Professional Learning Communities at Work TM. Robert Eaker
even more important, they are embedded in the hearts and minds of people throughout the school. Mission, vision, and values are so integral to a learning community that each will be discussed in detail in later chapters.
2. Collective inquiry. The engine of improvement, growth, and renewal in a professional learning community is collective inquiry. People in such a community are relentless in questioning the status quo, seeking new methods, testing those methods, and then reflecting on the results. Not only do they have an acute sense of curiosity and openness to new possibilities, they also recognize that the process of searching for answers is more important than having an answer. Furthermore, their search is a collective one.
Ross, Smith, and Roberts (1994) refer to the collective inquiry process as “the team learning wheel” and identify four steps in that process:
1. Public reflection—members of the team talk about their assumptions and beliefs and challenge each other gently but relentlessly.
2. Shared meaning—the team arrives at common ground, shared insights.
3. Joint planning—the team designs action steps, an initiative to test their shared insights.
4. Coordinated action—the team carries out the action plan. This action need not be joint action but can be carried out independently by the members of the team.
At this point, the team analyzes the results of its actions and repeats the four-step cycle.
This process enables team members to benefit from what Senge et al. (1994) has called “the deep learning cycle … the essence of the learning organization” (p. 18). Collective inquiry enables team members to develop new skills and capabilities, which in turn lead to new experiences and awareness. Gradually, the heightened awareness is assimilated into fundamental shifts in attitudes and beliefs. Ultimately, it is this ability to examine and modify beliefs that enables team members to view the world differently and make significant changes in the culture of the organization.
3. Collaborative teams. The basic structure of the professional learning community is a group of collaborative teams that share a common purpose. Some organizations base their improvement strategies on efforts to enhance the knowledge and skills of individuals. Although individual growth is essential for organizational growth to occur, it does not guarantee organizational growth. Thus, building a school’s capacity to learn is a collaborative rather than an individual task. People who engage in collaborative team learning are able to learn from one another, thus creating momentum to fuel continued improvement.
On the other hand, team learning is not the same as team building. The latter focuses on creating courteous protocols, improving communication, building stronger relationships, or enhancing the group’s ability to perform routine tasks together. Collaborative team learning focuses on organizational renewal and a willingness to work together in continuous improvement processes.
It is difficult to overstate the importance of collaborative teams in the improvement process. Fullan (1993) stresses their importance in Change Forces:
The ability to collaborate—on both a large and small scale—is one of the core requisites of post modern society…. [I]n short, without collaborative skills and relationships it is not possible to learn and to continue to learn as much as you need in order to be an agent for social improvement. (pp. 17–18)
4. Action orientation and experimentation. Professional learning communities are action oriented. Members of such organizations turn aspirations into action and visions into reality. Not only do they act; they are unwilling to tolerate inaction. They recognize that learning always occurs in a context of taking action, and they believe engagement and experience are the most effective teachers. Even seemingly chaotic activity is preferred to orderly, passive inaction.
An important corollary of the action orientation is a willingness to experiment—to develop and test hypotheses. Members of professional learning communities are often asked to develop, test, and evaluate theories. They reflect on what happened and why, develop new theories, try new tests, evaluate the results, and so on. This willingness to experiment is accompanied by a tolerance for results that may be contrary to what was anticipated. While traditional organizations tend to brand such experiments as failures and then seek to assign blame, learning organizations consider failed experiments to be an integral part of the learning process—opportunities to learn and then begin again more intelligently.
5. Continuous improvement. A persistent discomfort with the status quo and a constant search for a better way characterize the heart of a professional learning community. Continuous improvement requires that each member of the organization is engaged in considering several key questions:
1. What is our fundamental purpose?
2. What do we hope to achieve?
3. What are our strategies for becoming better?
4. What criteria will we use to assess our improvement efforts?
A commitment to continuous improvement is evident in an environment in which innovation and experimentation are viewed not as tasks to accomplish or projects to complete, but as ways of conducting day-to-day business, forever. Members of a professional learning community recognize and celebrate the fact that mission and vision are ideals that will never be fully realized, but must always be worked toward. In short, becoming a learning community is less like getting in shape than staying in shape—it is not a fad diet, but a never-ending commitment to an essential, vital way of life.
6. Results orientation. Finally, a professional learning community realizes that its efforts to develop shared mission, vision, and values; engage in collective inquiry; build collaborative teams; take action; and focus on continuous improvement must be assessed on the basis of results rather than intentions. Unless initiatives are subject to ongoing assessment on the basis of tangible results, they represent random groping in the dark rather than purposeful improvement. Peter Senge (1996) notes that “the rationale for any strategy for building a learning organization revolves around the premise that such organizations will produce dramatically improved results” (p. 44).
The School as a Professional Learning Community: A Scenario
How would these characteristics of learning communities affect daily operation of a school? Consider the following scenario, which illustrates the professional learning community at work:
Connie Donovan approached her first teaching assignment with all the anxiety and nervous trepidation of any first-year teacher. She had been assured during her interview that her new school operated as a learning community that valued teacher collaboration. Nevertheless, the memory of her roommate’s introduction to the teaching profession the year before was still fresh in her mind. Poor Beth had been assigned to teach one of the most difficult remedial courses in her school—classes filled with students who had failed the course in the past due to a variety of problems. Her orientation had consisted of a review of the employee manual and an overview of the teacher’s contract by the principal on the morning of the day before students were to arrive. Then she was given the key to her room, the teacher’s edition of the textbook, and her class roster. The following day, she faced her 135 students for the first time. Her nine weeks of training as a student teacher had not prepared her for the difficulties she encountered, and there was no support system to help her. She did not know how to respond to student misbehavior and apathy, and she had told Connie tearfully that she felt she was losing control of her class. Connie had watched Beth work far into the night, preparing lessons and grading papers, but each week Beth only seemed to become more discouraged and overwhelmed. Weekends offered no respite. Beth’s teaching position had been contingent upon her willingness to serve as cheerleading sponsor, and Friday nights and Saturdays were spent supervising cheerleaders. By March, she had decided that she was not cut out for teaching. She dreaded each day and frequently called in sick. By the end of the year, she had admitted to Connie that she felt like she was hanging on by her fingernails.
Knowing this story as she did, Connie was relieved to get a phone call that summer from Jim,