Learning in professional communities

In recent years, situated learning theorists have brought new understandings to our ideas about the ways in which people learn. Putnam and Borko (2000) explain that “three conceptual themes are central to the situative perspective – that cognition is (a) situated in particular physical and social contexts; (b) social in nature; and (c) distributed across the individual, other persons, and tools” (page 4). Spillane, Halverson, and Diamond (2001) tell us that one of the consequences of this understanding is that “social context is an integral component, not just a container, for intelligent activity” (page 23).

An individual’s cognition cannot be understood merely as a function of mental capacity because sensemaking is enabled (and constrained) by the situation in which it takes place (Resnick, 1991). The interdependence of the individual and the environment shows how human activity as distributed in the interactive web of actors, artifacts, and the situation is the appropriate unit of analysis for studying practice. Cognition is distributed through the environments’ material and cultural artifacts and through other people in collaborative efforts to complete complex tasks (Latour, 1987; Pea, 1993).

Spillane et al., 2001, page 23

This means that the sense individuals make of new ideas is intimately connected to the communities of practice (or “discourse communities”) to which they belong.

As members of a community interact over time on problems of shared concern, they negotiate meanings about the nature of their work and in some instances share understandings about what they need from outsiders (e.g., the district or state) to do their work well (Stein & Brown). These shared understandings become filters for ideas about revising extant practice.

Spillane et al., 2002, page 406

Wenger (1998) is the leading theorist on “communities of practice”. He defines them as communities that are informally bound by what they do together and what they have learned by taking part in these mutual activities. Their members have a common sense of purpose and a real need to know what one another know. They include both formal and informal groups of practitioners at all levels of the educational system. “Going to scale” within a community of practice involves enhancing its capacity to learn and thus to change.

Fullan (2005) defines “capacity building” as “developing the collective ability – dispositions, skills, knowledge, motivation, and resources – to act together to bring about positive change” (page 4). He says that educational leaders should concentrate on capacity building in order to turn their schools and districts – the communities of practice in which they function – into organisations that have the ability to accept, implement, and sustain beneficial educational change.

Development of individuals is not sufficient. New relationships (as found in a professional learning community) are crucial, but only if they work at the hard task of establishing greater program coherence and the addition of resources. The role of leadership … is to “cause” greater capacity in the organization to get better results (learning).

Fullan, 2001a, page 65

The TPLD BES (Timperley et al., 2007) strongly supports the notion that learning within professional communities of practice is essential to achieving sustainable change.

All the core studies reported teacher participation in some form of structured professional group; this is one of the most consistent findings across the full range of studies. These groups were mostly school-based, but, at times, involved participants from different schools and/or researchers. The opportunity to process the meaning and implications of new learning with one’s colleagues appears to be fundamental to the change process, where that change impacts positively on student outcomes.

page 201

Timperley et al. report a lack of shared understanding about the nature of professional learning communities and the rationale for participation in them. Like the researchers cited above, they suggest that the reasons for the importance of professional learning communities in promoting sustainable change can be found in theories about the social nature of learning and about distributed cognition. However, they discovered that participation in professional learning communities does not necessarily lead to improvements in student outcomes.

Participation in structured professional groups was, however, associated with neutral or negative outcomes for students in several studies. These studies show that it is possible for teachers to be given generous amounts of time to collaborate and talk together, only to have the status quo reinforced, with change messages misunderstood, misrepresented, or resisted.

page 201

The developers report that professional learning communities that succeed in promoting teacher and student learning are associated with the following qualities:

• Participants are supported and challenged to think through new ideas and their implications for their current theories, knowledge, and practices.

• Participants maintain an unrelenting focus on the impact of teaching on student learning.

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