Facilitating Learning in Groups

In her book Powerful Designs for Professional Learning Lois Brown Easton describes powerful professional learning as possessing the following characteristics or attributes:

• Arises from and returns benefits to the real world of teaching and learning
• Focus is on what is happening with learners (both student and adult) in the classroom, school, and district
• Collaborative or has collaborative aspects
• Establishes a culture of quality
• Slows the pace of schooling, providing time for the inquiry and reflection that promote learning and application

Guiding Ideas

If our purpose is simply to transmit knowledge then we might make 92 slides, read them and with one minute left in the session ask if there are any questions. While this might be a slight exaggeration of the "one and done" or "seagull style" approach to professional learning, it does speak to the importance of employing learning designs that provide opportunities for for educators to collaboratively construct knowledge and to learn from and with each other.

The learning experiences we design and facilitate are simply provocations, the real work occurs every day in our classrooms and schools. Placing students at the centre of learning for educators helps address the "why are we here" whether it's in a formal workshop setting, role-based community of practice or part of an ongoing mentoring relationship. Thinking about how we can bring students into the room centres the "why" as supporting the well-being and learning of students is why we're all here.

A "why" for our role as facilitators might be to inspire and support the educators we work with and learn from to live the learning in their classrooms and schools. Providing embedded time for educators to think together about applying the learning in their context recognizes their lived experiences and honours the complexity and messiness of teaching and learning.

Practical Ideas from and for Board Coaches | Consultants | Coordinators

Here are thoughts from your colleagues about they approach making professional learning not something that is “done” to participants but rather something they collaboratively construct.

• Starting with relationships
• Building community along with curricular knowledge throughout the learning
• Affirming practice via acknowledgement of educators...this builds trust and demonstrates professional respect
• Leaving space to co-construct learning...this allows for responsiveness to emerging learning needs
• Balancing content delivery with knowledge construction opportunities
• Providing practical "classroom ready" next day, next week ideas
• Bringing joy, humour, humanity and laughter to the learning experiences
• Taking a co-learning stance
• Identifying how to access resources (e.g., board intranet)
• Placing students as the frame for the learning (i.e. the why)
• Being explicit in the use and amplification of Student Voice in order to empower educators...one approach could be using text as expert to bring students into the room

Sites of Learning – Classroom Observation and Debriefing

In our longitudinal research with new teachers in Ontario this learning design had the strongest correlation to growth in instructional practice. Simply put, there is no better place to learn than the classroom as it truly reflects the beauty, complexity and messiness of learning.

Observation and debriefing, whether it be informal observation of a mentor’s classroom by a beginning teacher or a more formal site of learning process, represents a powerful tool for personalized and authentic professional learning. By learning from and with each other, colleagues build meaningful communities of collaboration focused on the real world of teaching and learning in practice.

Classroom Observation and Debriefing Glideshow