Shared values and vision

The members of an effective professional learning community negotiate a shared vision that articulates their values and goals for improvement. Their fundamental focus is on student learning.

What the literature says

The members of an effective professional learning community:

• collaborate to develop a vision that clearly articulates the community’s purpose and that they try to enact in their everyday practice;

  Sharing vision is not just agreeing with a good idea; it is a particular mental image of what is important to the individual and to an organisation. Staff are encouraged not only to be involved in the process of developing a shared vision, but to use that vision as a guidepost in decision-making about teaching and learning.

Hord, 1997, page 4

• periodically review their vision in light of experience;

  Effective schools … allocate resources to make certain that the vision continues to reflect the school’s common values and goals for improvement. In addition, they periodically review the vision to determine if the standards it sets forth are ambitious yet attainable and if it continues to focus closely on the diverse needs of students served by the school (Eaker, DuFour, & Burnette, 2002).

Quoted in McREL, 2003, page 1

• share common ways of working that they have negotiated and agreed and that reflect their values and vision.

  Professional groups, engaged in critical reflection about their work, work best when all subscribe to an agreed process. These processes, their underlying assumptions, and the manner in which they are applied we generally refer to as protocols.

Stevens and Stewart, 2005

Implications for ISTEs

Quality teaching and learning in any community requires a shared vision about what is to be achieved in practice. In reflecting on this, community members may decide that they need to change their practices or that they need to revisit the vision itself. ISTEs support professional learning communities to develop the dynamic and iterative processes needed to achieve consistency between their vision and their practice. At the same time, ISTES engage with such processes in their own communities.

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