Setting the Stage - Dr. Karen Seashore Louis
Overview:
Dr. Karen Seashore Louis from the University of Minnesota
In this presentation, Dr. Karen Seashore Louis from the Advancement of Teaching and Learning department of the University of Minnesota summarizes her own and others’ research in three areas: professional community for teachers, organizational learning in schools, and the development of trust among all stakeholders. Her presentation shows the relationship between these three arenas using case studies of real schools. Seashore Louis emphasizes the important role of teacher and administrator leadership in creating synergy among these three elements in order to promote high-quality instruction and student learning.
Segments:
- Key Concepts
- Our Reality is Our Reality
- School Improvement is Not a Simple Problem
- The Parts of the Solution
- A Genuine Way to Think About Professional Community
- Tale of Two Schools: The Professional Community – Okanagan
- Tale of Two Schools: Organizational Learning – Agassiz
- The Importance of Trust
- Trust Stories
- What Can Teachers Do?
- It’s About Culture
- What About Professional Autonomy
Part 1 - Key Concepts
Karen Seashore Louis opens her presentation by defining the following abbreviations pertaining to teacher work and school improvement:
PCOLT = Professional Community (PC) + Organizational Learning (OL) + Trust (T)
Her plan is to talk about the configuration and the combination of these three core concepts and how they affect teachers, administrators, and student learning.
Think about:
- How would you prioritize the three core learning concepts introduced by Seashore Louis? Which is the most important, and why?
To comment on this posting or to join the discussion, click ‘Comments’ or ‘Read More’ below…
Part 2 - Our Reality is Our Reality
Karen Seashore Louis outlines the questions that will guide her presentation. She begins by having the audience think about foundations: even though we are professionals and spend time in schools, we still have a set of assumptions about how schools work and how teachers work. Perceptions about education are influenced by images portrayed in Hollywood movies such as To Sir, with Love; Good-bye, Mr. Chips; and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. These teachers seem very isolated and are loners, authoritative, passionate about their students, and distanced from ordinary teachers. The films give the impression that “special teachers” are the ones who make the difference—what we need, it would seem, is capable teachers and extraordinary leaders, and then we would have wonderful schools. In reality, teachers today are better trained than ever and are more than adequate to do the job.
Think about:
- Do you feel that the perception exists in Ontario that all we need is really special teachers to have a better schools—that the problem is ordinary teachers?
To comment on this posting or to join the discussion, click ‘Comments’ or ‘Read More’ below…
Part 3 - School Improvement is Not a Simple Problem
Karen Seashore Louis continues with the next foundational concern: school improvement is a “wicked problem.” Compare this with a simple problem, which might be to change the bell system in a school. A “wicked problem” is one that we will never really know is solved because students are changing and conditions are changing; classrooms and schools are complex because they are interwoven with all of the other social problems and issues that we need to address. We will never really have an end point when we will know for certain that schools are good—criteria will change, the classroom technology will change, the kids will come to school with different experiences… We will not come to a point when we will know exactly how to do everything. Louis comments that we need to keep reminding policymakers that simple solutions will not solve the “wicked problem.”
Think about:
- Do you agree with Louis’ assertion that school improvement is a “wicked problem”?
- How did you feel when you heard that we will never really have an endpoint when we know that schools are good and know exactly how to do this (because criteria will change, technology will change, and kids will come to school with different experiences)?
To comment on this posting or to join the discussion, click ‘Comments’ or ‘Read More’ below…
Part 4 - The Parts of the Solution
Karen Seashore Louis identifies the three parts of a solution to the problem of school improvement: professional community, organizational learning, and trust (PCOLT). Though many researchers talk about professional learning communities, Seashore Louis notes that professional community and organizational learning overlap but are not exactly the same. Trust is important to building professional community, but is not exactly the same thing as professional community. You could have trusting environments without having a professional community or without having learning. Seashore Louis then discusses the empirical basis of these three elements. Research literature demonstrates that you can tie each of these components to improved results on standardized tests and on classroom assessments. PCOLT is also related to the quality of instruction: increased involvement of students, more democratic classrooms, in-depth treatment of important key topics, and equitable distribution of learning in the classroom. All of these are indicators of quality instruction.
Think about:
- Think about the following statement and your reactions to it:
- “Mandated professional community is an oxymoron. When you work on an idea and you throw it out into the world of practice, you can’t guarantee that people will use it with love, and I think mandated professional community is one of the hostile uses of this particular concept.”
- Consider again which element of PCOLT you feel is the most important. Based on Louis’ input, has your view changed from the choice you made at the beginning?
To comment on this posting or to join the discussion, click ‘Comments’ or ‘Read More’ below…
Part 5 - A Genuine Way to Think About Professional Community
Karen Seashore Louis explains that one of the greatest misuses of professional community is to say that professional community is the same thing as analyzing student achievement data. Such an approach is not focused on problems of practice; instead, it’s focused on problems that are defined from outside of the teachers’ experience, and therefore is not a genuine way of thinking about community. One must keep the whole model with its three parts in mind.
Think about:
- “One of the greatest misuses of professional community is to say professional community is the same thing as analyzing student achievement data. It’s common in the United States. I don’t know whether it is in Canada.” How would you respond to Seashore Louis?
To comment on this posting or to join the discussion, click ‘Comments’ or ‘Read More’ below…
Part 6 - Tale of Two Schools: The Professional Community – Okanagan
Karen Seashore Louis talks about a school that illustrates what professional community looks like. “Okanagan” is a failing big-city middle school that had previously attempted to be a magnet school and reopened itself with a new staff and principal as a community school in a very low-income Hispanic and African-American community. The staff really focused on the importance of professional community—although the term had not yet been invented—and organized themselves into ”families” that collectively made all the decisions related to teaching and learning. Also, they created their own school-wide assessment and shared in the responsibility of determining the levels, even across subject areas. Louis explains how the components of a professional community school compare to those of a “regular” school.
Think about:
- Do you have an example of an “Okanagan” or professional community school with which you are familiar?
- Do you see evidence in Ontario schools that the notion of collective responsibility among staff is increasing?
To comment on this posting or to join the discussion, click ‘Comments’ or ‘Read More’ below…
Part 7 - Tale of Two Schools: Organizational Learning – Agassiz
The second school introduced by Karen Seashore Louis illustrates the concept of organizational learning. Agassiz is an urban elementary school in a southern state that is dealing with desegregation. Its staff viewed themselves as consumers of knowledge but also as developers of knowledge. They shared what they learned from experimental efforts with others and even raised funds for the school while doing this. One approach staff used was to observe each other teaching and to solicit feedback. Another norm was reading and sharing what they read. She stresses that these were ordinary teachers doing ordinary work. By relying on a process of reflection and identifying problems and solutions, they engaged in development that could increase their expertise. Louis concludes by explaining the key components of organizational learning as compared to a “regular” school.
Think about:
- What is your view of the following statement: “Teachers don’t read very much professional literature. They don’t read a lot… like professionals in other professions do.”
To comment on this posting or to join the discussion, click ‘Comments’ or ‘Read More’ below…
Part 8 - The Importance of Trust
Karen Seashore Louis presents the final component related to school improvement: trust. To illustrate trust, she describes work she did in evaluating an art program. Teachers were very willing to share their problems of infusing the arts into their curriculum because nobody expected that they were able to do so; they were all novices. The teachers discovered each other’s strengths and interests that they never realized they shared. Seashore Louis contrasts this with the situation of elementary teachers who are supposed to already know how to teach reading and the challenge of creating trust in this context.
Think about:
- Reflect on the following quote: “If you think about what it means to accept other teachers’ expertise and be willing to exhibit problems in your classroom, we need to take this trust feature very seriously. We can’t create the kind of professional community and the problem-based learning environments that we really need if you don’t have this. If you don’t believe your colleagues have any special expertise, why would you trust them to provide you with a solution to a problem you are having in your class?” How can you create trust in a situation where it doesn’t exist? What steps do you think need to be taken?
To comment on this posting or to join the discussion, click ‘Comments’ or ‘Read More’ below…
Part 9 - Trust Stories
Karen Seashore Louis opens with a quote depicting a system in Texas that exhibits such low trust that a principal lies about tracking dropouts because “we’re not allowed to tell the truth; they don’t want to hear the truth.” A second story illustrates a teacher–teacher trust situation: a poverty-ridden school in Chicago where the teachers think most of the staff are giving their maximum and they are able to respectfully disagree and move on. Next, she outlines the components of trust: type, characteristics, and application. She states that most research looks at trust inside the school but some studies examine the intersection between the social contract with parents and relational trust within the school. Teachers trust that parents are doing the best that they can for their children and that parents believe teachers are doing the best that they can for their children. In such instances, student achievement is higher.
Think about:
- How do you begin to develop trusting relationships under conditions that are not ideal? This is part of the “wicked problem” under which we work.
To comment on this posting or to join the discussion, click ‘Comments’ or ‘Read More’ below…
Part 10 - What Can Teachers Do?
Karen Seashore Louis opens on a positive note, stating that there are elements that hold PCOLT together: “Even though they are not exactly the same and we have to think about them individually, there are things that hold them together.” She outlines some of the things that need to be worked on, are within teachers’ grasp, and don’t require structural changes.
Think about:
- What do you think can be done to help a staff improve their collective memory? How can a staff be encouraged to translate their past experiences into lessons for future action rather than becoming disengaged as a result of the sense that things were always better in the past?
To comment on this posting or to join the discussion, click ‘Comments’ or ‘Read More’ below…
Part 11 - It’s About Culture
Karen Seashore Louis addresses school culture, which teachers inherit but are also responsible for moulding. They own the culture and can change it. Teachers become leaders in this kind of school environment and they need to expect their principal to provide some support to do that, as well as to focus on PCOLT and its impact on the classroom. This is the human-resource foundation for teacher leadership. She provides a list of things that teachers should do to help bring about this type of distributed leadership.
Think about:
- Is this evolving role of principals a challenging one, but reasonable to expect?
- What ways can teacher unions support PCOLT?
To comment on this posting or to join the discussion, click ‘Comments’ or ‘Read More’ below…
Part 12 - What About Professional Autonomy
In her final statements, Karen Seashore Louis asks: “What about teacher professional autonomy?” First, teachers have to identify the problem and to become problem finders. Then they have to identify who has the problem and who will work on it. The next step is to begin to connect the people around problems of practice in the school, developing a network that brings people together to support each other and reducing the number of isolates in the school. “If you clip a couple of these threads, the whole will still hang together.” Although there is no simple answer, the denser the networks and the more PCOLT there is, the more likely that there will be support for teachers in this incredibly demanding work and an ability to manage this very complex environment. It is imperative to develop trusting relationships in the community, both internally and externally: this will allow teachers to take the kinds of risks that most people are afraid of taking.
Think about:
- Think of three things you plan to do to improve teacher professional autonomy as a result of Karen Seashore Louis’ presentation.
To comment on this posting or to join the discussion, click ‘Comments’ or ‘Read More’ below…
