INTEGRATING
IMPROVEMENTS:
how three principals leveraged
professional learning to
reshape school culture
Jessica G. Rigby & Anita Lenges
University of Washington
AGENDA
AIM: learn about three specific leadership actions principals
used to shape their schools’ instructional cultures towards
collaboration and collective learning.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
What to learn to improve math instruction
What are Math Labs?
Julie: Building Teacher Leaders
Cindy: Making Practice Public
James: Developing Share Vision of Practice
Framework for school transformation
Application to your context
What do teachers need to learn in order to
improve math teaching and learning?
You don’t need to improve culture, and THEN work
towards improving instruction. You can change
culture through the work.
Teachers learn mathematics
> Math Knowledge for Teaching (MKT, Ball & Bass, 2000; Hill,
Schilling, & Ball, 2004)
–
–
–
–
Common content knowledge
Specialized content knowledge
Knowledge of content and students
Knowledge of content and teaching
Teachers learn inquiry-oriented pedagogy:
NCTM Mathematics Teaching Practices
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Establish mathematics goals to focus learning
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Implement tasks that promote reasoning and problem solving
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Use and connect mathematical representations
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Facilitate meaningful mathematical discourse
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Pose purposeful questions
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Build procedural fluency from conceptual understanding
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Support productive struggle in learning mathematics
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Elicit and use evidence of student thinking
Teachers learn a new way of learning
together: learning, not performing
> Develop professional community that includes risktaking (Bryk, Sebring, Allensworth, Luppescu, & Easton, 2010)
> Deprivatize practice (Kruse, Louis, & Bryk, 1995)
> Reconstitute power relationships (Kazemi, 2008)
> Talk concretely and precisely about teaching practice
to build shared language and enable collegiality and
rigor of experimentation (Little, 1982)
>Create shared meaning of practice (Horn & Little, 2010)
Turn and Talk
What kinds of learning structures support educator
learning about high-quality practice while also
reculturing the school to create a productive learning
environment for students and educators?
Math labs create
opportunities for
teachers to try out,
practice, and reflect on
instruction and student
thinking.
The Learning Cycle
4
Analyze
Teaching
Practice and
Instructional
Activity
3
Enact
1
Introduce
2
Prepare
McDonald, Kazemi & Kavanagh, 2013
The Learning Cycle
Introduce
1
Introduce
Instructional
Activity
• Teachers, coaches and principals learn about a new
instructional activity, teaching practice, or content idea
• Might involve watching video, reading a protocol,
reading an article, or participating in a modeled activity
McDonald, Kazemi & Kavanagh, 2013
Instructional activities, teaching practices and content
ideas that could be worked on in a Learning Lab
Instructional
Activities
Instructional
Practices
• Leading a number talk
• Leading discussion
• Launching a story
problem
• Using “talk moves”
• Leading a solution
strategy discussion in
math
• Eliciting and
responding to
students’ ideas
• Representing
students’
mathematical ideas
Content Ideas
• How kids learn about
fractions
• How children’s
problem solving can
support place value
understanding
The Learning Cycle
Prepare
Instructional
Activity
2
Prepare
4
Analyze
• Try the activity with children
• Co-plan the moves they will make, the questions
they will investigate and what they will listen for in
3
children’s participation
Enact
• They might rehearse the lesson in this phase as well
McDonald, Kazemi & Kavanagh, 2013
The Learning Cycle
Enact
Instructional
Activity
3
Enact
• Teachers and leaders try out their activity with
children
• Children’s ideas
become a resource
for teacher learning
• They might talk during
the lesson to confirm
ideas, get help, and make changes to their plans as
they go (Teacher Time Out)
McDonald, Kazemi & Kavanagh, 2013
The Learning Cycle
4
Analyze
Analyze
Instructional
Activity
• Teachers & leaders debrief their lesson
• Focus on the ideas that emerged from children
• Teachers & leaders consider the complexity of the
teaching practices in play how the moves they made
affected what students said, did and might have
learned
• Teachers and leaders make commitments to try out
practices in their own classrooms McDonald, Kazemi & Kavanagh, 2013
Turn & Talk
What do you understand about Math Labs?
What questions do you have?
THE JOURNEY OF THREE SCHOOLS
Principals used math labs to develop three change-making
elements for instructional improvement in their schools:
>
>
>
Building Teacher Leadership
Making Practice Public
Developing a Shared Vision of Practice
Developing Teacher Leaders
> Julie Ray, former Principal
– Lakeland Elementary
– Building Teacher Leaders
What needed to change in
instructional practices?
•
•
•
•
•
The learning goal was not clearly
connected to the task.
Gradual release was focused
heavily on “I Do”.
Teacher talk was dominant in most
rooms.
Students were working passively
on worksheets.
Teachers worked in isolation in
many grades.
How did I use math labs to promote teacher
leaders to build instructional capacity?
> JuJuJU
Collaborative lesson
design
Unpacking student learning
goals
Taking risks co-teaching in other grades
Leadership Actions to Develop Teacher
Leaders
1.Initial teacher selection
2.Spread learning
3.Teacher→ teacher support
Outcomes of Teacher Leadership
❖ Inquiry cycles in PLCs to unpack
student learning goals & design
problem based tasks.
❖ Anticipated students thinking &
developed questions to scaffold
student thinking.
❖ Focused on student-to-student
talk
❖ 3 teachers started math labs 1st
year/8 teachers in math labs 2nd
year
❖ Shared with whole staff at staff
meetings, PLCs, and PD & shifted
practice in all classrooms
❖ Transformed PLCs to a shift in
lesson design & informing
instruction
❖ Transitioned from number talks
tasks to build student talk in core
instruction
Making Practice Public
Cindy Dracolby
Principal, Camelot Elementary School
From Labs to Whole School: Intentionally
Co-Planning Lessons
● Starting with a focus on student thinking
● Co-planning during Labs
● Co-planning during PLCs
From Labs to Whole School: Intentionally
Co-Teaching
● Designing portions of lessons together in Labs
● Co-teaching during labs
● Co- teaching once per week in regular practice
● Voluntary video-taping and sharing of lessons
“Opening my classroom allowed observation of my students in
their regular learning environment, giving me insight as to
what worked well and what I might like to change.”
From Labs to Whole School: Teachers’
Understanding of Math Concept Development Through
Grades
● Lab participants: cross grade-levels (PreK through
Fifth Grade)
● Using same instructional activity across grade levels
“Observing and teaching in various grades showed how a
concept can be developed through the grades.”
Developing a Shared Vision of Practice
James Crawford, former principal at Valhalla Elementary
> Before Math Labs: teachers were not paying
close attention to student thinking and were
not carefully planning lessons
Developing a Shared Vision of Practice
> Labs focus on collaborative lesson planning
– First year:
> Two grade levels; six teachers
> Worked together to plan with a focus on student
talk, sharing with staff
– Second year:
> All teachers in the school were in a lab
> Focus on student talk as well as other elements of
lesson planning: student thinking, launching tasks,
purpose, student conceptions and struggles,
questioning
Developing a Shared Vision of Practice
> Shift in Culture: teachers initially hesitant to participate
in a new vision of practice were more willing to explore
new ways of planning, teaching and learning, had
increased trust, and higher expectations for their
students.
APPLICATION TO YOUR PRACTICE
Turn + Talk
What about these individuals’ leadership actions was salient
for you?
What can you take from these principals’ experiences to your
own contexts?
THANK YOU!
Questions?
> Jessica Rigby | [email protected]
> Anita Lenges | [email protected]