The power of professional learning communities

Abstract

In this paper I share some key principles and examples from the Data Informed Practice Improvement Project. The project develops an innovative model of mathematics teacher development, with three main strands: teachers work with data from their classrooms, they use this data to understand and engage with learner errors in mathematics, and they do this collectively in professional learning communities, with facilitation from members of the project team. I describe each of these strands and present three examples that show how the strands work together to support teacher learning in professional communities. These examples illuminate a key achievement of the project: a focus on learner errors in professional learning communities can develop powerful conceptual knowledge of mathematics among teachers at the same time as developing teachers' knowledge for teaching and teaching practices.

Assessment in Mathematics Education

“…The latter two goals should likely underlie the design of classroom assessments so that teachers are better able to prepare students for national examinations or to use the evidence from monitoring assessments to enhance and extend their students' mathematical understanding by informing their instructional moves. Classroom teachers would often like to use the evidence from large-scale assessments to inform goals two and three and there are successful examples of such practices (Boudett et al 2008;Boudett and Steele 2007;Brodie 2013) where learning about the complexity of different tasks or acquiring knowledge about the strengths and weaknesses of one's own instruction can inform practice. However, this is still a challenge in many parts of the world given the nature of the tasks on large-scale assessments, the type of feedback provided from those assessments, and the timeliness of that feedback.…”

Dialogical habitus engagement: The twists and turns of teachers’ pedagogical learning within a professional learning community

“…At other times, we reduced the complexity to enable the emergence of workable and manageable pedagogical strategies that could assist the teachers to find practical ways of making pedagogical adaptations and changes towards a socially just approach in their pedagogy. Our role included assisting the participants to remain on track regarding the focus of the PLC, working through the conceptual challenges that the PLC conversations faced and introducing external knowledge and resources into the PLC when we deemed necessary (Brodie & Shalem, 2011;Brodie, 2013).…”

Themes in Mathematics Teacher Professional Learning Research in South Africa: A Review of the Period 2006–2015

“…Graven and Venkat 2014;Khuzwayo and Mashiya 2015;Molefe and Brodie 2010;Webb 2015). If we add PLC research, together with alternative non-formalised programme designs such as lesson study, cluster programmes and communities of practice, research (e.g., Brodie 2007Brodie , 2013Brodie and Shalem 2011;Posthuma 2012;Pausigere and Graven 2014;Singh 2011;Ono and Fereira 2010) to formalised TPL programme design, we see that these two closely related themes combine to make 25% of the research output. This is understandable in the context of a research community seeking more sustainable models of teacher professional development and learning.…”