From the Quality Teaching model to Quality Teaching Rounds: Leading professional learning

1. From the Quality Teaching model to Quality Teaching Rounds: Leading professional learning Professor Jenny Gore The University of Newcastle

2. Complex field of teacher professional learning Support such as protocols, leadership, facilitation Teacher learning, teaching practice, student outcomes

3. Principles of effective PD • Adequate time for professional learning • Collaboration among teachers • Reflection on practice • A coherent professional learning program • Participation in active rather than passive learning

4. We have worked, collectively and separately, in dozens of school districts where there was no common point of view on instruction, where ten educators from the same district could watch a fifteen-minute classroom video and have ten different opinions about its quality, ranging the full gamut from high praise to excoriation. Gaining an explicit and widely held view of what constitutes good teaching and learning in your setting is a first step toward any systematic efforts to scaling up quality. (City et al.,2009 p.173, emphasis added)

5. 5 Quality Teaching - Dimensions and Elements Note: * Marked elements do not pertain to the coding of assessment practice.

6. A comprehensive approach to teaching Focus on curriculum decisions Clear goals for and commitment to learning for all students A supportive approach to teacher development 6 Underlying mechanisms

7. *1942 teachers, several of whom completed the questionnaire in more than one year of the study 7 Overview of data collection SIPA 2004 - 2007

8. Deep Knowledge coding scale

9. Difference between primary and secondary is statistically significant (t=4.469, df=662, p<.01) 9 Intellectual Quality of lessons

10. Difference between primary and secondary is statistically significant (t=7.946, df=662, p<.01) 10 Quality Learning Environment of lessons

11. Difference between primary and secondary is statistically significant (t=2.219, df=662, p<.05) 11 Significance of lessons

12. Students with low prior achievement get poorer quality pedagogy Indigenous and low SES students get poorer quality pedagogy Better pedagogy is correlated with narrowing of achievement gaps for indigenous and low SES students Teachers’ dispositions and beliefs are related to the context in which they work 12 Quality Teaching and Equity

13. Quality Teaching Rounds • Developed for the ARC Linkage project Effective Implementation of Pedagogical Reform, 2009-2012 – Gore and Miller CIs; Bowe, PhD candidate; Bowe and Roy, facilitators • Taking place in 4 schools, with 7-8 teachers in each school forming a professional learning community (principal included in 3) • Combines aspects of professional learning community, instructional rounds and the Quality Teaching model

14. Convinced effect on teaching practice and student outcomes Explore and understand concept in relation to beliefs and values Active collaboration and dialogue Trusting, supportive atmosphere External facilitation Coherence in professional learning and in reform agenda Extended professional learning time Leadership support 14 Literature on teacher buy-in

15. long-term, ongoing commitment to a group the capacity for the development of trust and respect colleagues with whom to debate and explore practice scope for breadth of insights/diverse views to be articulated 15 Professional Learning Community

16. turn taking which requires all participants to share their practice a common experience as a basis for analysis and discussion deprivatised practice a focus on describing practice 16 Rounds process

17. a lens through which to comprehensively notice and assess what it happening in any lesson -- both for the teacher and for the students a tool for the systematic and specific analysis and judging of lesson quality a focus on the lesson rather than the individual teacher a framework from which to commence important conversations not only about the specific lesson observed but also about teaching in general 17 Quality Teaching model

18. Session 1: Professional reading to develop a shared knowledge base, includes interrogation of the Quality Teaching model, explicitly providing constructive spaces for alternative points of view. Session 2: Classroom observation by all members of the PLC. A common experience on which to base discussions using the shared lens of Quality Teaching. Session 3: Coding and discussion of the observed lesson drawing on the language and concepts of the Quality Teaching model. Teachers make judgments about the observed practice based on their own experience, knowledge, and insights. Disconfirming evidence or alternative experiences and views are discussed. Note: Teachers are encouraged to reflect on their own practice and broader practices within the school, so that the professional conversation moves beyond the observed lesson. 18 Anatomy of a Rounds day

19. The sample • Group A: 28 teachers who participated in Rounds, 21completed survey in 2009 • Group B: 47 teachers at schools where Rounds were being conducted but not participating • Group C: 256 teachers at 12 other schools in same school system that had participated in QT Rounds pilot and prior QT professional development • Group D: B +C = 303

20. teachers’ view of the coherence of professional learning in the school; teachers’ view of the coherence between Quality Teaching and aspects of the school organisation: teachers’ views of the effectiveness of their professional learning experiences; teachers’ estimate of the level of trust among teachers in the school; the degree to which they feel supported to engage with Quality Teaching; how favourably Quality Teaching has been received in their school; how important Quality Teaching is; and, the degree to which they take responsibility for student learning. 20 Survey scales

21. Comparison between participants in QT Rounds and non-participants for all scales, 2009 * p<0.05, ** p0.01, d>0.5 (moderate), d>0.8 (large)

22. SUMMARY This comprehensive approach to teacher professional learning, an approach that focused teachers’ attention on student learning, actively and collaboratively engaged them in making sense of the reform, and provided them with extended time and other symbolic and practical forms of support, enabled them to experience coherent and meaningful professional learning. These data augur well for the potential of Quality Teaching Rounds within professional learning communities to substantially impact on teacher professional learning.

23. Developing Teachers’ Pedagogical Understanding • Well, I think the whole notion of not being on your own, locked behind a door and teaching, … there’s a lot of security in that and this model [QT Rounds] removes a lot of security and … teaching in front of your peers is quite challenging. [I51000209] • We were all along thinking, we’re not going to teach in front of anybody, we’re not going to actually do that, we’ll pull out before that or whatever, but [now] we understand what this is all about…it really, to me, makes me a better teacher” [I51000609]

24. Developing Teachers’ Pedagogical Understanding • I think that it’s the best approach to changing your thinking and changing your classroom practice that I’ve been involved in…This rounds approach means that you’re in the thick of it straight away. There’s no hiding, there’s no – like it’s you’re in there and you’re doing it and it’s affecting your classroom practice… like I was going in and viewing other people’s lessons and there’s so much value in even doing that and learning from each other and it’s the value of the conversation afterwards that’s so important and sort of that reflective practice. [I51300409]

25. Developing Teachers’ Pedagogical Understanding • I think the model of teachers presenting lessons and being coded is beneficial for all. We are learning from each other in a risky but safe way. Risky because you put yourself in front of people you respect and admire, but safe because they can be trusted to deliver honest and helpful critiques. Being in other classrooms widens your experience of different ideas and practices. I have always felt there is a level of ‘performance’ in teaching- and watching other teachers ‘perform’ enriches your own approach to the craft of teaching. [J042010]

26. Distributing power • I think I was third and I remember sitting there once thinking, oh crush [sic], one instance I think where a score was something completely way off what everyone else had coded and I was like ‘oh gosh, I was doing so well.’ …but I think what was more valuable was the talk around it and different people’s insights into why they coded a particular way, so yeah while, though it was just that one fleeting moment of oh dear I’ll just sink into my shell, the conversation allowed me to come back out I guess and then still be a part of all the conversations that came after, still be part of all the sessions that came after. [I51000309]

27. Overcoming differences I have never planned so collaboratively in my previous 20 years of teaching experience as I have over the last 18 months. I don’t think it’s because I didn’t want to, but I think it was the fact that I felt I was very dissimilar in my teaching style to others I have worked with. The focus of lessons or units I have previously taught didn’t seem to always go with the way others were teaching the same material. Now that we all have the same ideas about what makes a great unit or a great lesson I see how similar I am to the way I plan with my grade partner. Because we have the same language and goals for a lesson/unit now, we are not bogged down with the way we like to do things, but are focused on the way these lessons should be planned: what to include, what to leave out, what is the focus. [J112009]

28. Negotiating agreement • Yeah you have your shared understandings … you’ve got something to base it on so it doesn’t matter if you’ve been teaching a hundred years or two years you know, if you can put it in the context and argue it for or against within that framework or that language, then it kind of becomes a benchmark. Because if you don’t have that, it’s very easy for me to convince anybody that what I’m doing is right, if I don’t actually have something to stick onto. [I51100210]

29. Negotiating agreement • This year a lot of our time, for two or three hours, is centred on debate and discussion and clarification and challenging each other’s ideas and I think [this] comes through the confidence, and talking the language, and understanding and unpacking what was happening in the lesson, as well unpacking what the suggestions and what the elements are all about and what they’re centred on. [I5120042010]

30. Negotiating agreement • so you’re talking about apples and apples whereas if people are off doing their own thing, there is no commonality of either any form of criteria let alone the language that you will use, so for us the benefit has been around - it’s the critiquing that we’ve done that’s been important. [I1000910] • And when you look at like the 1 to 5 criteria, you’re actually now honing in on okay what does that one little word mean and how you actually score people and why you score people there rather than say a 3 or a 5 if you’re choosing a 4. It can be just that one little word that…and you actually really think about it much more now than you used to and me in particular I do. [I51300510]

31. Affirming and Reassembling Schema I’ve really, really enjoyed the opportunity to be involved with Quality Teaching. First of all in general because I…having taught for 30 years, it was probably…came at a good time when I was starting to feel a little bit stale. I wasn’t unhappy with my teaching but Quality Teaching has helped me look at it in the lens, under the QT lens, but make some changes to my teaching and it’s given me really good professional development that I wouldn’t have had otherwise, so I’ve really valued it for those reasons. I think it’s affirmed a lot of the things that I’ve always thought but made me look more closely at it and be more specific in what I’m…when I’m planning to do things, look at it much more specifically because I now have language to use around it, which has been helpful.[I51100310]

32. Coherent focus • That was our very first step here. Once we started using that language with each other things started to move but before that, when it was just two of us or three of us that just had it, I mean with everyone okay, but once we all joined the group and started using the language I think that’s when we made the big moves. [I1000510]

33. 33

34. 34

35. 35

36. 36

40. For me the greatest positive that has come out of the QT PD this year was the time we were given to be able to have professional conversations around current research and best practice and equally to be able to go into our colleagues’ classrooms and see great learning that is taking place across the school and again have the professional conversation around that. As a school I believe we've been comfortable with our colleagues in our rooms and having safe professional dialogue, but to be able to have the time to dedicate to such conversations has been invaluable. This type of course comes with the negatives of the number of days away from our classes, time it takes to organize work etc. In saying that I think the benefits far outweigh the negatives as the learning and conversations that came out of these days were some of the best professional learning that I have been a part of. 40

41. For more information, email: eipr@newcastle.edu.au