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Teacher Collaboration And Ambitious Teaching:
Reflections On What Matters
Ilana Horn
University of Washington
Beginnings: Ambitious teaching and furtive collaboration
In my first years as an urban high school teacher, I was flooded with questions every day. These questions ranged from the mundane ("Where do I put my late attendance slips?") to the profound ("What are reasonable academic expectations for a student whose mother is dying of cancer?"). In my school, I found a group of colleagues who, like me, wanted to marshal their intellect, creativity and compassion to serve our students in the best possible way. Judy, Robynne, Allison, Aimee and I would meet during prep periods, after school, at lunch –– sometimes even in the five minutes between classes –– and consult with each other about the latest challenge we faced. We shared an affection for our students as well as a deep regard for our subject matter, and our discussions often centered around bringing these two together.Magdalene Lampert has called the kind of teaching we pursued ambitious teaching-- ambitious in its goal of engaging students in complex and sophisticated intellectual tasks, and ambitious in its intention to include all students in this endeavor (Lampert, 2004, p. 1). Looking back, I recognize just how ambitious we were. When I recall those discussions, I can't help but wish there had been a wiser, more experienced voice available to help us celebrate our successes, however small, to reassure us in our struggles, to help us think of our work as a long-term project instead of something we should figure out now. At the same time, I'm proud of our earnestness and commitment to students.
I also marvel at the extent to which our exchanges felt stolen, surreptitious, and "on-the-sly." Preparation periods, after all, were a mere 50 minutes. By the time a person went to the restroom, looked over student work, and mapped out her teaching for the next day, there really wasn't the time to consult with colleagues. Yet we felt compelled to do so. And so our furtive collaboration went: I needed to know how Jamir was doing in Judy's class; how Aimee might think about Maryam's perplexing mathematical question; how Allison or Robynne might strategize a potentially volatile parent conference. How could these conversations, which seemed so vital to my teaching, become a part of my on-the-clock work?
Collaboration and teacher learning: Two studies
It made sense then, when, as an educational researcher, I learned that empirical studies had found teacher conversations and collaboration to be an important component of effective professional development (Wilson & Berne, 1999; McLaughlin & Talbert, 2001). I knew from my own experience that these conversations had helped the proverbial rubber meet the road. They were the forum in which my colleagues and I translated our abstract pedagogical ideals in the complex realities of practice.At the same time, in my own study of reforming high schools, I had seen a lot of teacher communities in which such conversations did not support this kind of theory-practice interplay. It seemed, then, that teacher collaborative conversation may be a necessary –– but not sufficient –– condition for supporting the kind of learning that allows teachers to engage in ambitious teaching. How then do we specify the qualities that take these collaborative conversations to the level of transformative learning?
Study 1: Inside teacher community
I have participated in two studies now that help me get at this question. In the first study, done in collaboration with Judith Warren Little, we went inside improvement-oriented teacher communities to make records of their conversations. These groups, housed in the English and Mathematics departments at a school we called East High, had made a collective commitment to work together toward the goals of ambitious teaching. Both groups of teachers had in-subject credentials. Although both groups met the criteria in the literature for teacher learning communities (McLaughlin & Talbert, 2001) or inquiry-communities (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999), the English teachers' work toward progressive pedagogy did not seem to gain much traction in their classrooms. When their ventures in progressive pedagogies faltered, they would often (understandably) fall back on more traditional approaches. In contrast, the mathematics teachers seemed to be on a path of ongoing refinement of their teaching practices, as they collectively examined and revised lessons and rehearsed and refined teaching strategies. It has been highly instructive to examine these conversations and specify the differences between them. Here is some of what we have found thus far.
- The mathematics teachers considered the disclosure and discussion of problems of practice an important reason for getting together. Not surprisingly, a greater portion of their conversations focused on problems. In contrast, the English teachers' conversations were often more focused on other important issues, such as curriculum planning and coordination.
- The disclosure of problems among the mathematics teachers did not end with the kinds of reassurances that we call normalizing moves ("it's okay", "it happens to all of us"). Although there was much empathizing for the inevitable bad days, the disclosure of problems became a starting point for what were often extended sense-making episodes, as the teachers would elaborate, revise and work out the many possible reasons and responses to whatever problem was being reported.
- The mathematics teachers' conversations took place at a productive intersection of their work. On the one side was high quality, subject-specific outside professional development; on the other side were their classrooms. They had been trained in Complex Instruction (Cohen, 1994) and regularly attended summer workshops and regional mathematics conferences. Although the English teachers attended some professional development, their participation in these was not as well distributed, deliberate, or ongoing.
(For elaboration on some of these points, please see Horn, 2002; Little, 2002, 2003; and Little & Horn, in press. For more about the math department's collective work, please see Horn, 2005, 2006.)
Study 2: Developing a collaborative community
In my current work, I have been helping another group of urban high school mathematics teachers to develop themselves as a teacher learning community. Using some of the principles for collaboration that came out of the initial work above, I have helped a group of mathematics teachers at Septima Clark High School (a pseudonym) organize their conversations in a way that supports sustained engagement in problems of practice and that is organized around high-quality, subject-specific professional development. The goals of this group are to improve teaching and learning in their first-year college preparatory mathematics classes, where the student failure rate has been unacceptably high for some time.The Clark math teachers report finding the work both engaging and daunting. It is clear that, for many of them, their role as a teacher has expanded. Through the collaboration and the extended attention they are giving to students' thinking, they now realize the importance of such things as establishing relationships with students and their families; of teaching students not just mathematics but also the study habits that are vital to their success in school; of developing a wider repertory of assessment practices to adequately document students' learning. At the same time, they are energized by their dramatic initial success. In one year, they have reduced the failure rate in these first year mathematics classes by half, and they report that they are seeing more evidence of students' understanding challenging mathematics, even among the students without passing grades.
The East High mathematics teachers had collaborated for ten years when I came to study their collective work. The Clark High mathematics teachers are just getting going. While the Clark teachers are making tremendous strides in revealing and grappling with problems of practice, their conversations have highlighted some of the ways such conversations can occasionally breakdown and not lead to sustained collective problem solving. A breakdown may be a little conversational blip in which one teacher's question or conjecture about a problem of practice does not get incorporated into another teacher's emerging account. More dramatically, a breakdown may be signaled by an outright rejection of another teacher's statement.
Although this analysis is in its preliminary stages, there are several ways in which I have seen conversations break down among both the East and Clark mathematics teachers:
- Lack of shared meaning. A teacher will suggest something to a colleague using a term or phrase whose meaning is different for the listener. Although the listener believes she is responding to the comment or question, the meanings of their words do not line up and the problem solving does not go forward.
- Lack of shared conception of teaching role. A teacher brings up a problem, and a colleague responds by invoking a possible solution that requires something more or different of the teacher than he feels obligated to do. The solution is thus not viable for the teacher, and the conversation does not progress.
- Lack of trust. A teacher makes a suggestion to a colleague about solving a problem of practice. The suggestion is rejected because the teacher reads an implicitly negative judgment from her colleague or believes that her colleague does not adequately appreciate the particularities of her problem.
This list, as I said, is only preliminary. Nonetheless, it points to the importance of developing shared meaning and trust in order to successfully carry out the kind of collaborative problem solving that appears to be a vital function of these teacher communities.
Organizing teachers for collaborative learning
Simply gathering teachers together and asking them to talk about their teaching challenges will not help them become a teacher learning community. Their work needs to be buttressed by high quality professional development and focused frequently on problems of practice. At the same time, they need to develop common language, a shared conception of their goals and obligations as teachers, and the kinds of relationships that will allow them to work through the vulnerable moments that arise when talking about the challenges of teaching.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Nicole Davis and Judith Warren Little for their collaboration on the research projects described herein. Funding for these studies was provided by the Spencer Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, and the National Science Foundation.
References
Cochran-Smith, M. & Lytle, S.L. (1999). "Relationships of knowledge and practice: Teacher learning in communities." In A. Iran-Nejad & P.D. Pearson (Ed.s), Review of Research in Education, 24. Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.
Horn, I. S. (2005). "Learning on the job: A situated account of teacher learning in high school mathematics departments." Cognition & Instruction, 23(2), 207-236.
Horn, I. S. (2006). "Lessons learned from detracked mathematics departments." Theory Into Practice. 45(1), 72-81
Little, J. W. (2002). "Locating learning in teachers' communities of practice: Opening up problems of analysis in records of everyday work." Teaching and Teacher Education, 18(8), 917-946.
Little, J. W. (2003). "Inside teacher community: Representations of classroom practice." Teachers College Record, 105(6), 913-945.
Little, J. W. & Horn, I.S. (In press)." 'Normalizing' problems of practice: Converting routine conversation into a resource for learning in professional communities." In L. Stoll & K. S. Louis (Eds.) Professional Learning Communities: Divergence, Detail and Difficulties. London: Open University Press.
McLaughlin, M.W. and Talbert, J.E. (2001). Professional communities and the work of high school teaching. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wilson, S. M. and Berne, J. (1999) "Teacher learning and the acquisition of professional knowledge: An examination of research on contemporary professional development." Review of Research in Education, 24, 173-209.
Ilana Horn is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education at the University of Washington. Her research interest include not only how to improve students' learning of mathematical ideas, but also how teachers--both preservice and inservice-- learn to engage in ambitious and equitable teaching. Email her at lanihorn@u.washington.edu
©April 2006 New Horizons for Learning
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