Professional learning provides opportunities for participants to share ideas and work together to learn and grow.
Professional learning provides opportunities for participants to share ideas and work together to learn and grow.
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Why?
Collaboration provides an opportunity for adult learners to share their prior knowledge and experiences with their colleagues and demonstrate a willingness to understand alternate points of view. As trust is built, learners are able to engage in collective reflection, shared inquiry, risk-taking and inventive problem-solving. Collaborative practices leverage individual contributions to move the learning of the group forward and increase achievement.
Guiding Questions:
In what ways will collaboration benefit individual participants and the goals of the group?
How do the structures and protocols you select provide opportunities for participants to collaborate and learn from each other?
How can the collaborative structures you select promote reflection, feedback and appreciation of others’ points of view?
Learning Resources:
How Teachers Lead Teachers, Educational Leadership, 2009
Chapter 13: Starting a School Year of Deeper Learning for Teachers Connecting the Dots: Teacher Effectiveness and Deeper Professional Learning. Ed. James A. Bellanca. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press, 2016. p 299-320.
Chapter 1: Promoting a Culture of Professional Learning Formative Classroom Walkthroughs: How Principals and Teachers Collaborate to Raise Student Achievement. Connie M. Moss and Susan M. Brookhart. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2015. p 1-14.
Facilitation Strategies:
Group Juggle: Group Juggle provides a playful opportunity to reflect on group dynamics and collaborative skills.
Jigsaw Structures: This document links to three versions of the Jigsaw Strategy. The Jigsaw is a shared learning protocol that asks a group of learners to become “experts” on a specific text or body of knowledge and then share their learning with other group members.
What? So What? Now What?: This critical reflection protocol embeds opportunities to give and receive feedback.
Brainwriting: Brainwriting is a simple way to generate ideas from multiple contributors, share them and subsequently build on them within a group.
The Final Word: The purpose of this discussion protocol is to give each person in the group an opportunity to have their ideas, understandings and perspectives enhanced by hearing from others.
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