Director and Principal Investigator, Leadership for Learning Innovation, Education Development Center, Inc.

Director, Education Program; Professor, University of Washington Bothell

Associate Professor, University of Denver; Program Coordinator, Ed Leadership & Policy Studies

Senior Fellow, University of Pennsylvania; Director Mid-Career Doctoral Program

Director and Principal Investigator, Training Provider-Graduate Principal PLC, Leadership for Learning Innovation, Education Development Center, Inc.

Professional Learning Community

A strategy used to jointly create new learning among members:

• Ongoing series of coordinated learning activities

• Specified purposes and outcomes that meet a strategic objective

• Climate of mutual trust and respect

• Immediate application of learning to solve common problems

• Learning is responsive to emerging needs

Mutual learning, Mutual benefit

6

Benefits for training programs

Benefits for school districts

Benefits forgraduates

Benefits for The Wallace Foundation

LEARNING/BENEFITS

Purpose of this PLC

Serves as a resource for its members working to improve their programs through:

• Quality Measures™ indicators of quality practices and individual and aggregate findings

• Data-informed dialogue and problem solving discussions with other programs and field experts

• Ongoing and structured feedback from alumni who are serving as principals or assistant principals

PLC Members: Training Providers and Principal Graduates

8

PLC Members: Pipeline School Districts

9

Research, Development, and Communication Partners:

PLC Objectives

1. Use Quality Measures™ self-assessment ratings and other data to better understand individual and collective program needs

2. Develop strategies that address identified program needs at the local and cross programs levels and design and implement interventions

3. Provide guidance and resources for establishing a local PLC for each participating provider

4. Document and broadly disseminate lessons learned at the national and local levels

A Nested Learning Community

Accomplishments to Date

• Identified common cross-program challenge for national PLC focus, from Quality Measures™ aggregate findings (4/2013)

Accomplishments to Date

• Brainstormed potential high leverage strategies that responded to the challenge (9/2013)

• Reached consensus on a common area of focus for designing a national PLC intervention (9/2013)

• Assigned EDC responsibility for synthesizing group data, identifying common themes, and recommending a national project to the group (9/2013)

ReportonResultsandLessons

Learned

PLCGraduate

SurveyDevelopment

Data

Collec onandAnalysis

Proposed

Interven on:

Surveytooltocollect

informa onfromprogramgraduatesabouttheimpactof

theirtraining

Problem

Statement:

Thinevidenceofimpactoftrainingongraduate

performance.

(QMBaselineData,2012)

Advantages:1. EngagesIHE’sinworkthattheyvalue2. Feasibledeliverableforthegiven meframe3. Powerfulwaytoengageprovidersandprac oners4. Poten alwaytoestablishandsustainlocalPLCs,

comprisedofprovidersandalumni,forfutureworktogether

5. Supportseffortstotrackprogramgraduatespostcomple on

Disadvantages:1. Numberofsurveysalreadybeingrequested

Area of Focus for National Project

Indicators of Preparation Program Impact of on Principal Performance

1. Indicators of graduate knowledge, skills,

dispositions

Indicators of principal impact on school, teacher, and student performance,during first three years of

induction

2. Indicators of market demand for graduates

National PLC Response

DEVELOP AND IMPLEMENT INTERVENTION

Assess Results of

Intervention

Identify National Project

Design and implement

project intervention at the local level

Identify indicators of

impact of program

training on principal

performance

Thin evidence of program training

impact on principal

performance(QM 2013)

IDENTIFY CHALLENGE:

PROPOSE RESPONSE:

Report findings and and broadly

disseminate lessons learned

NATIONAL PLC IS HERE

Director, Education Program; Professor, University of Washington Bothell

PLCs in Action

Local PLCs National PLC

The Local PLCs

Professional Learning

(Communities) –Connecting to a Theory of Action

Establishing a focus on learning

• Learning at all levels, professional, organizational, personal

Building professional communities

• Reciprocal learning opportunities

Creating coherence

• Connecting program elements to the needs of practice

Engaging external environments

• Partnerships between programs, districts, and graduate communities; facilitators

Acting strategically and sharing leadership

• Graduates as co-owners of preparation

Knapp, M., Copland, M., & Talbert, J. (2003). Leading for Learning. Seattle, WA: UW Center for Teaching and Policy. p. 13

Changing the Arc of Graduate Engagement

Initial Preparation

Induction into multiple roles

•Feedback into preparation

Early support and further prep

•Feedback into preparation

On-going professional learning

•Feedback into preparation and early support

Feedback and participation in

preparation

The Value of “Multi-Generational” Participation

• Cohort support

• Intergenerational learning

Initial Preparation

Induction into multiple roles

•Feedback into preparation

Early support and further prep

•Feedback into preparation

On-going professional learning

•Feedback into preparation and early support

Feedback and participation in

preparation

Iterative program renewal

Iterative program renewal

Multiple entry points

Rich data

District expectations of graduates

Associate Professor, University of Denver; Program Coordinator, Educational Leadership & Policy Studies

From Transactional…

University/ Training Provider

DistrictPartnership

Program

Service Provider/

Foundation

Training Provider

Feedback and

Support

…to Transformative

Student/Graduate

Service Provider/

Foundation

Context of Leadership Work

University/ Training Provider

Productive Action and Improved Practice with

Impact

Inside the Black Box: Program Design Promotes PLCs across Generations

(Korach, S., Seidel, K. S., & Salazar, M. , 2012).

Local PLC with Graduates

Conditions for Multi-Generational Learning

• Shared values, norms and vision

• Common language and experience

• Discipline of critical reflection

Shift from Exchange to Interaction

Mutual Reciprocity

National PLC –Providers & Program Graduates

Engagement• Shared values and norms

• Shared Vision – improving graduate outcomes

• Safe space for dialogue and learning

• Authentic dialogue - inclusion of graduates across programs

• Stories and problems of practice not syllabi and structures

• Protocols (World Café) and facilitation

Result• Thought partners

• Opportunities

Lessons Learned: Shared Vision and Balancing Advocacy with Inquiry

• Collaboration not competition

• Description not judgment

• Safe space for critical inquiry

• Power of narrative

• Inquiry as Stance (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009)“…a core part of the knowledge and expertise necessary for transforming practice and enhancing students’ learning resides in the questions, theories, and strategies generated collectively by practitioners themselves and in their joint interrogations of the knowledge, practices and theories of others” (p. 124).

http://morgridge.du.edu/ Susan.korach@du.edu

PENN MID-CAREER DOCTORAL PROGRAM

Key Features:

COHORT-BASEDEXEC FORMAT

FULL-TIMENATIONAL

CROSS-SECTORINQUIRY STANCE

LIFETIME SUPPORTS

Who’s Involved? The Mix ….

The “PLC Approach:”

• Shared inquiry stance on common challenge• Shaped by nature of challenge, state of relationship,

portfolio mix• Not a solution format searching for a problem…

The “Communities:”• Student/alumni network• Professional associations• Profession• Public

How is This Different?

Problem/practice then at center…sharing the work

Working with individual challenges, collectively• Research within organization• Consultancies – e.g., Peeling the Onion, Consultancy Dilemma (NSRF)• PELS Program – capturing tacit knowledge via web-based simulations• Saturday Commons• Lifetime supports/relationship from start…explicit goal…

Working with collective challenges, collectively• PELS simulations• Edited Volumes• MC Innovations Lab – AASA, NAESP, NASSP on #pennedchat

• (join us!)

• International collaboration – e.g., Chile, Nicaragua, OAS, etc.• Voice for profession – the silent crisis?

www.gse.upenn.edu/midcareer

Your Involvement is Welcome!

National PLC Events:

Upcoming PLC Webinars: August 6, 2014 (tentative)

Oct 16, 2014 (tentative)

Local (U. Penn) PLC Events:

Join educational leaders from around the country, world at #pennedchat – all day, the following Saturdays:

March – 22nd w/ NASSPApril - 12th w/ NAESPMay – 3rd w/ AASA June - 14th w/TBD

Join us Feb 15th, all day at #pennedchat !

International PLC Event:

World's largest school leadership weekly conversation, #satchat will join Penn’s Mid-Career Program LIVE on Saturday February 15th, 7:30-8:30 am. The topic: School Leader Preparation and Grad School Programs of the Future.

Thank you for your attendance and participation. This session, funded in part by the Wallace Foundation, will be available on the UCEA website:

www.ucea.org