Teachers on the Path to Professional Learning Community
Author(s):
Lucie Chaloupkova (presenting / submitting)
Conference:
ECER 2012
Network:
21. Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)
Format:
Paper

Session Information

ERG SES H 14, Classrooms

Parallel Paper Session

Time:
2012-09-18
13:15-14:45
Room:
FCEE - Aula 4.9
Chair:
Christine Winter

Contribution

The research deals with a further education of teachers, particularly at the school level and an important part of the research consists of Teacher ś continuing  professional development (we can use the similar concept as futher teacher´s training or futher education of teacher). The area of teacher ś continuing professional developmetn is specific from many perspectives. One of the features is coping with constantly changing social conditions that are considerable demanding for the teaching staff. This method is extensively connected to the way of  a further education of teachers whose work is an important creator of that quality in education. The concept of learning community could be found particularly interesting from this perspective (defined by some authors in this context as a professional learning community, compare to Kruse, 1995; Dufour, 2006, Fullan, 2006), as an objective  which we could approach. The teacher´s training takes place at a selected school and school management in a form of mentoring. Mentoring is at a very beginning here and it is already beginning to prepare conditions for the adoption of this new method of education. As the school management acknowledged, it has led to a gradual creation of a learning community. The aim of this paper is to determine whether the method pursued by the organization of further teacher´s training and the creation of conditions for this process shows important characteristics of professional learning community. It is also important to see how this theory is perceived by both actors in the given context. I follow a statement that "professional learning communities are in fact about Establishing lasting new collaborative cultures. Collaborative cultures are the ones that focus on building the capacity for continuous improvement and are intended to be a new way of working and learning. They are meant to be enduring capacities, not just another program innovation. "(Michael Fullan, 2006, p. 10) In examining the issue I rely on the definition of lifelong learning (compare to Strategies of  Lifelong Learning in The Czech Republic, 2007, the EU Memorandum on Lifelong Learning (2001)), continuous professional education and professional learning community ( Dufour, 2006; Stoll, Seashore, 2007).
The aim is to describe the conditions and the process of forming a professional learning community environment in Czech schools.The research question is formulated: "What is characteristic for a professional learning community in the monitored school environment? Partial research questions deal with how this community see its members and how they benefit from it. The main method of further teacher´s education in selected school is mentoring. The influence of this approach in shaping a learning community will be also  monitored.
Qualitative research is a chosen methodological approach, described below.

Method

The research strategy is a qualitative research. Qualitative research is conducted through an intense and/or prolonged contact with a ´field´or life situation. These situation are typically ´banal´or normal ones, reflective of the everyday life of individuals, groups, societies and organizations.“ (Punch, 2009, s. 117) In this case it concerns a performance of a case study. „The case study aids to understand the case in deppth, and in its natural setting, recognizing its komplexity and its context. It also has a holistic focus, aiming to preserve and understand the wholeness and unity of the case. (Punch, 2009, s. 119) The research question is in order to this strategy wide and open. It sounds „What is characteristic for a professional learning community at a monitored school? The research method was a semi-structured interview with participants of futher education program in other words with pedagogical workers in a selected school. All interviews were recorded and transcribed word by word. . The seminars, evaluation meetings or meetings with mentors and mentee will be part of following activities in the context of case study.

Expected Outcomes

Further education of teachers in a selected school uses mentoring as a central method. The benefits of the proposed study will be description of the implementation of mentoring in access to further education for teachers. Another benefit is to determine the role of the school environment, the conditions created by school management and other circumstances in the adoption of the concept of professional learning community. What is the supervised learning community and how it works, how it is perceived by its members and how they benefit from it. At the same time these findings of rather a descriptive character can serve as an example of a good practice for implementing changes in other schools. I come from a general awareness that the creation of conditions supporting the emergence of multiple professional learning communities at school is perceived as a beneficial strategy in terms of a successful school (cf. Hargreaves, A., Fink, D., 2006, Louis, K. S., 2006, Rosenholtz, S., 1989).

References

DuFour, R., Eaker, R., & Many, T. (2006). Learning by doing: A handbook for professional learning communities that work. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree. European Report on Quality Indicators of Lifelong Learning [online]. Brusel: European Commision, 2002. 95 p. [cit. 2006-07-03]. Available from http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/lll/life/report/quality/report_en.pdf. Fullan, M. "Leading Professional Learning," School Administrator, vol. 63, no. 10 (November 2006), pp. 10–14, Available from http://www.aasa.org/publications/saarticledetail.cfm?ItemNumber=7565. Memorandum of Lifelong Learning [online]. Brusel: European Commission, 2000. no paging [cit. 2006-07-03]. Available from http://www.nvf.cz/archiv/memorandum/obsah.htm. Hargreaves, A. and Fink,D. (2006). Sustainable leadership. San Francisco, CA:Jossey-Bass/Wiley.Louis, K. S., Kruse, S. D. and Associates (1995). Professionalism and Community: Perspektives on Reforming Urban School. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Louis, K. S. (2006). Changing the culture of schools: professional community, organizational learning a nd trust, Journal of School Leadership, 16(4):477-89. Stoll, L., Seashore, K.L. (2007). Profesional Learning Communities. Divergence, Depth and Dilemas. Open University Press. Punch, F. K. (2009). Introduction to Research Methods in Education. Sage. Rosenholtz, S. J. (1989). Teacher's workplace: The social organization of schools. New York: Longman.

Author Information

Lucie Chaloupkova (presenting / submitting)
Masaryk university
Department of Educational Sciences
Brno

Update Modus of this Database

The current conference programme can be browsed in the conference management system (conftool) and, closer to the conference, in the conference app.
This database will be updated with the conference data after ECER. 

Search the ECER Programme

  • Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
  • Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
  • Search for authors and in the respective field.
  • For planning your conference attendance, please use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference and the conference agenda provided in conftool.
  • If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.