Supporting Communities of Practice Among Physical Education Professionals

1. Jennifer Wall Keynote APEQ Conference Monteal, Canada, 2010 Supporting Communities of Practice Among Physical Education Professionals Mary O’Sullivan, Ph.D. Dean, Faculty of Education and Health Sciences Co-Director PE PAYS Research Centre University of Limerick Ireland

2. Outline of Presentation • Why the need for investment in CPD? • Shifting perspectives? • AIESEP Consensus Statement • Communities of Learners • Teachers as CPD providers

3. Teaching Matters thus Teachers Matter

4. Student Learning Matters: What are they learning?

5. The Lifespan of a Teacher Preparing for Teaching: 1-5 years Practicing Teaching: 30,000 lessons over 35 year career

6. Worldwide support for CPD • CPD vital to enhance teaching and learning (OECD, 2005) • World PE Summit demanded a policy priority for continuing professional education (CPD) of PE teachers (2nd World Summit, ICSSPE, 2005) • AIESEP Consensus Statement on PE CPD (AIESEP, 2008)

7. Shifting Perspectives of CPD Traditional CPD • Offerings are one time sessions • Mostly new national curriculum or assessment practice • Little or no follow up • CPD unrelated to specific teaching conditions/stage of career • A Story…Ger’s CDP

8. Contemporary CPD approaches… • Involve teachers in identifying their own learning needs • Address knowledge, skills and attitudes (teacher context & stage of career) • School based • Collaborative problem solving • On going dialogue • Focused on student learning

9. Definition of Continuous Professional Development (CPD)? • Process where teachers [alone or with others] review, renew, and extend commitments as change agents to teaching in their contexts • Develop knowledge, skills, and stamina for professional thinking, planning, and practice with children and colleagues during working life (Day, 1999).

10. Professional Development-CPD Continuous, continuing…(sustained) Professional (working closely with professional colleagues) …resulting in… Development (progressive changes to school ethos, teacher practice, pupils and curricula). (Armour & O’Sullivan, 2005)

11. AIESEP Consenus Statement noted… • Physical education teachers have both the right and the responsibilityto be engaged in effective continuing professional development (CPD) • Being informed is a defining characteristic of an education professional

12. AIESEP Rationale for CPD • Enhance teacher and pupil learning • Inspire and sustain teachers’ professional curiosity • Reduce teacher burnout and attrition • Marie’s story…27 years teaching

13. Purposes for CPD… • Support teachers as learning professionals; • Ensure competent and confident PE teachers in position to inform and influence national debates • Recognise teaching is complex & challenging so CDP is a professional responsibility; • strengthen the professional identity of PE teachers and advocates for their pupils • Dan’ story • expand teachers’ PE knowledge to meet pupils’ diverse learning needs

14. Effective CPD… • Teachers need time to learn and integrate learning into their practice; • Teachers have different needs • Address imperatives of government policies; • Teachers can access, use and contribute to knowledge base in physical education; • PE teachers supported to develop communities of professional learners

15. Effective CPD… • Aligns with teachers’ values, curiosity • Enhances teachers’ knowledge and skills they need for their work • Focussed on improving student learning • Delivered in variety of formats • Begins with initial teacher education • Mike’s story…

16. AIESEP CPD Research Agenda… • How can learning communities be established and supported? • How can teachers be supported to learn throughout their careers?

17. CPD---New approaches…useful? • Action Research as CPD • Communities of Practice/Learners • Social Networking… • Emailing • Blog • Twitter

18. Community of Learners? • It defines itself in the doing, as members are involved in a set of relationships over time and work around things that matter to them. • They develop among themselves their own understandings of what their practices and profession are about. • A community of practiceexists because it produces a shared practice as members engage in a collective process of learning. • Structured gatherings that allow for informal and formal learning

19. Key Attributes… • Teachers a key resource in supporting and sustaining their own and colleagues’ practice • Develop shared understandings of what their practice is about • Sustained by the value gained from group • School leaders must have the vision to see the value of such learning communities • Allow/encourage teachers to take risks

20. Why Community of Learners? • Teachers more willing to… • take risks, • reflect on their failures • share successful programs and practices (Craig, 2004; Deglau, Ward, & O’Sullivan, 2006).

21. Nurturing Communities of Learners • Legitimate participation. • Negotiating context. • Attuned to real practices. • Fine-tuning organization. • Providing support. Marie’s Story…

22. Stages of Development

23. Advocates for CoL? • Conditions for improving teaching and learning are strengthened when teachers collectively question ineffective teaching routines, examine new conceptions of teaching and learning… and engage in actively in supporting professional growth (Little 2002, p. 917).

24. Building Teacher Identity via Community of PracticeDeglau & O’Sullivan (Under Review) From Identities as Marginalized Staff to… • Collaborators • Leaders • Experts • Innovators and Advocates

25. Identities as Marginalized Staff • At the district level, we’re still combating the ideology that it’s just gym. And we still have PE teachers who are calling it gym and so trying to get that focus away from rolling out the ball to actually what we are doing in the district, I don’t think people get it. And so it’s hard for us to get the support (Crystal) • little appreciation for your subject area [and] viewed as a training ground for the athletes in the building” (Debbie)

26. Identities as Collaborators • And I just liked the opportunities for getting together; and there were relationships developed. .. That wouldn’t have occurred before, (Debbie) • I know ….of the people I really became close with, 7-8 of us, that you’ve got more than just your equipment. I think the phys-ed programs are set up better in [this district], with that core group and the support you have (Jim)

27. Identities as Leaders • I believe I have a lot of knowledge at this point from working with the grants and my responsibility is to help the teachers in the district which ultimately also affects the kids in the district any way I can (Dan) • Would I have been willing to assist other teachers with my program? No ‘cause I was kind of embarrassed of it. I wasn’t proud of what I was doing, I wasn’t sure of myself, I realized that I always wanted to teach but I just didn’t like where things were going…Through PEP, I know how to make my program [better] and now I’m not afraid to go share what I’ve done with these other teachers (Karen)

28. Identities as Experts • Teachers took new content and made it their own: • Well, yes and no, I mean I used a lot of the[CONTENT] you know, take bits and pieces and kind of make it your own, that’s what I kinda tried to do with the dance lesson. … I took pieces of that, you know, pieces of the writing things that we learned, the social responsibility, I just kind of put it all together and kinda made it my own

29. Identities as Innovators & Advocates • Teachers gained belief in advocating for PE profession and PE programme: • I would say the confidence and the passion that I’ve got for phys-ed and implementing it within the district. Like being a real advocate for it as opposed to, yeah this is what we need to do, but not really getting off your butt and doing it... • “I am more outspoken on issues that involve my profession and I fight others who try to disregard my class as not relevant and significant to a child’s education”

30. Community of Practice: How • teachers collectively question their practice, • examine new conceptions of teaching and learning, • actively support professional growth of peers • examine own beliefs in dialogue with others • build knowledge/skills of curriculum and pedagogy • work on problems ofrelevance to them • share what they know/have learned with each other (Bechtel & O’Sullivan, 2006; Little 2002, p. 917).

31. Characteristics of Communities of Learning (CoL) • Focused on student learning • Involve teachers in identifying their own learning needs • Provide theoretical & content knowledge • Are school based & embedded in work lives • Organized around collaborative problem solving • On going dialogue/sharing & on site support

32. CPD How:Teachers Working Together Across Time • Collaboration over time with personnel in schools… • creating and sustaining communities of practice (Parker, Patton, Madden, & Sinclair, 2010) • Missy, Kevin and Colorado PE teachers story…

33. Creating and Sustaining CoL • A Catalyst…. • Teachers---to create and develop K-5 PE curriculum • Missy--- I wanted it [new curriculum] to be quality knowing full well that they didn’t know what quality was…my goal was an invisible structure that educated on the one hand and empowered on the other

34. The drivers to initiate effort.. • Money----Even though it is not that big, it is just one piece that keeps you going • Nucleus ofteachers---there was this small core group that said ‘this is something we need to do, so lets go for it • School levelleadership---we got a more specific sense of what we want to accomplish

35. Importance of support & knowledge • The university [personnel] facilitated not directed and they listened and they had the same goal as we did (teacher) • It was great having people who specialise in curriculum development because I felt rather clueless [coming in]…also providing resources was wonderful (teacher)

36. The power of relationships • Relationships among teachers proved to be a vital factor in the process and supported their efforts.. • they endured beyond theCoP---they have outlived the grant

37. Teacher empowerment is critical • The teachers creation of knowledge provided them with a sense of confidence and propelled them throughout the process… • they developed a sense of empowerment and it led to ownership, increased confidence, and a belief they could “do anything”

38. Tensions in Delivering Quality CPD • Balance teachers’ needs/expectations with vision for CPD initiative. • knowing what rather than wanting to know why? • Attention to interface between focus on content, pedagogy, teacher beliefs, and student learning • Practical relevance and intellectual stimulation • Politeness and/or critical discussion with peers about teaching and student learning, and professional identity. • Designing PD experiences where teachers can admit deficits without being considered deficient

39. What makes CPD Effective? • “questions remain concerning how to conceptualize teacher learning and, correspondingly, about how to construct professional development so as to foster meaningful change”(Butler, el al., 2004 p. 436) • PD programs have limited success because they fail to consider the process of teacher change (Guskey, 2002)

40. Core Features of CPD • it builds on what teachers’ have already learned; • emphasizes content and pedagogy aligned with standards, frameworks, and assessments within the context of teachers’ daily lives • supports teachers in developing sustained, ongoing professional communities with other teachers who are trying to change in similar ways (Garet et al., 2001, p. 927). • focused on sustained learning built on collective reflection, action, and ownership (West Ed, 2000. O’Sullivan, 2009) • Collaboration and multiple supports important structural features (Armour & Yelling, 2005; Ward & O’Sullivan, 2006

41. One Size Does Not Fit All • Professional Leaders • Potential Professional Leaders • Technicians • Laborers

42. What structures are appropriate for engaging Quebec teachers in shared conversations about policy and practices of CPD? How well do the values/needs of teachers align with those who arrange for CPD initiatives for PE teachers in Quebec? Questions for Discussion?

43. Thank You Questions, comments, challenges welcomed in a shared dialogue… Jennifer Wall Address APEQ Conference Monteal, Canada, 2010

44. Contemporary CPD Research (1)Teacher motivation & capacity for reformHa, Wong, Sum & Chang (2008) Examined receptivity of PE teachers to curricular reform and capacity to accomplish proposed changes • Differentiated CPD for novice and experienced teachers • Novices needed leadership & support • Veterans more able and positive toward change • Deficits around student assessment, inclusive pedagogies

45. Contemporary CPD ResearchCommunities of PracticeParker et al (2010; In Press) Research Question: What factors facilitated the creation and maintenance of community of practice? • Importance of catalyst to initiate effort • Importance of a vision for the project • Importance of support…knowledge • The power of relationships • Realization of empowerment as critical