5. Results

5.1. Feedback from the Observation Session

The university partner made the following observations after sitting in on the sessions in Week 4. All Learning Team meetings took place in a room set up especially for the Professional Learning Team meetings. This light, airy room contained new furniture, including a meeting table and chairs, bookshelves for resources, and a computer with Internet. The walls were decorated with the charters developed by staff in Term I. Photographs of children engaged in various learning activities were strategically placed on the wall. The Learning Partner explained later that these were all photographs of staff children who attended the school. The wall also contained motivational posters. One read, for example, “Groups of teachers working together to ensure the best possible education for their students”.

Three different one-hour Learning Team meetings were observed. There were three participants in each meeting—two teachers from the same year who formed the Learning Team, and the Learning Partner. At each meeting, the Learning Partner chaired each meeting and reminded each Learning Team of the agenda for the meeting. The Learning Partner asked teachers about their numeracy data collection (on their students), and any issue they had experience or help they required; made suggestions on appropriate numeracy strategies, possible resources and websites, and referred to what some other Learning Teams in the school were doing. The Learning Partner also worked with teachers on their planning, and summarised the meeting at the end. Each group of two teachers used the meetings to clarify what they were doing in their numeracy teaching, explain what they were doing with testing, ask questions of the Learning Partner and their teacher colleague, search for appropriate resources, and work on their numeracy teaching guiding documents.

The following body language and participation was observed throughout the first meeting. The Learning Partner tended to be open, hand and arms on the desk, sitting forward such that she directed more of her conversation to the more vocal (dominant) teacher 1. Teacher 1 also adopted an open style, used hands for explanation, sitting forward in chair, and was the more dominant teacher. Teacher 2 tended to lean back in chair, hands crossed in lap, and tended towards monosyllabic responses or questions e.g. “yes”, “what are you doing with data?”. Despite some unequalness in body language and responses from the first meeting, overall the university observer felt that the atmosphere of the group was one of professionalism, support, positiveness and mutual respect. The only suggestion the university observer had for change after the meeting observation related to the seating arrangement and general interactions between the participants. To encourage more equal participation by both teachers, the university observer suggested that the Learning Partner should sit so that she evenly engaged with both teachers, and be conscious of the need to better engage the less vocal member of each team. These suggestions were taken up successfully by the Learning Partner in the second and third Team meetings.

5.2. Feedback from Participant Interviews

The participants were interviewed at the end of this process regarding their perceptions and understandings of the process. The teacher participants demonstrated that they have a good understanding of the purpose of the Professional Learning Teams and the roles each participant had in their team. They explained that the Professional Learning Teams were organised time for professional networking to promote the development of educational initiatives internally though our own expertise and knowledge. This was a structured time for teachers to work collaboratively on common goals (in this case numeracy). It provided time for teachers to reflect on themselves and their (numeracy) practices. The introduction of Professional Learning Teams was also seen as opportune in terms of several staff changes that had occurred during the year. Teachers saw the role of their Learning Partner as a collaborator as they worked with other team members to meet the needs of their students. The structure of the sessions was focused on the four key questions, and accessing those in terms of the students within their classes. Each Professional Learning Team worked in its own way to most effectively answer the four key questions: What is it we expect students to learn? What do they already know about what we expect them to learn? How will we know they have learnt it? How will we respond when they don’t learn?

Teachers saw their role to be to listen, accept, talk and remain open to change. Representative comments included, “We are creating a culture of collaboration. It’s a fundamental happening here”, and, “It’s a new way that promotes formal and informal sharing”. The focus on the student learning, however, was not sidelined with emphasis on the Team processes, and the teachers frequently talked about numeracy changes they were making, rather than about their role in Professional Learning Teams. Further, they reported changes in their practice, such as in the following response.

“… we are shifting in our understanding of how we teach Maths through professional talk. We are realising that texts have only a small place in the model we are developing. We are focussing more on problem solving activities...”

The participants generally reported that a uniform structure for numeracy blocks needed to be implemented, and that included a combination of explicit teaching, modelling, discussion, group and partner work, independent work and reflection. This, in the teachers’ views, required the time of this to be consistent.

5.3. Feedback from the Staff Survey

The staff survey allowed the research team to evaluate the process of developing and working through the Professional Learning Teams, by seeking detailed responses from thirteen teaching staff engaged in this process. Most of the questions were each answered by almost all of the respondents.

Nine respondents found Professional Learning Team process to be effective for them, while three indicated that they found the process to be ineffective or very ineffective. Ten reported that for them the Learning Partner was effective or very effective, while one reported the Learning Partner to be neither effective nor ineffective, and for the remaining two that for them the Learning Partner was ineffective.

In terms of identifying challenges of Professional Learning Teams for individuals, most (eleven) related to time, while for the twelfth participant the challenges lay in the “new assessment practices and identifying the specific needs of all students using pre-testing results”. Of those reporting time as a challenge, eight suggested there was not sufficient time for Professional Learning Teams, while three were concerned that devoting time to numeracy resulted in less time for other areas.

“Time taken for maths is valuable but ends up taking much more than the hour allocated each fortnight. I find I’m behind in the general daybook planning I usually doing in this time.”

“Time! While it’s valuable to meet and concentrate on better practice for maths, I end up spending an unbalanced amount of release time on maths and other areas are less organised. I would now prefer to use the [Professional Learning Teams]’s time making and organising the resources needed for maths groups. Talking about it is great but there is a lot of time and organisation needed to facilitate the changes.”

Additional themes from the two participants were that the year groups left no time for Stage meetings: “The [Professional Learning Team] group is too small when trying to think of new ideas. It could be more collaborative with larger groups.” One participant, in particular, clearly resented the Professional Learning Team process, writing, “[It] occurs during my own release time. Dread going every time... Too much assessing—pre, post etc., [my] students are getting resentful, quality being taken out of learning as I feel like I’m assessing all the time.”

On the other hand, in terms of perceived benefits, the most common theme (seven responses) was that the Professional Learning Teams had resulted in better numeracy outcomes for students. One teacher, for example, reflected, “Love that there is an organised time to meet share ideas and talk about children’s learning.” The next most popular theme (five responses) related to the benefits of collaboration; a typical comment from this group was: “Collaboration of ideas. People to bounce off and to make sure our grade is on the same page/track.” A third theme (four responses) identified professional development and professional discussions: “Wonderful professional development enabling me to improve my teaching practices and hence improving student learning and achievement for all children.” Finally, three respondents talked about consistency, one teacher highlighting “… consistency throughout the school, consistent assessment and monitoring of targets and student levels, one leader leading the discussion.”

Of course, given the aim of improving student learning in numeracy, it was important to seek the teachers’ views on whether they believe that their partnership in a professional leaning team has progressed numeracy in their classroom? All the respondents answered this question. Seven believed that the Professional Learning Teams had progressed numeracy in their classroom, while four reported that it had not; two were undecided. Teachers were then asked to explain their response.

For those responding positively, views reflected teachers’ confidence in 1) knowing how individual students were progressing, and 2) their professional role. In terms of better understanding student progress, teaches commented: “I know exactly where each child in my class sits for each mathematics sub-strand due to intensive pre-testing and analysis of results.”; “Groups started and progressing well. Doing the Sena 2 [an assessment scheme for early number assessment (DET, 2009)] gave us great insight into where our kids are in number. Analysing the results and grouping the children has been invaluable.”; “Great deal more focus on individual achievements and knowing exactly where my students are so I know how to move them forward. Love working together to improve student learning and that its evidence based.”; and “I have a good understanding of where the students are with regard to their number strategies. The Sena 2 testing was an excellent opportunity to gain this knowledge. As a result the children are grouped according to strategy used and we are working to move them on to the next strategy. Those commenting on their professional understanding noted: “Better knowledge of the students and professional conversation.”; “Fosters collaboration, provides evidence to support effective practices and challenges those that are not based on effective teaching.”; and “Helped create pre-assessments for each strand of maths, assisted with collating assessment results, shared ideas to plan maths programme for the next term.”

Some teachers, however, were undecided on whether there is any teaching or professional improvement: “It has made me focus on the key learnings rather than some of the periphery indicators, but I am wondering if this will be to the detriment of further learnings.” And “Has created a lot of work as yet am not able to compare results.” Other teachers, moreover, were not convinced of any significant improvement: “Don’t think my targets and levels are different compared to previous years.”; “My teaching is still aimed towards improving test results, so it hasn’t really changed.”; and “Don’t feel the results and learning are any better than previous years when we didn’t do [Professional Learning Team]s.”

6. Results

For Fullan (2008), sustainable change in education requires a tri-level, whole system, approach where a state or nation, the district and schools work together. Central to this change process, declares Fullan, are teachers, and what they do, and what they think. Schools that are led by principals who encourage strong professional communities are more likely to have a succession of good teachers. Notwithstanding this, both Fullan (2008) and Brown & Coles (2010) remind us that while educational change is complex, multi-faceted and difficult to accomplish, it is essential. This does not discourage, however, education researchers to examine possibilities for change. Goos’ (2008, 2009) work, for example, identifies possibilities for shifts in teacher development, recognising first that institutional and learning contexts are important, but, importantly, considering the possibility of extending perceptions of teacher as teacher and teacher as learner. Using Zone theory, theory, she (p. 212) argues that it is possible to bring “teaching, learning and context into the same discussion ….in two connected layers: 1) the teacher-as-teacher… [to] structure student learning; and 2) the teacher-as-learner… negotiating… their own professional learning”. Goos continues to discussion “the possibility for investigation of how mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge and beliefs define a set of possibilities for their continuing development…, how their professional contexts constrain their actions…, and how they experience and benefit from different opportunities to learn…”. The professional learning teams, and their development and implementation in this case study provide a potential context for this type of examination, and the initial observations recorded here provide insight into some of the practical processes that might underlie Goos’ theoretical model.

In 2011, the medium sized regional New South Wales Parish primary school, that is the focus of this case study, embarked on a journey of improvement. Inspired by exemplary practices observed during a district-   organised tour of Melbourne, the school’s Principal saw the potential for his school to implement professional learning communities. This initiative provided an opportunity to evaluate the development and effectiveness of Professional Learning Teams in improving numeracy in a primary school, an opportunity taken up in this research project. In particular, as the school trialled and evaluated the implementation of Professional Learning Teams, a focus was on the role of the Learning Partner. The project demonstrated that the Professional Learning Teams generally worked well with their Learning Partner; improvements were suggested and implemented as part of the research cycle. Based on the data collected, for example, the Learning Partner focused on effecting greater equality in the team members by encouraging the less vocal members to voice their idea. Further, the Deputy Principal refined the original action plan and introduced a segment on numeracy into the weekly staff meetings.

Summative feedback revealed that the majority of teachers found Professional Learning Teams to be an effective process for them, while a small group of teachers found them to be ineffective. When asked about the effectiveness of the Learning Partner, the results shifted further to the more positive side of the scale most teachers indicating the Learning Partner’s effectiveness. For teachers, the benefits of Professional Learning Teams lay in their perception of improvements in numeracy results, the opportunity for collaboration and professional development and professional discussion, as well as the implementation of consistency across the school. The almost common challenge for Professional Learning Teams participants, however, was time.

While this report marks the conclusion of this stage of this particular in-house research project, the school’s three-year project is only in its infancy. While it would be good to be able to report tangible evidence of improvements in student performance, that would be premature at this stage; it would be highly unlikely that there would be any significant measure of performance change after the initial implementation stage. More importantly, at this stage, the challenge now for the school is to continue the approach it has begun, by continuing the cycles of observation, review and revision of plans and actions, identifying and building upon new problems, then trialling new actions to determine how improvements can be made. Given this predominantly positive response to the development of a professional learning community to address numeracy teaching and learning effectiveness in this school, and the recognition of the need for further development and learning on the part of the community, it is important to be able evaluate the experience against an external benchmark. One such benchmark is a case study of such numeracy teaching development in a small sample of American middle-level schools, described in some detail by Koellner et al. (2011). That case study identifies key concepts and actions as being critical to professional learning communities supporting maths teacher professional development, key concepts and actions that are, largely, mirrored in this study (Table 2).

The overall ethos of the development of Professional Learning Teams is one in which social values of trust, respect and collegiality play a central role. Koellner et al. (2011: p. 116) describe the importance of “enabling teachers to engage in productive discussions while maintaining a balance between respecting individual community members and critically analysing issues in their teaching”. Such an ethos is articulated through deliberate and informed leadership, both through the school principal or other team leaders, and expected within the team. In the case study reported here, the establishment of agreements on staff behaviour provide a solid basis for trust, respect and collegiality, while the entire process was driven through the leadership and vision of the School Principal.

In practical terms, trust, respect and collegiality are articulated through three key approaches. First, members need to be invited into the process, and need to accept the invitation. i.e. enter the process willingly. This enhances the second key approach, that members take ownership of issues and processes, and that ownership needs to be continuously supported throughout the process. Thirdly, a safe working environment need to be developed and maintained, an environment in which uncertainty and errors are allowed. Such a safe environment allows team leaders to actively help teachers to be comfortable in making mistakes and acknowledging difficulties. In this case study, invitation was a default invitation, following all staff voluntarily agreeing to the agreement on staff behaviour; it could have been more explicit. It is likely that this accounts for some of the misgivings expressed by some staff. Nevertheless, there is evidence for widespread ownership of the issues, and for the successful development of a safe working environment.

In terms of practices, Koellner et al. (2011) identify a wide range of key actions. Importantly the program builds on the teams and their leaders engaging in structured conversation, which allows important issues to be fore-grounded, and allows members to generate their own goals. Goals are intended to meet the members’ own needs, and thus the teams must be able to develop shared strategic approaches to achieving these goals. Such goals need to be tailored for the group, and include both long-term goals and workshop goals; the latter is critical in

the successful continuing functioning of the team meetings. Such a practical intention requires flexibility in how the team works, with Koellner et al. (2011) describing, for example, how they were open to modifying their workshops based on the needs of participants and prevailing conditions. In terms of developing classroom and teaching skills, several immediate, and crucial, processes are noted: the need for staff to have time for lesson planning; the need for clarity on staff numeracy skills; the acceptance of diversity in teaching ideas and practices; and the central role of identifying impediments to numeracy learning amongst students and focusing on these (“the language of “roadblocks”; p. 130). The case study described here included the active role of structured discussion, overseen by the Learning Partner, which allowed staff to foreground what they saw as important issues, and to set shared goals; the success of such structure collaboration between teachers and the learning partner both reflects the success, reported in another cultural context by Hunter (2010), of such collaboration, and the importance of the constructed and negotiated nature of the relationship: while “change is an important component when teachers and researchers work together to construct classroom communities …[,] change should be premised in the knowledge of both partners” (p. 407).

The program is in its early stages, and it remains to see how flexible or responsive goal setting will be. While there is good evidence for a growing awareness of individual staff numeracy skills, and a significant focus on discussions regarding student needs, a core issue was that of available time. While for some staff, the benefits outweighed time limitation and the possibilities that time spent within the program took away from time on other activities, for some staff this was a serious negative issue, especially in limiting their time for lesson planning. That this does not seem to have been factored into the process is important, and may account for much of the misgivings of some of the staff.

Such an outcome may not be surprising; while Jaworski (2008) has demonstrated that such collaborative activity and sharing of expertise, knowing and experience can contribute positively to the development of a mathematics teaching community, there are issues and tensions that are central to the developmental process. Boylan (2010) reflected on the introduction of any new practice into a school as requiring “to be translated and renegotiated by teachers involved in change initiatives” (p. 394), noting also the need, as part of creating the opportunity for teachers to change themselves, for “the process and means of change [to] be explicitly negotiable”. This reflects the process described here.

A further critical element lies in the central role of reflection. Staff need to be encouraged and supported to reflect on their “own thought processes, … and make sure they paid attention to their own learning as well as to their facilitation … [being] encouraged… to self reflecton both their learning… and their facilitation during their workshops” (Koellner et al., 2011: p. 133). Reflection and self-reflection mirrors the core processes of modeling, discussion, and coaching, implicit in the professional learning community approach: “we not only modeled how to promote community, foster [mathematics knowledge for teaching], and adapt [professional development], but also we were explicit about our modeling [, and] our intent was not to be perfect models but rather we drew attention to our attempts and encouraged the [teacher leaders] to similarly be intentional in their behaviours” (Koellner et al., 2011: p. 133). The role of reflection was embedded in the case study reported here as a core approach to developing change in teaching practice. It is also articulated through the involvement of the university partner and research team in shaping reflection on the process of the professional learning community. Although reflection appears to have contributed to the development of mathematics teaching skills, the evidence from staff feedback suggests that self-reflective practice remains to be further developed amongst this professional learning community.

7. Conclusion

This case study examines the early stages of the development of a professional learning community in a small regional primary school, aimed at improving teaching, and therefore learning outcomes, in numeracy. While the summative feedback from participants indicates that most of the teachers found the process to be effective, some had misgivings. Benchmarking against a similar implementation reveals that much of the process was sound, which accounts for staff perceptions of improvements in numeracy results, and approval of the opportunity for collaboration, across-school consistency, professional development and professional discussion. However, staff misgivings can be traced to two process weaknesses, namely a default assumption about invitation, recruitment and engagement in the process, and a weakness in managing time to account for existing demands on staff time. Benchmarking also identified an immaturity in self-reflective practice, although such benchmarking difference may reflect the slightly different roles the process played in the benchmark case and this case study. However, the findings highlight the need to address membership recruitment, time management, and the development of self-reflection practices.

References