The relationship between departments as professional communities and student achievement in secondary schools

Relating school leadership to perceived professional learning community characteristics: A multilevel analysis

“…In our study, this was the most outspoken for deprivatized practice, as teachers indicated that they rarely engaged in deprivatized practice. This is in line with several other international studies that found that teachers hardly open up the doors of their classrooms for each other (Lomos et al, 2011b;OECD, 2014). In contrast, teachers in our study did report to have engaged in reflective dialogues every now and then.…”

“…Regarding the outcome variables, it is striking that the multidimensionality of PLCs has been widely recognized in literature (Bolam et al, 2005;Lomos, Hofman, & Bosker, 2011b;Sleegers, den Brok, Verbiest, Moolenaar, & Daly, 2013), but that very few studies have taken separate characteristics into account when studying potential facilitating factors.…”

Collective learning in primary schools and teacher education institutes

“…An effective (professional) learning community exhibits key characteristics like: shared sense of purpose or collective responsibility; shared and supportive leadership; shared values and vision; collective responsibility for pupils' learning; collaborative activity; collaboration focused on learning; individual and collective professional learning; reflective professional enquiry and dialogue; openness, networks and partnerships; inclusive membership; mutual trust, respect and support; sharing practice (Bolam, et al, 2005;Hipp et al, 2008;Vescio, et al, 2008), Lockhorst, 2004;Lomos et al, 2011). Katz & Earl (2010) show that key factors are "strength of engagement and participation of the members, talking openly with colleagues about different views, opinions, and values, and dealing openly with conflicts" (p. 45) and "changing practice" (p. 43).…”

“…The first step is to create a 'collective ambition' or a commonly shared drive to do or reach something. Several authors (Bolam, et al, 2005;Hipp et al, 2008;Wong, 2010;Lomos et al, 2011) stress the importance of a shared vision.…”

Beyond individualism and isolation in schools: What types of teacher teams are there in schools? Or can we merely speak about groups?

“…Even authors that focused on other denominations often seemed to use the term "team" somewhere in their article: some studies started off by writing about "collaboration", "community", "department" or "critical friends group" and then later on referred to "teams" (mostly as a form of collaboration) without giving further explanation (e.g. Achinstein, 2002;Avila De Lima, 2001;Curry, 2008;Datnow, 2011;Dickinson, 2009;Kelchtermans, 2006;Leonard & Leonard, 2003;Lomos, Hofman, & Bosker, 2011;Scribner, Hager, & Warne, 2002;Visscher & Witziers, 2004;Williams, 2010). This mix up of different terms is confirmed by Westheimer (2008) who mentioned that schools use different denominations to describe collaboration between teachers, one of them being "teams".…”