The role of conversation, contention, and commitment in a professional  (Page 4/6)

A purposeful conversation, in this context, is a conversation that has some underlying goal related to teachingand learning. Consider a department or grade-level meeting. In a more traditional school, these types of meetings are frequentlymarked by superficial references to curriculum, assessment, or instruction. One teacher might share a lesson plan that she usedrecently, with a brief discussion of the details of its implementation, while other teachers might ask a polite question ortwo. But there is no underlying purpose related to teaching and learning. That is, the purpose of the sharing is not to have animpact on the teaching behaviors of the other teachers, but rather to go through the motions of collegiality. It is the type ofactivity that feels like something that should be done, but ultimately makes no real difference in the practices of theparticipants.

In contrast, the same meeting in a professional learning community would look quite different. In aPLC, department or grade-level meetings are focused around a specific purpose, such as creating a common assessment, discussingand comparing student work samples in order to ensure consistent grading practices, or using assessment data to identify effectiveteaching practices. The purposeful nature of these conversations changes their tenor and increases the likelihood that they willhave some impact on teachers’classroom behaviors.

The second distinguishing factor of the conversations in a PLC is the structure within which they occur.Teachers are typically organized into specific teams within a professional learning community—whether these teams are based on grade level, subject area, or an area of professional interest—and these teams are given time during the school day to meet andconverse. Furthermore, teams are expected to make decisions and create products as a result of their conversations; examples mightinclude common assessments or structured academic interventions for struggling students. Finally, teachers have conversations within anenvironment of distributed decision-making; that is, teachers know that they have the power to make workplace-changing decisions basedon their conversations.

Because of the structure and expectations associated with conversation in a PLC, discussions are likely tolook like real conversations, as opposed to the ritualistic facsimiles found in more traditional schools. As teachers discussissues and decisions that will affect their own classroom practices, they bring a level of investment that pushesconversations to substantive depths. And, as conversations become more purposeful in formal arenas, it is more likely that informalconversations will carry on that purposeful nature—the teacher stopping by a colleague’s room after hours is suddenly interested in continuing a discussion of assessment practices, and not justwondering what time the following day’s assembly will begin.

One of the first steps that a school leader needs to take in creating a professional learning community is toencourage purposeful conversations. Modeling these types of conversations is one strategy in this direction; a leader whoactively engages others in purposeful dialogue focused around teaching and learning sends a message that this type of dialogue isimportant and valued. Another strategy is to set organizational expectations that encourage, or even require purposefulconversations. On the structural side, build a schedule that creates multiple opportunities for collaboration and set upexplicit teacher teams. Then, identify collaborative expectations: asking teachers to create quarterly curriculum maps is onepossibility; creating a schedule requiring periodic common assessments and collaborative analysis of student data is another.Finally, recognize the difference between encouraging and controlling dialogue. It can be difficult to spot this difference—many leaders inadvertently control dialogue without wanting or intending to. A simple litmus test is: ask yourself howyou react when the result of dialogue is not what you had hoped for. Do you allow the dialogue to continue, or do you activelyattempt to force the conversation in the direction you want? As a teacher leader or administrator, you might be able to nudge thetenor of schoolwide conversations in certain directions, but any attempts at controlling dialogue will have the opposite effect andstifle conversation.