Last Week's Faculty Talking Circles - The InspirationThe growth of any craft depends on shared practice and honest dialogue among the people who do it. We grow by trial and error, to be sure—but our willingness to try, and fail, as individuals is severely limited when we are not supported by a community that encourages such risks. (Palmer, 1998, p. 144) A week ago, we had two Faculty Talking Circles at NorQuest College where we continued to explore the concept of learning teams. I asked these faculty groups several big questions. The first was “What, in your experience, allows a learning team to work well?” In the chat and discussions individual faculty said that, in their experience, a learning team works well when there is:
This group also suggested that it might also help to have:
Most of all, our colleagues suggested that a learning team would need to be passionate and committed “owners” of the learning team. A powerful learning team should be built by instructors - for instructors. Thankfully, these observations validated the musings from Jan 11! So on to my next few questions: “Do you have an idea for a team?”, “Who should form these teams?” and “What should their goals be?” Instructors wrote suggestions on a Padlet and we took turns discussing some of them. Ideas for learning teams included a/an:
These were wonderful ideas! That said, I cannot count how many times I have worked with groups of keen individuals and gotten to this point, only to have the enthusiasm ebb out with a bit of time and the pressure of staying on top of daily teaching commitments and student concerns. So how might we take some of these ideas and establish learning teams that meet regularly, sustain a clear and practical focus and make a difference for team members and for our students? One idea: A NQ Faculty Community Of PracticeThe onset of Covid and the switch to online everything has left many of our instructors feeling overwhelmed and disconnected. LRN sessions are not as popular as in the past; people cannot find the time to invest in one-off workshops that may or may not apply to their current teaching contexts and pressures. However, if these same people knew that they could regularly connect with colleagues who face the same challenges and then collectively address ongoing concerns it might lead to professional growth, community building and alleviate some anxiety and stress.
So here’s my idea going forward. I think it is time for NorQuest to establish a Faculty Community of Practice. This umbrella group would be able to facilitate the networking, sharing, and resource development necessary for a wide range of learning teams. Your faculty developers would help to coordinate this community, but they would not be the ones who lead it. The NQ FC of P would be a true professional learning community. Some thoughts: With tight budgets and Covid cutbacks, it would be difficult to secure funding or dedicated time to run this Community of Practice. While being supportive, our college leadership would not be able to carve out something for us. That said:
A plan: I know that we have a core group of dedicated and innovative instructors who might champion learning teams. I have been in their classrooms (online and F2F) and I have listened to their reflections and presentations. Now we just need to find out if there is enough interest to make a go of this idea.
If all goes well, we might be able to stage several NorQuest College Community of Practice Showcase afternoons. This would allow individual groups to share what they have tried and learned with colleagues. However, at this point, let us just see if there is enough interest to go forward. Many thanks to Mabyn Grinde from Lakeland College who attended our last talking circle, shared the Parker Palmer quote and the suggestion that “Members of a learning team need to be owners, not renters!” Palmer, Parker J. The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life. San Francisco, Calif. : Jossey-Bass, 1998.
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Vocabulary is Important! At NorQuest College, we have a number of courses that require a great deal of vocabulary acquisition and understanding. Knowing certain terms and their nuances is especially important for new Canadians trying to adjust to cultural norms, for budding scientists who need to clarify and identify exactly what they see, and for health care providers who must have a common lexicon for anatomy and physiology. Many of our students have coped with difficult terms by memorizing exact textbook definitions anticipating that exact definitions will be required on unit tests and quizzes. However, while this strategy may help the students to achieve slightly better marks in the short term, it actually harms the student because their knowledge of many key concepts is superficial at best. Students need to be able to do more than just define a term; they need to know why the term is significant, how it connects to other concepts and what makes it different from other terms. When assessments ask students to use terms in the right contexts, to make comparisons and analysis, and to unpack understandings, students with only a rote knowledge of key terms struggle. One of the many vocabulary strategies I like to use, to help students better understand important terminology, is a graphic organizer known as the Frayer Model. What is a Frayer Model? The Frayer Model (Frayer, Frederick, and Klausmeier, 1969) is a vocabulary strategy that actually helps learners deepen their understanding of key concepts by asking them to consider a number of facets to the terms used. This “deep understanding” comes about when students are pushed to consider a word’s essential and non-essential attributes and to refine their understanding by choosing examples and non-examples of the concept. In order to understand completely what a concept is - one must also know what it is not. How to use it: The Frayer model can be used before teaching a unit as a diagnostic tool to assess prior knowledge, during the unit to consolidate understanding as a form of note taking and after the unit as an assessment of learning.
When using such a strategy with their students, teachers need to make sure that they start with only a few key terms or concepts. Instructors also have to resist filling out the organizers for the students and simply giving the completed charts to the students as study guides. This defeat the individualized experience and accountability of working through the terms. Over the years, practicing teachers have come up with many different variations on the Frayer Model. However, the original Frayer Model focused on helping students to narrow down the meaning for each term by seeing what it is and what it is not. I’ve included a couple of modified Frayer Models I have use to help clarify the difference between more traditional and more constructivist models for teaching. The Promise and Pitfalls of Professional Learning Communities Instructors learn about their craft in many different ways:
In today’s musing, I want to focus on the fifth way, collaborative professional learning through focused inquiry and sharing. This is where a small group of people meet regularly to discuss promising practices, implement thoughtful changes in their daily planning and practice, and share their efforts with the group in order to promote program improvement and optimize student learning. This kind of collaborative learning is sometimes called a “Community of Practice”, a phrase coined by Etienne Wenger in 1991 (see: https://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/ ). Communities of Practice involve practicing professionals (not researchers or academics) who form a learning community based upon a shared commitment or domain of interest. Another term sometimes used to describe collaborative learning is a “Professional Learning Community” or PLC. I am much more familiar with this term. PLCs are narrower than Communities of Practice; they have very specific goals and focus on tangible results. So what is a PLC? In the late 1990’s American educators such as Dufour and Eaker (1998) and Hord (1997) advocated for goal-oriented, accountable, teacher collaboration as the best way to transform underperforming schools, boost teacher morale and improve student achievement. PLC advocates were quick to link Professional Learning Communities to adult learning principles put forward in the 1970's by Malcolm Knowles (2005), successful adult learning links to need, self-concept, foundation, readiness and orientation. Professional Learning Communities should build upon:
A Professional Learning Community should value and validate teachers, drawing upon internal motivators rather than external (credits or recognition). Of course there are some preconditions; in order to be successful, PLCs need to meet regularly, sustain their inquiry and action research for an extended period (years rather than months), and focus their energies on reasonable and measureable targets (establish SMART goals). From my experience from 20 years of working with PLCs, I have seen groups that worked wonderfully well, creating a culture of continuous improvement. These PLCs encouraged teachers to learn together, explore new ideas, and implement changes that paid great dividends for their students. I have also seen PLCs that quickly dissolved into coffee socials or worse yet, bitch sessions. One group that I had a loose connection with ended up spending their allotted PLC time on rejigging the wording on their multiple choice assessments - which was a far cry from their original intention of helping adolescent readers develop the confidence and skills to meet the literacy demands of challenging texts and tasks. At one point, when certain Alberta school districts became frustrated with the inefficiency of their PLCs (some districts provided money and time for PLCs but little leadership), they tried to mandate for tangible results. They advocated for “data-driven” PLCs, but this action ended up frustrating teachers who felt that they had to tweak their teaching to get better scores on standardized exams (Provincial Achievement Tests and Diploma Exams) rather than engage in meaningful learning and reflection. In the end, this push to focus and control PLCs backfired. Teachers felt conscripted and handcuffed. Here at NorQuest, my experience with PLCs has been limited. Some faculty might want to call the Innovative Teaching Group a PLC, but the group was too large, the meetings too infrequent and the focus was too scattered for it to be a real PLC. However, the Innovative Teaching Group did foster inquiry, reflection, sharing and networking. The NorQuest Learning Circle on Intercultural Competence that Sarah Apedaile spearheaded last year was much closer to being an actual, factual PLC. This group was smaller, regularly checked in, engaged in thoughtful readings and discussion, implemented changes in their classrooms and shared their learnings. I also believe there may be other groups around the college that more closely reflect the spirit of a PLC. I know of curriculum development groups, professional reading groups and other focus groups that are making a real difference for students and instructors. Why do some PLCs thrive while others lose their way? Well, from my perspective (and from some of the literature I consulted) a PLC has to allow for ownership and agency. Externally mandated PLCs often work against instructor investment. Andy Hargreaves, a PLC proponent from Britain, cautions against PLCs which design or follow too rigid a protocol and ultimately create a “"prison of micromanagement that constrains it" and will foster a “contrived collegiality” (Hargreaves as quoted in Vause, 2009, p.88). Educators need to know that they are able to shape the direction, set the goals and respond to immediate and longer-term issues that affect them and their classrooms. All too often, teachers see PLC work as an add-on or a fad and feel that “this too shall pass”. Some teachers actually view it an assault on their own professionalism; the very fact that an institute or district mandates PLCs is an assumption that they, as teachers, are lacking in skill, commitment or collegiality. PLCs should be built from the ground up, by the teacher participants - in response to real issues, not manufactured or arbitrary agendas. Given the educational context, their experience, and their knowledge of their community, PLC members should be able to collaboratively and individually frame a vision for their department and the type of learning they hope to achieve. There also needs to be ample space for dissent as well as discussion and time enough to really reflect upon and respond to the issues they face. To be successful a PLC needs to acknowledge experience. PLCs should be about shared exploration not didacticism. Faculty developers, chairs (and associates), and lead teachers charged with leading change through a PLC process should be especially aware of this. I have observed too many well-meaning instructional leaders lose credibility because they figured they could “fix” the pedagogy of their colleagues. Especially off-putting was when leaders started preaching about “best practices” and tried to hammer home recent research. Many teachers felt their own methods devalued (since they were not using “best practices”) and their experience discounted just because something may (or may not) have been proven in an entirely different context. A PLC needs to have a mission that goes beyond student achievement and program improvement. It cannot be just “reformative” but must tilt towards being “transformative” (Servage, 2008). In most cases, the PLCs I have worked with were reformative; teachers discovered new strategies or made adjustments in the way they planned or assessed. The truly powerful PLCs I worked with pushed educators to experience significant change forcing them to rethink their whole view of student learning and their role as a teacher. These “transformations” often revealed a shift in understanding related to core beliefs about planning, curricula, assessment, engagement, program relevance, critical literacy and many other foci being were working on. These transformations gave a glimpse into what PLCs could and should be. What is the real purpose of a PLC? Most proponents of PLCs would agree that PLCs are meant to:
Educators need to ask these questions:
Ultimately, I believe the key in building and maintaining a healthy PLC is in promoting and allowing for individual agency. Those who place student achievement as the only core of PLC work (“It’s always and only about student learning.”) actually denigrate the role of teacher as learner and constrict creativity (see Servage, 2006). Student learning may be the muse, but if the PLC is to succeed and thrive as a model for professional development and adult education it must allow for self-actualization, align with the principles of adult education, and avoid getting trapped in the world of data-driven reformation as opposed to professional and personal transformation. So how does this impact NorQuest? As we move forward in response to various initiatives like Reimagining Higher Education and our efforts to create a NorQuest College culture, and as we respond to pressures associated with the current teaching conditions brought on by Covid-19 and economic and structural pressures, PLCs and/or Communities of Practice hold promise. They present encouraging models to build community and resiliency. Moreover, I am eager to support the efforts of those who would like to start one of these learning communities or nurture the efforts of an existing one. In fact, in the next few months our faculty development team will be piloting a “Faculty Community of Practice” as we move to consolidating our support materials and providing access to instructors and academic leaders at NorQuest. However, I am conscious of the pitfalls too, and I am hoping that we can build this community and accompanying PLCs from the ground up, with 1) shared vision, 2) committed participation, 3) regular, sustained and focused work, 4) meaningful and honest inquiry and discussion, and 5) inspired leadership.
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TRUST and COMPLIANCE Just a short musing today about trust versus compliance and the lessons I learned so many years ago… from my horse. It was my second year of teaching, I was working in northern British Columbia, and I was frustrated. Both at school and in the field. The students and I seemed to be on different wavelengths. I mistakenly thought that, just because I was the teacher, they had to just do what I asked, even if they didn’t really understand or appreciate it. Appreciation might come later but, for the present, they had to learn good study habits and work through comprehension and writing exercises that drilled home the essentials. However, my attempts to make them comply - to do their work - were met with resistance. The students wanted to know why they had to do the work, and I couldn’t always come up with an answer. It was the same way with my horse. He was only three or four years old and ‘green broke”. I was getting him used to having a rider on his back, taking a saddle and reacting to leg and rein commands. He was a big horse, and I was a little intimidated by him, but he was a nervous sort... and young. One day, as I was grooming and feeding him I casually slipped up on to his back and started to ride him bareback. He took off at a gallop down the fence line. It was great! Then, quite suddenly, he planted his feet, lowered his head and I went flying over his neck and landed in the dirt just in front of us. Now I was too frustrated to be intimidated! As he stood quietly looking at me with almost a smirk in his expression, I walked over and gave him a hard punch on his hindquarters. I was angry. This was not how it was supposed to go. It was the wrong thing to do. My horse would not come to me, even if I had a small bucket of oats, for a few days after that. Then it took time to build trust to where he would let me groom him, pick up his feet and clean them and gingerly put on a saddle. In the coming months, I worked with him, not on him. I discovered that he had quite the fear of cars, windblown bags and mud puddles. In each case, I had to help him past his fears, slowly building up to each challenge or encounter. In many cases, I would have to dismount slowly leading him up to the dreaded puddle and then show him that everything was safe and we would get through it. I’d splash around in the puddle and then lead him through it. After some time, puddles weren’t so scary anymore. In education, we now call that scaffolding. I learned that many of the things I had to do with my horse, I also had to do with my students. I had to see things from their perspective, not just from my own. I had to lead them through the learning, modelling, explaining, supporting. Moreover, I had to learn that real learning only happens when there is trust and a shared purpose, not just compliance based upon power or need. (This musing was adapted from a post I wrote last year for the intercultural circle. Both pictures are of my horse Cantor - a half Arab half Quarterhorse.) |
AuthorJeff Kuntz Ph.D. ImagesExcept where indicated, images used in the blog posts are personal photos, images from NorQuest College or images from Pixabay. Pixabay is a vibrant community of creatives, sharing copyright free images, videos and music. https://pixabay.com/ Archives
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