Chapter 2, Creating a Professional Learning Community

Jeff Whipple, a former engineer whom had a career change to the education field, recognized that teamwork is common practice for many fields in the 21^st century workplace but it remains the exception in education (Boss and Kross, 2007). My question here is in a field that directly affects the next generation of people whom will run our country, why wouldn’t we implement the best practices for their success? I know teachers are constantly on the move and never have enough time in a day to get things done, but setting aside time to collaborate with other teachers will not only  benefit the students but the teachers as well. From Whipple’s experiences, he found that brainstorming lesson plans and reflecting about what was going on in the classroom with his co-teachers was very beneficial. In fact, when he was transferred to a school where he taught eighth grade science in a self-contained classroom, he absolutely hated it. He felt isolated because he could not find the time to talk to other teachers much less share ideas. I think that situation is not only harmful for the teacher but the students. Unless you are driven to find resources online after your already draining day, it would be difficult to improve on techniques if you are not collaborating with others. Since he has joined the laptop initiative, he now mentors in several schools.  He has stated that, “If I could do one thing for teachers to make school better for students, I’d find a way to have teachers have more time to work together with each other and to develop collaborative projects” (Boss and Kross, p.25).

Not only is it important for teacher collaboration but we must also have shared vision in our learning communities. For three of my ten-year stent in the Kalamazoo Public Schools, I worked under the Reading First grant. Reading First is basically a state grant given to schools that have high poverty rates and low reading scores. With this grant came many stipulations and inspections by the state to make sure we were following them. The program draws on scientifically based reading research and targets k-3^rd grade students. One of the stipulations was that teachers had set 90-minute reading blocks. Part of the money spent on the grant was for the literacy coach to train paraprofessionals in reading interventions. During that time, I was assigned to two classroom-reading blocks where I ran a literacy center, the rest of the time I pulled students for group reading interventions and individual testing. My teachers were night and day. One shared the vision of Reading First and wanted to learn everything she could to make her students successful. The other did not want anything to do with the program and wanted to continue in her ways. The sad fact of the matter was that our literacy coach knew that collaboration was key and she allocated funds to try to make it happen. She started with a plan of bimonthly, grade level collaboration meetings with teachers and their paraprofessionals (their classroom was covered by building substitutes at that time). Each grade level but first had one opposed teacher which turned the “collaboration meeting” into a complain fest about the program. They were not willing to become a “learner” and their negativity wasted valuable time for us all and funds for the program. We decided our time would be best spent in the classroom while these meetings occurred. However, when I actually had time to collaborate with the interested teachers, we were able to discuss the techniques that were successful with specific students and generate more ideas for their literacy centers.

Elise Mueller writes, “Working together didn’t cost us anything other than time, but it made a huge difference in our classrooms” (Boss and Kross, p.28). Not only was that true for me when I worked in KPS but also today on this project. I spent hours researching other PBL ideas then I went to Facebook and simply asked my education friends what their ideas were. I had more inspiration in the few minutes of chatting with friends than I had in hours of research. Without collaboration, I would easily waste more time!    

 When I teach my own classroom, I hope I have a supportive staff that is interested in collaborating. We have learned that there are many benefits to learning communities and that they can make your professional life more productive and satisfying. They create a culture of collaboration for school improvement, ensure that students learn, and focus on results. There is definitely a shared responsibility and more powerful learning going on (Boss and Kross, pp 32-33).Even when I think, my ideas are great; I find that the uniqueness that others bring makes it reach a new level of awesomeness.

 One thing I will have to work on in collaboration is being able to scrutinize others instructional choices and classroom practices. I tend to stick with the positives and feel that I will hurt feelings giving constructive feedback. I have to keep in mind that our end result is to help each other be more effective teachers and without my input I am not helping them grow or their students.