| Key professional learning community concepts and actions, adapted from Koellner et al., 2011 | Evidence, in this study, of alignment with key professional learning community concepts and actions |
| Ethos • Trust, respect and collegiality • Leadership from school principal | Ethos • Trust, respect and collegiality built through the shared establishment of agreements on staff behaviour • The program was driven by leadership and vision from the School principal. |
| Practical approaches • Invitation into the process • Ownership of the issues • Safe working environment | Practical approaches • All relevant staff were involved, although it may be considered that they chose to be involved through accepting the process of establishing the staff behaviour agreements; however, strictly, staff were not involved through invitation, which may explain some of the misgivings amongst some of the staff. • Ownership of the issues was ensured by all staff being engaged in the school planning processes. • A safe working environment was established through the staff behaviour agreements, and developed through response to reflective practice. |
| Practices • Structured discussions • Important issues fore-grounded • Participants set shared goals • Goals long term and immediate • Goals, responsive, can changed • Time required for lesson planning • Clarity in individual maths skills • Focus on impediments for student understanding | Practices • The role of the Learning Partner was important, and recognised by the staff, in providing structure and continuity to discussions. • The staff worked through what they considered to be important issues, recognising in their feedback the benefits of new perspectives. • Goal sharing was established through the school strategic planning process, and in the establishment of the professional learning communities. • The study focused on the early stages of this program, and anticipates continuing work, probably with shifting goals. • A primary concern amongst some participants was the lack of time for lesson planning, and a sense that other core duties were being neglected at the expense of involvement in this program. It appears that while some staff understood the benefits, to their classroom teaching, of this program, the relationships with this work and lesson planning was probably not made explicit, and was not factored into the program schedule. This would account for much of the misgivings amongst some of the staff. • It appears that some of the staff recognised, as a consequence of the program, strengths and weaknesses in their maths teaching skills, acknowledging the possibilities of changed practice in their teaching. • An important focus of discussions was on the students’ learning capacities and limitations. |
| Reflection • Staff encouraged and supported • Reflection on process and on learning • Self-reflection • Modelling and coaching | Reflection • Staff were encouraged and supported to develop reflective practices; this was reinforced through the engagement of the researchers. • Reflection on process was largely through the action learning engagement of the researcher team, while reflection on learning provide the basis of team discussions. • Self-reflection appears to have been less evident, although in the research feedback it was clear that some staff self-reflected more than others; this may be an element that could be further deliberatively developed. • The engagement of the Learning Partner, the deputy principal, provided a direct link between the conceptual basis of this program and its implementation, and provided a means to modelling the process; this was, perhaps, less urgent in this study, given that Koellner et al. were also developing the team members as future team leaders, a goal not adopted in this example. |