thesisthoughts

Yesterday afternoon I set off for my long drive to Z. I was very excited to meet my new group, and hoped that we would get off to a good start. There were supposed to be 28 in the group but only 22 turned up for the first session.

The staff at the centre were waiting for me and the room and the technology were all fine. As soon as I had my computer set up, teachers started arriving.

This group is different from others I have worked with in that 90% of the teachers are from a very religious backgrounds and they teach in very religious schools. It will be interesting to see how they bring their school experiences to the sessions and to learn from them about their environment. I must ask them about their Internet access – often these families have limited Internet experience and facilities.

The room was set up with tables and chairs all facing the front in a horseshoe and I didn’t move them yesterday. I will definitely set them up differently next time, in order to promote small group discussion. As a result, the first meeting was more lecture style than I would have liked.

One of the conclusions I reached after last year was that I have to be more direct in explaining to the teachers what hey can take to the classroom and what my expectations are of them between sessions. Last year I encouraged them to take as much of their learning as possible to the classroom, but not all of the teachers understood the links. Those that did understand and tried the big and the little strategies and tools in the classroom, got a lot more from the learning experience. Yesterday I was very specific: “This is an important question to ask your students”, “Did you notice that I gave you all very small pieces of paper? This is so… In the classroom…”, “In the next two weeks, until we meet again, fill in this table which will help you examine what is happening in your classroom…”.

I am extremely frustrated that the Department of Education decided to cut all courses down from the compulsory 60 hours from last year to 30 hours this year. Instead of all teachers learning one 60 hour course, they are required to choose two different 30 hour courses. What can you do and learn in 30 hours? It isn’t enough to form any kind of learning community, especially when there are 25-30 teachers in the group. In my mind I have made a decision: rather than complain about it all the time, I will see this course as part A in a series. If it’s good they’ll come back for more.

It is frustrating that the desicion makers ”up above” don’t listen to the teachers’ feedback (which said that the 60 hours facilitates deeper, more relevant learning) or current research on professional learning (sustained, ongoing…)

I suppose I shouldn’t complain, I believe that in the US, 16 hours is considered a long course.

Next week I will do the same program with another new group, they are located at K.

Freewriting 3 -

Yesterday I took a full day in the middle of the week to attend to my studies and to get on with the reading GP suggested. I got up early, got the kids on the go ad then quietly sat down with a hot cup of coffee at the computer. I waited weeks (or probably months) for an opportunity like that.

Often, even when I have a day off or I finish early (which doesn’t happen now that principals and deputy principals have moved into a 40  hour week) I am so snowed in by school tasks that I don’t get to the tasks which are really important to me. One of the thoughts I have been having about teachers and their chronic lack of time is that teachers never “clear the desk”. Teachers never reach a stage that they know they have completed all the tasks awaiting them and that everything is completed. I remember the feeling from the days when our kibbutz school was open all 60 days of the summer break and I used to spend most of them there, in my classroom, preparing the new schoool year. Even then, when the first of September arrived, I had the sense that I was not ready for the new school year. Crazy, isn’t it?

Those “never finished”‘ “always on the run”, “can’t do the same thing twice”, “must rethink that activity” aspects of teaching are what keep it challenging. The pace keeps you lively and involved but…

Why isn’t there more time for reflection, personal learning and reflection? Why do I have to “steal” time in order to devote a bit more to my professional learning?

Out of the three days holiday we had for Purim, one day was devoted to my own professional learning group – Leaders of Professional development in Literacy. We have been meeting together and learning in a formal framework for the past six years. The seconfd day was devoted to professional feedback meetrings with the teachers at school. This year the principal and I are doing the meetings together. It’s going very well but is extremely demanding. As I said, the last day was devoted to reading and summarizing the Victorian report – Inquiry into Professional Leasrning, Feb 2009.

I’m off to get dressed soon and going to school for “Healthy Eating Day” – today’s message is the importance of eaing breakfast. It will be great but… I would prefer to “steal” another day for my studies.

Freewriting 2 – 15 minutes of thinking

Today I’m going to have another go at writing in general about my thoughts on the report before I begin pulling it apart and analyzing it section by section.

There were many points in the report which pleasantly surprised me and many that sound fine in the framework of a government report but it is obvious that when they reach the field they will be completely different. It will be interesting to see how many of the internal conflicts will be resolved. An example of one of these conflicts is the recognition that there are a great variety of PL options and the importance of teacher choice and autonomy on one hand, and the need for control, documentation and quality control on the other. Another is the time and energy which are recommended for investment in PL and the fact that there are no effective practical suggestions for lightening teachers work load in order to make PL an integral part of a teacher’s work load.

The question addressing the connection of teacher learning to measurable student outcomes remains unclear. The committee realises that it is not always possible to evaluate PL by evaluating student achievement levels and also the fact that not all PD aims at changing student achievement levels – behavior management studies are an example of this.

I cannot understand the internal Australian politics – why on earth does each state need a separate policy and separate frameworks for determining teacher advancement and development? I wonder what happens when teachers move interstate? How does this report interact with others I have read recently?

I am interested in the learning opportunities made possible by university – school partnerships and am sorry that there are no such initiatives in my area in Israel – they probably exist in the large cities.

I was happy to see that online options for PL are gradually becoming viable.

The report is long and very detailed and I am interested to see what effect it will have.  

OK, I’m off for 15 minutes of freewriting.

Today I want to discuss the beginning of the Victorian government inquiry into PL for teachers. The report is very long and I have only read the first 40 or 50 pages.

Some of the things I have noticed in the first part of the document are:

• The committee is made up of men only
• All committee members are politicians and not educators
• Education systems overseas which were investigated are: Finland, Scotland and Ontario, Canada.
• The report values professional development for teachers
• The report recognises that the paths to professional learning are varied.
• The report accepts the use of the term PL instead of PD and defines both terms. The report describes PD as activities and frameworks in which PL for educators can occur.
• As far as I can see now, the report is aiming to put PD activities and PL into measurable packages and to achieve some level of control over the learning teachers are doing.
• This control relates to quantity (something which is already accepted practice in Victoria – 100 hours), who is authorised to provide PL , ways in which educators record their PL, etc.
• Probably the two most worrying points I have read up to now are

1. The link being made between teacher learning and student outcomes.
2. The discussion of quality teachers instead of quality teaching, as discussed in the article by Parr.

I think it will be important for me to continue reading the report and read others like it.

As far as I know there is no such report here in Israel and I don’t even know how to look for one. Maybe through the Department of Hadracha. I will check.

The report is very new, dated February 2009 and I am happy that GP recommended it to me. As he said when I was preparing my proposal for application, the international setting is very important.

Here in Israel, as in Austarlia and all over the world it seems, everyone is examining Finland as a result of their high results on the Pisa examinations. I wonder how relevant the comparison is.

Just a thought I had while responding to the teachers in the course in the online forum…

As I read each and every teacher’s narrative and reflection, think of a significant response and pose a relevant question, I am aware that I, myself, am engaging in extremely intensive professional learning. Would this be the same for classroom teachers responding to students’ work if they would consider this as learning and not just a drag?

Another way I am continuing my professional learning is through my voluntary work as a reviewer of literacy articles for the Broader Middle East and North Africa Literacy Hub. The organization strives to improve basic literacy in those countries and in particular, to increase the number of girls attending primary school frameworks.

I am always interested by the materials I receive and meet a variety of literacy issues in my reading. Although I have been reviewing articles for the past two years, I have no idea how they found me to invite me to be a reviewer for this international project. The connection may be my International Reading Association membership.

p.s – Yet another kind of professional learning – as you can see, I have finally learned to hyperlink… about time. It was one of my goals before going back to school and I’m happy to report that I’ve done it.

Free image from:  http://www.everystockphoto.com/photo.php?imageId=2652745

Today I reread the first chapter of Doecke and Parr and was surprised that the notes I had made previously didn’t make the blog or the methodology chapter.

Points I will add are:

• Through writing teachers can explore their professional lives and “refine their understandings of the complexities of teaching and learning” (p. 9).
• “This is obviously of benefit to the students in their classes, although those benefits do not necessarily translate into tangible outcomes that can be easily measured” (p. 9).
• “… qualities that teachers value most in their students’ learning-intellectual curiosity, a willingness to engage in exploratory talk, imagination, a preparedness to collaborate while also accepting a degree of autonomy, a capacity to engage in metacognition and reflexivity-are the very same qualities that characterize their own professional learning. Teachers who engage in practitioner inquiry are much more likely to be able to generate a ‘culture of inquiry’ in their own classrooms” (Reid 2004, p. 12 as cited here p. 12).
•  writing 3 fold: writing as artefact, writing as process, writing as medium – see p. 13. I can link the writing in my thesis to these concepts.

Doecke, B., & Parr, G. (2005). Writing: A common project. In B. Doecke, & G. Parr (Eds.), Writing = Learning (pp. 1-16). South Australia: Wakefield Press.

In this letter to the new president of the US, Lieberman and Pointer Mace call for a move from traditional PD for teachers to a model of PD based on the collaborative learning  from teacher experience and knowledge. The authors explain that “Teachers work in isolation and only rarely have a chance to observe their colleagues or talk about their teaching work” (p. 226).

“But professional development, though well intentioned, is often perceived by teachers as fragmented, disconnected, and irrelevant to the real problems of classroom practice” (p. 226).

The authors claim that traditional top down forms of PD do not recognize the particular needs of classes, the teacher’s own knowledge and that there are varied ways of achieving successful learning in schools. (p. 227).

“Instead of creating the conditions for teachers to teach each other, support their peers, and deepen their knowledge about their students, teachers are being given a “one size fits all” set of professional development workshops that deny the variability of how teachers teach, and how they and their students learn” (p. 227). 

The article also explains the social aspect of learning, that people learn through interaction with others. “They learn through practice (learning as doing), through meaning (learning as intentional), through community (learning as participating and being with others), and through identity ( learning as changing who we are). Professional learning so constructed is rooted in the human need to feel a sense of belonging and of making a contribution to a community where experience and knowledge function as part of community property. Teachers’ professional development should be refocused on the building of learning communities” (p. 227).

  The NWP is quoted as a successful model of PD through teacher collaboration (of course the teacher as writer is also involved here).

Another example is the networked communities in the UK (studied by Jackson, 2006; Jackson & Temperley, 2007). “The school networks helped to create practitioner knowledge (from teachers’ experience), public knowledge (from research and theory), and new knowledge (from what was created together). (p. 229).

“These networks of teachers from different schools managed to raise achievement for students, taught the participants how to work collaboratively linked yo “rigorous and challenging joint work”, and managed to build trust in helping make teaching public as they developed and distributed leadership among the teachers (Earl, Katz, et al., 2006)” (p. 229). 

 See: Networked Communities

http://www.ncsl.org.uk/networked/networked-leo-search.cfm

http://www.nlcexchange.org.uk

Gallery of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

http://gallery.carnegiefoundation.org

 ”Living archive” of teaching practice

http://gallery.carnegiefoundation.org/insideteaching/

“The teacher communities described here exhibit the best we know so far about effective professional development. They focus on instruction; are sustained and continuous, rather than short term and episodic; provide opportunities for teachers to lern from one another both inside and outside the school; make it possible for teachers to influence how and what they learn; and engage teachers in thinking about what they need to know (Hawley & Valli, 2007)” (p. 233).

 Lieberman, A., & Pointer Mace, D. H. (2008). Teacher learning: The key to educational reform. Journal of Teacher Education, 59(3), 226-234. Retrieved from http://jte.sagepub.com  

While writing this thesis I was running a professional development program for teachers of grades two to six. The name of the twenty eight hour course was “Improving Literacy in a Heterogeneous Class”. The teachers voluntarily signed up.  I began the course by asking the fourteen teachers participating to fill in a questionnaire about themselves, their teaching experience and their expectations of the course. I included a list of possible topics and asked them to mark those most relevant and important to them. I was not surprised to find that the most pressing topic for all of the participants was the teaching of writing and supporting struggling writers.  I opened the third meeting by asking the teachers to write for ten minutes in silence, the topic being an experience they have had teaching writing. I told them that we would be discussing those pieces after the writing period was over.  One teacher immediately left the room, a toilet or coffee break I assumed. Another took out her cell phone and began clicking furiously. Others doodled quietly in their notebooks, began listing points or began to fill lines with Hebrew script.  I sat and watched them, uncomfortable with the squirming that was going on in several of the seats. Each minute that went past was like five, my watch didn’t seem to move. I forced myself to wait ten minutes, resisting my urge to cut the time down to seven or eight minutes.  Silence was kept in the room for most of the time, although occasionally there were embarrassed giggles or a whisper.  When the time was up, some of the teachers were still busily writing their narratives and were sorry to stop. Others looked relieved and were waiting to get on with the seminar.  In the discussion that followed I was interested in hearing what had happened to the participants in those ten minutes, what they had felt and what they had experienced and done in that time.  Many of the teachers commented that they are unused to writing on demand and that they felt uncomfortable. Some confessed that they are not used to writing at all. Several remarked that the time limit and the expectation of sharing their writing pressured them. At least two of the teachers didn’t write at all in the ten minute period. Only two or three confided that they enjoyed the writing experience.  We looked in detail at what had been done in that time and saw how the writing process is different for different people. Afterwards we discussed the implications for these differences in our classrooms. One of the teachers who didn’t write anything, an experienced grade six teacher, explained to the group that she isn’t a writer. “People are either born writers or they aren’t, I’m not” she said. The group discussed this statement. Is it true? If it is, what does it mean for the teaching of writing? I added that this is one of the major misconceptions held by struggling writers in our classes.  I asked the teachers if anyone was willing to share their text with us. Two of the first volunteers started to tell their story without looking at the page. I stopped them and reassured them that it is clear to everyone that this is the roughest of rough draft but that we want to hear what is on the paper.  Two of the pieces we heard were well structured, interesting stories. We were amazed by the writers’ style and clarity. At the end of the session I explained that our next meeting would not be face to face, that we would be meeting on the virtual campus. Each teacher was required to do three things, firstly to revise her story about the teaching of writing (or write another story) and to post it on the assigned private discussion board. The second task was to reflect on the teaching story and on the experience of writing one, I supplied possible directions for this. The third task was to read stories from other group members and respond.  It took ages and lots of encouragement for the first teacher to post a story. She wrote about a poetry anthology she had successfully produced at her school. The poems were all connected to Israel’s sixtieth birthday. This teacher told how she had created a poetry unit suitable for each different age group, chosen appropriate poetry to teach, and encouraged the children to write. Every child in the school had writing published in the festive booklet. She told her story modestly but proudly and expressed her personal excitement and satisfaction with the project. A few days after this story appeared, comments began to appear, most of them congratulating the teacher on her success in the project but also on being the first to contribute a story. Questions also appeared. Gradually a few other stories appeared on the site and the discussion was lively.  Unfortunately only five of the participants took part in the discussion. At our next meeting, I devoted time to the oral reading of those stories posted on the campus and gave those teachers time to share their experiences with the group. I was sure that my enthusiasm, together with showing the participants that it is possible to complete the task, would motivate the others to write and share their stories. A few weeks later, I am still waiting… Although I know that time is a central factor in any work I do with teachers, here I know that the type of task assigned was significant in the low rate of participation.  I am continually aware that these teachers have not been asked to write anything of this nature for a very long time, some of them since they were at school. Another factor is that in a twenty eight hour course many of the teachers do not know each other and may feel vulnerable as a result.  I have tasted this kind of work with teachers and find it far more meaningful than choosing a topic, planning a lecture or a workshop, giving them my knowledge or experience and going home.  When I read the stories written, I was greatly aware of what I have been learning, that every teacher has something to say, that each teacher possesses professional knowledge which can be a wonderful starting point for collaborative learning. S, a second year teacher, had been very quiet and reserved in the first two sessions. We discussed writing in the third meeting and I brought examples of authors talking about the writing process and about how laborious composition is. Suddenly, S shyly told the group that she keeps a personal diary and that because she lives alone she comes home and pours her day into writing. She confessed that writing is an important part of her day. The narrative S wrote and posted was written in very simple language but told a very powerful story of her battle to get her second grade pupils to write. She told us how she used to spend each Sunday morning hearing stories from her class about what they had done on the weekend. She was frustrated that it was always the same children who related experiences and that many remained silent. She told that it was difficult for many to choose just one experience to share.  One day, S gave her pupils special notebooks and told them that they were going to write what they wanted to share from their weekend and that afterwards those that want to can tell their story. She was shocked by the result. Firstly, everybody wrote, including those who usually don’t share and her struggling writers. Secondly, many more children were willing to tell their stories. S, excited by this lesson, decided to continue.  In the weeks that followed, S asked her pupils to write every Sunday morning and was happy that the children wrote willingly and that the texts produced were more and more complex. More and more pupils asked to share their work. As a result of the reflection S did when writing her narrative for our group, she started asking the class to write on other occasions, after recess for example. Another addition was that she herself started writing while her class was busy with their heads down. She used the time for reflective writing on teaching issues. In the weeks that followed, writing became an accepted mode of communication in S’s class. When children were involved in an argument or had a problem, she asked them to first organize their thoughts by writing them in the notebook and that afterwards she would be happy to listen to them. It worked. When S got to school after her day off, she would find a pile of notes waiting for her on her desk. Subject teachers who taught the class were surprised when they began to receive written communication from the young children.  S received positive feedback on her work from the members of our group and also heard ideas for continuing and expanding her work. I found it very satisfying that through this activity she realized that she has something significant to share with a group of experienced teachers. Many of the veteran teachers certainly had something to learn from this shy and nervous early career teacher. I realized that S was similar to her shyer pupils, those that only dared to share a story when they had it firmly on paper.  There is no tradition of composing teacher narratives and collaborating on them in this part of Israel. There are presently no formal options for professional learning through dialogic writing and discussion. Despite the fact that this small scale experience was only partly successful, I am optimistic that significant learning frameworks can be established for Israeli teachers in this direction.  In order to succeed, I believe teachers need to know ahead of time that this will be the framework of the seminar and that they know they will be committed to experience the writing and discussing of teacher narratives. A mix of experienced and early career teachers is likely to be preferable – building on the enthusiasm and burning need for collaboration amongst newer teachers and the experience and knowledge of veteran educators.  I have already taken the first few steps. I have surprisingly managed to convince the coordinator of language and literacy in the northern area of Israel, that this is the way we should be going in our PD for next year. Most of the courses we will be offering will deal with the teaching of writing and they will all be structured around teacher collaboration and the writing and sharing of narratives.  If we begin with a respect for the knowledge the teachers bring with them and their honest desire to raise the achievement levels of their pupils in writing, I hope they will sign up and then be open, flexible and active participants.