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Keys To Collaboration

What it takes to move toward collective responsibility

By Learning Forward
Categories: Collaboration, Learning communities
June 2015
Ask educators what they need for their own learning, and more time to collaborate with colleagues generally ranks high on the list. Educators know that when they encounter specific student learning or instructional challenges, their peers typically have insights and solutions that will be helpful. Every school has an enormous body of expertise, and educators need meaningful opportunities to tap that expertise every day. Yet having professional learning communities on the schedule doesn’t always fulfill teachers’ collaboration needs. As the report Teachers Know Best: Teachers’ Views on Professional Development demonstrated, having a team structure in place doesn’t necessarily provide educators with the valuable collective learning they seek. Teachers surveyed weren’t satisfied overall with their professional learning communities and, in focus groups, said that collaboration fell

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Authors

Tracy Crow

Tracy Crow (tracy.crow@learningforward.org) is Learning Forward’s director of communications.

Effective Learning Defined

Learning Forward’s definition of professional learning describes effective, job-embedded, continuous, collaborative learning. The definition was created originally for use in federal policy during an earlier reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), also referred to as the No Child Left Behind Act.

Since then, Learning Forward has used the definition to help not only policymakers but also educators and other stakeholders understand what effective professional learning looks like in practice when it is aligned with the Standards for Professional Learning.

As the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives continue to work on the reauthorization of ESEA, Learning Forward is again advocating the definition of professional learning in policy. To learn more about Learning Forward’s definition and its role in policy, see www.learningforward.org/who-we-are/professional-learning-definition.

References

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. (2014, December). Teachers know best: Teachers’ views on professional development. Seattle, WA: Author. Available at www.teachersknowbest.org/reports.

Learning Forward. (2013). Establishing time for professional learning. Oxford, OH: Author. Available at www.learningforward.org/docs/default-source/commoncore/establishing-time-for-professional-learning.pdf.

Learning Forward. (2011). Standards for Professional Learning. Oxford, OH: Author.

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Learning Forward is the only professional association devoted exclusively to those who work in educator professional development. We help our members plan, implement, and measure high-quality professional learning so they can achieve success with their systems, schools, and students.

Categories: Collaboration, Learning communities

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