Vivienne Collinson

“I don’t have enough time” ‐ Teachers’ interpretations of time as a key to learning and school change

Time is one of the greatest constraints to any change process. However, finding more time for teachers by reallocating time within a fixed schedule has not brought about desired reforms. This article, based on a qualitative study that explored teachers’ interpretations of time, indicates that the concept of time is more complex and dynamic than the literature implies. It elaborates and illustrates nine aspects of time that teachers in a middle school instructional technology project identified as barriers to the dissemination of learning among colleagues. The article argues that understanding what teachers mean when they say “I don’t have enough time” is a critical first step in avoiding misdirected administrative effort. It also offers suggestions for rethinking time in ways that encourage meaningful teacher participation in individual and organizational learning.

Organizational Learning in Schools and School Systems: Improving Learning, Teaching, and Leading

Teachers and administrators in school systems across the United States and Canada have been inundated during the last several decades with silver bullets and quick fixes in an effort to improve education. The reforms have had limited success and little long-term effect on schools and school systems. This article proposes that organizational learning (ongoing learning in a deliberate manner with a view to improvements supporting the organizations goals) has the potential to help schools and school systems renew themselves from the inside out and to improve learning (for students and adults), teaching, and leading in school systems. The authors identify 6 interrelated conditions that appear to foster organizational learning and provide a practical illustration of the conditions in the form of a fictional school created from examples in the literature

The Professional Development of Teachers in the United States and Japan

SUMMARY Teachers in the USA and Japan have engaged in formal and informal professional development for many decades. However, professional development as a field of study is a relatively recent phenomenon, with most policy changes and research occurring since the mid-1980s. This article presents an overview of professional development in the USA and Japan and examines similarities and differences in the two countries. Faced with increasingly diverse and rapidly changing societies, both countries recognise flaws in their current systems and both want to reform teacher education by finding ways of revitalising professional development. As these two countries work toward similar goals and expectations for improvement, each has something to offer the other.

Leading by learning: new directions in the twenty‐first century

Purpose – The paper aims to provide a theoretically‐based set of skills and practices that develop organizational members and leaders while building organizational capacity.Design/methodology/approach – The paper advances four arguments about learning and leading, drawing on classical and contemporary scholarship of organizational learning theory to elaborate the intellectual, ethical, social, and political environment of school systems and to deduce skills that leaders and members of school systems engaged in organizational learning need to develop in order to support collective learning and continuous organizational improvement.Findings – The paper provides core assumptions of organizational learning, along with a figure detailing components of organizational capacity and a figure summarizing intellectual, ethical, social, and political skills and values that allow members and leaders of school systems to build the organizations capacity, develop leadership, and influence an environment hospitable to c...

Leading by Learning, Learning by Leading.

Data from a study of 81 exemplary secondary school teachers across the United States provide a portrait of how these teachers have become leaders whose influence and partnerships extend well beyond their classrooms and schools. Propelled by a deep personal desire to learn and a commitment to help students learn, the teachers are learners first, leaders second: their leadership occurs as a by-product of their learning. As teachers, they become pedagogical innovators in their quest to learn what helps students learn. They develop deep knowledge of students, curricula and pedagogy, in part by changing grade levels and schools, observing and learning from students, and consulting with parents. They seek specific professional development, internal and external colleagues and partnerships, professional organisations, and opportunities to team teach and observe peers. As they learn, they refine who they are as a person. Over time, the teachers find, accept or create ways to help colleagues by sharing innovations, ideas and insights. They contribute to and influence the profession by writing grants, serving as members or leaders of influential committees, providing professional development and leading change. Always focusing on learning, they quickly learn that leading opens many new possibilities for learning.

Sources of teachers’ values and attitudes

Philosophers have written extensively about values and have long understood that internalized values define character and decisions. However, scholarship on sources of values, particularly for teachers, remains relatively unexplored. Sources of teachers’ values are usually mentioned only in passing in books or articles dealing with other aspects of teaching and are rarely included in teachers’ professional development. This article synthesizes sources of values and attitudes found in a survey of the literature, then extends and illustrates them using data from a study of 81 exemplary secondary school teachers across the USA. The teachers identified 14 sources that shaped or refined their values and attitudes, many of them during adulthood. The study suggests that this subject holds potential as a worthy topic for teachers’ professional development and as a way to help teachers understand how their values and attitudes affect the students and colleagues whose lives they influence.

To Learn or Not to Learn: A Potential Organizational Learning Gap Among School Systems?

For decades, researchers have studied student achievement gaps in many countries. This article posits that a similar learning gap may be occurring among the organizations we call school systems—a potential gap between school systems that have maintained the status quo and those that have been working to innovate and improve. The case study indicates how an affluent public school system in the USA, by maintaining the status quo, may not have developed the organizational capacity necessary to respond flexibly to 21st-century changes or close the gap with school systems that have been experimenting with organizational learning.

Collaborating to Learn Computer Technology: A Challenge for Teachers and Leaders

Although teacher learning and collaboration are repeatedly linked to school improvement, surprisingly little is known about the facet of collaboration involving the dissemination or sharing of teacher knowledge; that is, what teachers share, why and with whom they share it, or how and when they share what they have learned. This article describes a qualitative study that specifically examined the phenomenon of dissemination among teachers involved in a multi-year computer technology project in three schools. Findings indicate dissemination challenges for teachers (e.g., time, attitudes, norms) and for leaders interested in fostering collaboration or engaging in school improvement (e.g., encouraging teacher sharing, collaborating with teachers to form teams and design schedules). A table summarizes both simple and challenging changes leaders can implement to encourage teacher learning and collaboration through dissemination.

A small step into the complexity of teacher evaluation as professional development

Scholars in some countries have recently begun to call for teacher evaluation to become a meaningful form of professional development with potential benefits for both teachers and schools. In the context of calls for professional development to enhance evaluation, this study was conducted in a school district whose evaluation process provided teachers with a choice of administrator or peer evaluators. As teachers are afforded a greater array of professional development alternatives as evaluation options, teachers’ preferences need to be further investigated, and qualitative approaches could be helpful in this regard.

Exemplary Teachers: Teaching for Intellectual Freedom.

Intellectual freedom has long been a desirable ideal and a foundational value for supporting democratic governance. Since 1948, it has been a universal human right. Given the unique nature of education in democratic societies, schools serve as a crucible for helping children understand and practise the rudiments of intellectual freedom. Drawing on a diverse sample of exemplary secondary school teachers across the United States (N = 81), this article describes how these teachers help develop intellectual freedom in their classrooms. Using their various disciplines as a vehicle, they primarily utilize collective inquiry to foster communication and encourage values and attitudes conducive to intellectual freedom.