How to Establish and Maintain Study Groups

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How to Establish and Maintain Study Groups
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Effective Professional Development

• Least effective

• Most effective

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Overview

• Establish and maintain the study group process
• Understand the components of effective, sustained
  professional development
• Create the opportunity for the study group
  process to frame professional learning
  communities
• Utilize reflective practice to strengthen the
  study group process.

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Study Groups

• A study group is

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Authors Definition

• A study group is a small group of people who
  have agreed to meet on a regular basis to explore
  a topic of interest. Through a process of
  inquiry and collegial dialogue, group members
  construct and extend knowledge and use their new
  knowledge to improve practice. An effective
  study group promotes professionalism among staff
  members, combats the isolation so prevalent in
  teaching, and allows colleagues to take risks and
  experiment with new learning together. Wiggens
  McTighe (2000)

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Types of Study Groups

• Book Study
• Lesson Study
• Video Study
• Student Study
• Whole Faculty Study
• Action Research Study
• Administrator Study
• Professional Learning Communities

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Focus of Study Group

• The focus of a study group can be determined
• through
• Strategic plans
• Teacher/administrator availability
• Funding
• Knowledge/experience of participants
• Job responsibilities
• Classroom action research
• Student data/demographics

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Barriers Solutions to Study Groups

• Barriers

• Solutions

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Group Processes

• Discuss and establish
• Roles
• Expectations
• Behavior norms
• Ground rules
• Decision making
• Emerging ideas
• Facilitation

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Logistics

• Who?
• What?
• When?
• Where?
• How long?
• How often?
• Timelines

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Facilitation Issues

• Understanding facilitative behaviors
• Active listening
• Managing time
• Encouraging participation by all
• Using basic tools like decision making and action
  planning
• Managing process tools
• Consensus building
• Challenging ideas
• Synthesizing ideas from multiple discussions
• reflection

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• Managing conflict
• Creating immediate interventions
• Dealing with resistance
• Understanding developmental stages of group
  functions

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Defining Learning Community
The term learning community has taken on a
variety of meanings in the literature. In
Improving Schools From Within,Roland Barth (1990)
describes a community of learners as a place
where students and adults alike are engaged as
active learners in matters of special importance
to them and where everyone is thereby encouraging
everyone elses learning (p. 9).
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Characteristics Of A Learning Community

• As a result of extensive research, Kruse, Louis,
  and Bryk (1999) cite five elements of a
  professional community
• Reflective dialogue
• Focus on student learning
• Interaction among colleagues
• Collaboration and
• Shared values and norms.

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Structural Conditions That Are Essential For
Establishing A Professional Community

• The structural conditions include
• Providing adequate time for administrators and
  teachers to meet and exchange ideas
• Locating teachers physically closely to one
  another so that they can observe and interact
  with peers
• Ensuring teacher empowerment and school autonomy
  so that teachers may feel free to do what they
  believe to be best for their students
• Creating school wide communication structures,
  including regularly established meetings that are
  devoted to teaching, learning, and other
  professional issues and
• Employing methods, such as team teaching, that
  require teachers to practice their craft together.

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• The human/social resources consist of
• Support for members who are open to improvement,
  as demonstrated by a readiness to analyze,
  reflect on, and try out new approaches to
  teaching
• Trust in and respect for the abilities of all
  members of the learning community and
• Support from those in leadership positions
• Processes for socializing teachers into the
  collegial school culture and
• Opportunities to acquire new knowledge and skills
  needed to build a learning community.
• Kruse, Louis, and Bryk (1999)

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Foundation of Professional Learning Communities

• McLaughlin Talbert (1993) When teachers had
  opportunities for collaborative inquiry
  learning they were able to share a body of
  knowledge

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Outcomes for Staff

• Reduction of isolation
• Increased commitment vigor
• Shared responsibility
• Creation of new knowledge about teaching and
  learners
• Increased understanding of content
• Increased understanding of roles played in
  helping all students learn
• Southwest Educational Development Laboratory,
  Vol. 6 Number 1, 1997

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Outcomes for Staff

• Teachers well informed, renewed inspired
• More satisfaction, higher morale, lower
  absenteeism
• Teachers become better faster
• Commitment to change
• More likely to undergo fundamental change
• Southwest Educational Development Laboratory,
  Vol. 6 Number 1, 1997

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Outcomes for Students

• Decreased drop out rate and skipping
• Lower rate of absenteeism
• Increased learning
• Smaller achievement gap
• Southwest Educational Development Laboratory,
  Vol. 6 Number 1, 1997

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Reflection

• Examining ones situation, behavior,
• practices, effectiveness and
• accomplishments by asking What am I
• doing and why?
• Valverde, 1981 in St. Johns Program Goals for
  Beginning Teachers, 2004

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What is Reflective Practice?

• Reflective practice is as much a state of mind as
  it is a set of activities (Vaughn, 1990, p. ix)
• The ability of the teacher to think creatively,
  imaginatively, and in time, self- critically
  about classroom practice (Lasley, 1992, p. 24)

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Reflective practice is a deliberate pause to
assume an open perspective, to allow for
higherlevel thinking processes.

• Practitioners use these processes for examining
  beliefs, goals and practices to gain deeper
  understandings that lead to actions that improve
  learning for students

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Components

• Deliberate pause
• Open perspective
• Active processing of thoughts
• Examination of beliefs, goals and practices

• Deeper understandings and insights
• Actions that improve students learning

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What Does it Mean to be a Reflective Educator?

• High level of commitment to their own
  professional development
• Inquiry, questioning, and discovery are norms
  embedded in their ways of thinking and practice
• Careful examination and analysis of information
  and ideas in terms of desired educational goals
• Takes action that aligns with new understandings

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Levels of Reflective Practice

• Reflection in Small Groups and Teams
• School-wide Reflective Practice
• Individual Reflection

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Continuous Improvement

• Learning communities and study groups exemplify
  discomfort with the status quo and a constant
  search for a better way
• What is our purpose?
• What are our strategies for becoming better?
• What criteria will we use to measure improvement
  efforts?

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Results Orientation

• Study groups realize their potential through
  efforts to create a shared practice, engage in
  collective inquiry, build collaborative
  structures, take action, and focus on continuous
  improvement must be based on results rather than
  intentions.

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How is Student Achievement Affected by the Study
Group Model
The ultimate purpose of the movement to the
learning community model is to improve learning
opportunities and outcomes for students. Members
of learning community schools engage in
collaborative activities that are directed toward
helping them to improve their instructional
practices. Their students are likely to be the
beneficiaries as the teachers share ideas, learn
innovative and better ways of teaching, and try
the newly learned approaches in the classroom.
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Credits

• Slides/Notes 1, 2, 4-5, and 6 Richard Lawrence
  and Jan StanleyHow to Start a Study Group, WVDE,
  2003
• Notes 8 -12 Dr. Dee CockrilleTeaching Quality
  Manual, Education Alliance, 2002