), we reanalyzed qualitative data from seven districts identified as positive outliers, based on hierarchical linear modeling using student-level state test scores as the dependent variable and a variety of independent variables such as district characteristics (Figure 1). We selected the districts for demographically and geographically diversity (Table 6). Data sources included administrative data, documents, and 226 interviews. We asked:
● How did PLCs shape and support the districts’ shifts to Common Core instruction and include all students?

Results/Significance: The following results related to PLCs emerged.

When faced with a new challenge, districts reinvested in PLCs. While all districts relied on well-established PLCs, educators in several districts said the quality of PLCs needed strengthening. To build capacity for the instructional shifts needed for the Common Core, several districts invested in ongoing efforts to improve the effectiveness of their PLCs and expanded the amount of teacher professional collaboration time available.

The PLCs took a learning stance as they engaged in change. The first phase of implementation in most districts was professional learning. This typically involved teachers reading and unpacking the new standards. For example, most districts used a mapping exercise to understand how new standards corresponded to the previous state standards, to identify essential standards, and to understand the shifts in pedagogy needed to teach to these standards.

The districts charged PLCs with including all students. Once teachers had the opportunity to understand the new standards deeply, districts sought to change instructional practice to ensure that each and every student met the new, more rigorous standards. Several districts created new frameworks or vision statements that focus on learning for each and every child and charged PLCs with working within the framework or vision.

The PLCs were systemwide. Across districts, organizational processes promoted cross-classroom, cross-school, and often cross-role PLCs, with strategies for sharing practices systemwide. In each case, practice was increasingly deprivatized: It became public and shared, as educators were expected to learn from one another and to develop common norms and practices.

According to respondents, these strategies contributed to a culture of learning and to alignment between school and district leadership and teachers. Other districts might benefit from this type of approach in times of instructional change aimed at meeting the needs of all learners.

Authors

• Caitlin Scott, Marzano Research

• Dion Burns, Learning Policy Institute