'Teachers Talking About Teaching': the evolution of TLCs
Tim Brighouse in his 'four ways you know you are in a good school', suggested the following four indicators of success: “Teachers talk about teaching, teachers observe each other’s practice, teachers plan, organise and evaluate their work together rather than separately, and that teachers teach each other.”. The final three are offshoots of the first, and in this post I'll describe ways in which my school is trying to develop conditions in which teacher dialogue about the detail of classroom practice is regular, supportive and influential.
In the past, one of the methods we've tried to use is the 'Teacher Learning Community' model, whereby INSET time is dedicated to placing groups of colleagues together for the purposes of discussion and professional learning. In theory, this ticks all of the Brighouse boxes and when launched a few years ago, was received with optimism from school leaders: 'teachers', 'learning' and 'communities' were all generally and understandably perceived as 'good things', so the approach seemed to promise an antidote to the eye-stabbingly dull, centrally-produced power-pointing of the National Strategies and much associated teacher training of the time.
The problem was that the approach fell under the curse of so very many of the 'good ideas' launched with such well-intentioned enthusiasm in schools: it didn't actually work very well. I think there were two main reasons why:
1) TLCs were cross-curricular, rather than subject-specific
It's interesting that very often, cross-curricular working and 'sharing best practice' is regarded as an obviously and uncontroversially desirably approach. The notion that colleagues from various faculties should meet and share ideas, tips and approaches is seductive, implying an attractive cross-school collegiality, a fuzzy-warm sense of sharing and togetherness, a refreshing alternative to the department-centric compartmentalism of our day to day work. But to be blunt, a Maths teacher talking to a PE teacher about modelling just isn't that useful, mainly due to the fairly self-evident truth that the skills and approaches required to successfully model the solving of simultaneous equations, for example, is so utterly different from those attached to modelling throwing a javelin, or whatever, as to make any attempt to engineer a useful discussion on generic teaching skills across the two activities utterly futile. Or at least much much less useful than a Maths teacher talking to a Maths teacher about modelling in a domain-specific, immediately practical way.
2) The agenda was fixed 'from above'
In the models in which I participated, the topic of the sessions was standardised, so that all teachers focused on the same area in the same session. These focus areas were chosen according to school priorities - I remember one yonks ago about Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (but, tellingly, recall not one single thing about the session, except that it was dark), and then we used the Dylan Wiliam-produced TLC resources on formative assessment. Now I remain a committed advocate of formative assessment, the common-sense pragmatism of which seems inarguable (I mean the 'know what you are teaching, show them how to do it, mark it' model of formative assessment, rather than the 'thumb-waving, lollipop stick waggling, under-absolutely-no-circumstances-whatsoever-allow-a-single-student-to-raise-their-hand' model, obviously).
So it wasn't the content necessarily that was unhelpful, and I think it's important that schools arrange teacher learning to focus on the things that make the most difference. The difficulty was more profound than that, centring around the need for teacher autonomy, relevance and choice in their professional learning. Teachers are so ferociously busy that any CPD that doesn't directly help them to do their jobs better is untenable - if INSET doesn't provide immediate, applicable, domain-specific improvement, it would be better in terms of outcomes for staff and students to not do it, and give everyone more time to do their marking. It can be argued that getting everyone working on the same area is useful in that it addresses whole school development needs: the problem is that whole schools don't have common development needs; the needs and interests of individual teachers are, well, individual, and centralised agendas don't recognise this.
New approaches
Having reached these two conclusions about TLCs of the past, but remaining interested in the principle of getting teachers together to talk about teaching, we've ended up with a model looking like the below:
- Three TLCs per year, all in faculty teams, using what would previously have been training time at the end of the school day
- No centralised agenda - instead, teachers selected their own development areas in September, and are able to shape the ways that they spend their time in these sessions. Teachers are encouraged to choose 'something that makes the most difference', and to stick with it, focusing on one area over several months, but also being free to switch their focus when they feel they've made the improvements they were after.
- Loose structures - arranged through faculty leadership, teachers use this time to work in pairs, small groups or larger teams depending on what suits them best. Colleagues who share a development area are encouraged to work together, and all are asked to share what they've achieved at the end of the session. But essentially, no expected structure is provided by school leadership, and it's left to faculty leadership and teachers themselves to use the time in a way which works for them.
- An emphasis on immediate applicability - this means encouraging teachers to work on the specifics of the teaching that they are doing at the moment, and results in lots of collaborative lesson planning, resourcing and discussion of current teaching topics: teachers 'talking about teaching', but crucially, the teaching that they are actually doing at the moment. Where it works best, teachers are working together on genuine development areas, and then putting their work into action the very next day - a combination of INSET and planning which seems developmental and improvement-focused, but also recognises that teachers do not have any time to waste.
After one session, with another coming in January, feedback from teachers suggests that this approach is going pretty well. From my own work, I've chosen a focus of 'more conscious use of narratives to improve explanations of key ideas', so during our first session, I worked with colleagues initially to discuss the ideas, then researched and scripted a narrative to teach specific elements of the racial context of 1930s America for a unit on Of Mice and Men. This was then shared with the faculty and used by a number of colleagues, and I've enjoyed the greater sense of agency created by working on something that is genuinely interesting to me, whilst having the time and support of colleagues in trying to get it right. It's early days and we have a lot to learn about running these sessions, but an optimistic appraisal might already point to a greater sense of teacher autonomy, individual ownership of professional learning, and genuine impact on classroom practice. Whether this is true (or just the confirmation bias-tinged perception of someone who really wants it to work), is yet to be seen, but getting teachers talking about teaching by giving them the time, space and flexibility to do so in the way they want to seems like a move in the right direction.
The problem was that the approach fell under the curse of so very many of the 'good ideas' launched with such well-intentioned enthusiasm in schools: it didn't actually work very well. I think there were two main reasons why:
1) TLCs were cross-curricular, rather than subject-specific
It's interesting that very often, cross-curricular working and 'sharing best practice' is regarded as an obviously and uncontroversially desirably approach. The notion that colleagues from various faculties should meet and share ideas, tips and approaches is seductive, implying an attractive cross-school collegiality, a fuzzy-warm sense of sharing and togetherness, a refreshing alternative to the department-centric compartmentalism of our day to day work. But to be blunt, a Maths teacher talking to a PE teacher about modelling just isn't that useful, mainly due to the fairly self-evident truth that the skills and approaches required to successfully model the solving of simultaneous equations, for example, is so utterly different from those attached to modelling throwing a javelin, or whatever, as to make any attempt to engineer a useful discussion on generic teaching skills across the two activities utterly futile. Or at least much much less useful than a Maths teacher talking to a Maths teacher about modelling in a domain-specific, immediately practical way.
2) The agenda was fixed 'from above'
In the models in which I participated, the topic of the sessions was standardised, so that all teachers focused on the same area in the same session. These focus areas were chosen according to school priorities - I remember one yonks ago about Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (but, tellingly, recall not one single thing about the session, except that it was dark), and then we used the Dylan Wiliam-produced TLC resources on formative assessment. Now I remain a committed advocate of formative assessment, the common-sense pragmatism of which seems inarguable (I mean the 'know what you are teaching, show them how to do it, mark it' model of formative assessment, rather than the 'thumb-waving, lollipop stick waggling, under-absolutely-no-circumstances-whatsoever-allow-a-single-student-to-raise-their-hand' model, obviously).
So it wasn't the content necessarily that was unhelpful, and I think it's important that schools arrange teacher learning to focus on the things that make the most difference. The difficulty was more profound than that, centring around the need for teacher autonomy, relevance and choice in their professional learning. Teachers are so ferociously busy that any CPD that doesn't directly help them to do their jobs better is untenable - if INSET doesn't provide immediate, applicable, domain-specific improvement, it would be better in terms of outcomes for staff and students to not do it, and give everyone more time to do their marking. It can be argued that getting everyone working on the same area is useful in that it addresses whole school development needs: the problem is that whole schools don't have common development needs; the needs and interests of individual teachers are, well, individual, and centralised agendas don't recognise this.
New approaches
Having reached these two conclusions about TLCs of the past, but remaining interested in the principle of getting teachers together to talk about teaching, we've ended up with a model looking like the below:
- Three TLCs per year, all in faculty teams, using what would previously have been training time at the end of the school day
- No centralised agenda - instead, teachers selected their own development areas in September, and are able to shape the ways that they spend their time in these sessions. Teachers are encouraged to choose 'something that makes the most difference', and to stick with it, focusing on one area over several months, but also being free to switch their focus when they feel they've made the improvements they were after.
- Loose structures - arranged through faculty leadership, teachers use this time to work in pairs, small groups or larger teams depending on what suits them best. Colleagues who share a development area are encouraged to work together, and all are asked to share what they've achieved at the end of the session. But essentially, no expected structure is provided by school leadership, and it's left to faculty leadership and teachers themselves to use the time in a way which works for them.
- An emphasis on immediate applicability - this means encouraging teachers to work on the specifics of the teaching that they are doing at the moment, and results in lots of collaborative lesson planning, resourcing and discussion of current teaching topics: teachers 'talking about teaching', but crucially, the teaching that they are actually doing at the moment. Where it works best, teachers are working together on genuine development areas, and then putting their work into action the very next day - a combination of INSET and planning which seems developmental and improvement-focused, but also recognises that teachers do not have any time to waste.
After one session, with another coming in January, feedback from teachers suggests that this approach is going pretty well. From my own work, I've chosen a focus of 'more conscious use of narratives to improve explanations of key ideas', so during our first session, I worked with colleagues initially to discuss the ideas, then researched and scripted a narrative to teach specific elements of the racial context of 1930s America for a unit on Of Mice and Men. This was then shared with the faculty and used by a number of colleagues, and I've enjoyed the greater sense of agency created by working on something that is genuinely interesting to me, whilst having the time and support of colleagues in trying to get it right. It's early days and we have a lot to learn about running these sessions, but an optimistic appraisal might already point to a greater sense of teacher autonomy, individual ownership of professional learning, and genuine impact on classroom practice. Whether this is true (or just the confirmation bias-tinged perception of someone who really wants it to work), is yet to be seen, but getting teachers talking about teaching by giving them the time, space and flexibility to do so in the way they want to seems like a move in the right direction.
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