Reflective and iterative inquiry

The members of an effective professional learning community engage in ongoing inquiry about serious educational issues, exploring data from a wide range of sources and examining it for its value as evidence on which to make decisions for practice. This process encourages reflective thinking and leads to deepened understandings that negate the protection of the status quo.

What the literature says

An effective professional learning community:

• learns through an ongoing cyclical process of critical inquiry. Communities become “cultures of inquiry” in which investigation and evidence drive improvement

  [Toole and Seashore Louis (2002)] describe a culture of inquiry as “a school-wide culture that makes collaboration expected, inclusive, genuine, ongoing, and focused on critically examining practice to improve student outcomes” (p. 247). In their view, such collaborative communities, often referred to as “professional learning communities”, are not comfortable collaborations through which teachers merely share ideas but are opportunities for rigorous investigations of school wide teaching and learning.

Robinson and Lai, 2006, page 198

• develops the ability to learn by collaboratively deconstructing, reconstructing, and co-constructing knowledge

  [I]f the community is to be intellectually vigorous then members need a solid base of expert knowledge and skills and there needs to be a strong emphasis on the professionalisation of teachers’ work through increasing expert knowledge … Learning within PLCs involves active deconstruction of knowledge through reflection and analysis, and its reconstruction through action in a particular context, as well as co-construction through collaborative learning with peers.  

Bolam et al., 2005, page 11

• meets regularly to discuss and reflect critically on practice

  Immense value was placed on teachers’ learning for improvement in PLCs, evidenced by a dedication to regular planning times … where teachers discussed strategies, shared ideas, planned and solved problems. Teachers responded positively to opportunities for self-analysis … to get continuously better at doing what was best for their students’ learning … Teachers found solutions by learning and working together towards a common goal, realising that learning and change take time and effort.

Morrissey, 2000, page 3

• invites an educator in role as, for example, a critical friend, coach, mentor, or external expert to provide another lens on practice and to help scaffold the learning.

  The idea of critical friends is a powerful one because it contains an inherent tension. Friends bring a high degree of positive regard, are forgiving and are tolerant of failings. Critics are often conditional, negative, and intolerant of failure. Critical friends offer both support and critique in an open, honest appraisal (MacBeath, 1998). As Costa and Kallick (1995) describe it, a critical friend is “a trusted person who asks provocative questions, provides data to be examined through another lens, and offers critique of a person’s work, as a friend” (p. 154).

 

Earl and Katz, 2002, page 1018

Implications for ISTEs

ISTEs play an important role as educational leaders who help to develop cultures of inquiry in the professional learning communities with which they work. Being an educational leader means stimulating and supporting people as they examine their practice in relationship to evidence about its impact on student learning. ISTEs need to model inquiry-based learning in their own practice, while also supporting schools to gather and make sense of their data and use it to challenge their assumptions and beliefs.

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