Effective Professional Development

There is no question of the importance of professional development and its impact on teacher and student learning. The following is a presentation that I made with two colleagues on it's implications, the characteristics of effective professional development and three types: PLCs, peer coaching and action research.

Effective Professional Development for Teaching and Learning on Prezi

Continuity of the Reggio Emilia Approach to Education through Documentation

Being a teacher whose setting is the high school context attending a conference that is specifically focused on the elementary context initially posed a challenge for me, specifically connecting Reggio Emilia to my work. There are a number of aspects of the Reggio Emilia philosophy which are challenging to apply to the classroom of a high school. The content driven, high accountability testing environment of the secondary classroom is not conducive to the student centred inquiry education style of Reggio Emilia. Faced with the question of continuity, how can educators of the higher grade levels apply the Reggio Emilia approach? One aspect that stands out is that of documentation. Jaruszewicz (2006) recounts the transformative experience of using visual documentation of student learning within the context of a college teacher preparation program and the impact of her experience on her own teaching. "My original goal had been for the students to learn about curriculum. But I had encountered something entirely new related to teaching, learning and myself; only I did not know what it was" (p. 360). Documentation, I feel, is the transformational "in" for the Reggio Emilia philosophy.

The Reggio Emilia approach to learning offers a new understanding of the role of documentation in education. As described by Tizianna Filippini, Coordinator of the Documentation and Educational Research Centre of Reggio Emilia, "[d]ocumentation is not just a technical tool, but an attitude towards teaching and learning" (Turner & Wilson, 2010, p. 6). Documentation is about making learning visible, allowing others to see the learning process. Often it is not the learning process that is captured by teachers through standard practice of documentation. The documentation that Reggio Emilia promotes is that which allows all to gather an understanding of the learning that has taken place, making visible the process. ."Requiring students to document their own learning challenges them not only to selectively identify what is meaningful to them and how they learned it, but to consider and make subsequent decisions about how to communicate what children are learning, from a more sophisticated, layered orientation" (Jaruszewicz, 2006, p. 371). This is not captured in a simple pen or pencil test which provides a superficial snap shot of learning.

It is enlightening to know that documentation has been used with high levels of education and provides lessons for the future. Soble and Hogue (2010) in their exploration of the challenge of documentation in a high school highlight two key lessons on documentation: "1. Documentation is essentially about developing a pedagogy of listening, regardless of what the documentation looks like or how it is displayed. . . 2. Documentation is first for the learners. Although there are several potential audiences for documentation, the group of learners with whom I am working directly is the one most important to me." (p. 50). Soble et al. (2010) touch on one of the most difficult aspects of documentation, that of its practicality.

Supporting this problem is the program Project Zero out of Harvard University. One project specifically, Making Learning Visible, "draws attention to the power of the group as a learning environment and documentation as a way to see and shape how and what children are learning" (Making Learning Visible, 2010). In supporting the impact making learning visible through documentation has Stephanie Suarez (2006) highlights a comment from one of the participants in her study, "[w]hat I found was the most powerful learning I had ever experienced in a graduate seminar for pre-service teachers. I found that by making our learning visible, we created a collective body of knowledge. I found that our 'collective learning' may be even broader than our 'individual learning'" (p. 35). Tapping into such a resource provides inspiration and enlightenment for those who would like to tackle the problem of continuity.

References

Jaruszewicz, C. (2006). Opening windows on teaching and learning: Transformative and emancipatory learning precipitated by experimenting with visual documentation of student learning. Educational Action Research, 14(3), 357-375.

Making Learning Visible. (2010) Understanding, documenting and supporting individual and group learning. Retrieved from http://www.pzweb.harvard.edu/mlv.

Soble, J. and Hogue, J. (2010). From display to documentation to discourse: The challenge of documentation in a high school. Theory Into Practice, 49(1), 47-55.

Suarez. S. C. (2006). Making learning visible through documentation: creating a culture of inquiry amoung pre-service teachers. The New Educator, 2, 33-55: doi: 10.1080/15476880500486129.

Turner, T. and Wilson, D. G. (2010). Reflections on documentation: a discussion with thought leaders from Reggio Emilia. Theory Into Practice, 49(1) 5-13.

Documentation: A Potentially Transformational Approach to Systemic Change in Education

Faced with the reality of the current industrial style educational system, working within a high accountability framework of standardized testing, the question arises, is this a sustainable approach to education? In describing sustainable leadership Any Hargreaves (2009) states that sustainable leadership creates and preserves sustaining learning. He goes further to define sustaining learning as "learning that matters, that is deep and lasts" (p. 187). Learning that takes place in a context that of high stakes test is arguably learning that does not matter. It is a type of learning that perpetuates the systemic ideals and values as opposed to developing the critical thinking skills that are needed to participate as a citizen in a democratic society. In his essay on cultivating the moral character of learning, Robert Starratt (2005) supports this view stating that "test-fixated learning promotes an unethical type of learning. This type of learning is inauthentic and irresponsible; it promotes an attitude where the integrity of the worlds represented by the academic subjects is of no importance outside of its instrumentality in providing decontextualized right answers to someone else's questions" (p. 402). Clearly there is a call to move away from the high stakes testing framework that ranks different institutions of learning or worse penalizes the school for poor performance.

In an effort to appeal to the need for the public to have a way to ensure that their dollars are being used wisely for the purpose of educating the next generation of tax payers what are the alternatives to these high stakes tests? Hargreaves (2009) calls on school leadership to become activists and engage with their current environment. What would this engagement look like? Being inspired by the Reggio Emilia approach to education, there are three areas that need to be considered.

Firstly, the Reggio Emilia approach to learning calls for a new way to document the learning of the child. Documentation is about making learning visible, allowing others to see the learning process. This is not captured in a simple pen or pencil test which provides a superficial snap shot of learning. As described by Tizianna Filippini, Coordinator of the Documentation and Educational Research Centre of Reggio Emilia, "[d]ocumentation is not just a technical tool, but an attitude towards teaching and learning" (Turner & Wilson, 2010, p. 6). It is through this documentation process that learning could be shared with policy makers. Enlightening these people about alternative ways of documenting learning is one of the key elements of systemic reform for education.

Secondly, there is a need to bring parents into the school. Parents will need to be informed of the other ways that students can display their learning. The Reggio Emilia philosophy calls for collaboration amoung teachers, children and teachers, children and parents, children and children and the larger community (Fraser & Gestwick, 2002, p. 11). There is the desire to have the parents view and understand documentation and how it displays the learning of their child. Getting parents on board, understanding an alternative to standardized tests in a key component to changing education into the authentic experience we are morally obligated to provide for children.

Finally, there needs to be a shift in the higher institutes of learning to accept alternative ways for demonstrating proficient levels of learning. Institutions like Colleges and Universities perpetuate the systemic structure of education through their entrance requirements. These institutions of learning need to consider the possibility of alternative methods to determining admission. Given the high stakes nature of acceptance into a post-secondary institutions, the social capital and the earning potential that it represents, parents are insistent that their child be provided an educational experience that maximizes the chances of gaining entrance.

As educational leaders inspired by the Reggio approach to education, hearing the call for change from the experts and thinkers in the field of educational leadership we need to become the maverick leaders that Hargreaves (2009) calls us to be. We have a responsibility as educational leaders to look for " transformational teaching and learning that connect academic learning to students' personal experiences and aspirations, so that students are changed by what they learn into deeper, richer human beings who want to use their learning to make the world a better place" (Starratt, 2005, p. 130). The Reggio Emilia philosophy and its approach to education provide an inspiring and potentially transformational option for changing an entrenched modern system.

References

Fraser, S., & Gestwick,i C. (2002). Authentic childhood: Exploring Reggio Emilia in the classroom. Albany, NY: Delmar- Thomson Learning.

Hargreaves, A. (2009). Sustainable leadership. In B. Davies (Ed.), The essentials of school leadership (pp. 53-73). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Starratt, R. J. (2005). Cultivating the moral character of learning and teaching: a neglected dimension of educational leadership. School and Leadership Management, 25(4), 399-411.

Starratt, R. J. (2005). Responible leadership essays. The Educational Forum, 69(4), 124-133.

Turner, T. and Wilson, D. G. (2010). Reflections on documentation: a discussion with thought leaders from Reggio Emilia. Theory into practice, 49(1) 5-13.

Get Inspired about the Future of Education: Reggio Emilia

If you have not heard about Reggio Emilia and their philosophical approach to teaching and learning, you need to be aware. Having spent the last weekend participating in a conference titled "Journey of Possibilities: Reggio Inspirations in Elementary Contexts", there was an anxiousness created within me that is pushing me to share. Through the conference I was inspired by Paola Cagliari, Director of Preschools and Infant toddler centres from Reggio Emilia; Lella Gandini, U.S. Liaison for Reggio Children; Harold Gothson, Senior Consultant for Reggio Emilia Institute from Stockholm, Sweden; and Mara Krechevsky from Project Zero at Harvard University. It is through these individuals that I have gained a better understanding of education and the approaches we should be using. There is a fundamental switch that is embodied by the Reggio Emilia approach to educating young people. It started as an approach that was to be used within an early learning context but as Mara Krechevsky has found, it possess universal qualities for all levels of learning, pre-school age to adult.

The history of the development of the Reggio Emilia approach to learning is a grass roots event. My understanding is that post Second World War the town of Reggio Emilia, Italy was at a rebuilding point. Given a meagre amount of resources and upon the sale of left over relics from the war, the community was faced with a decision in what to do with the money. The community as a whole felt that it was most important for the future success of the community to use the funds to develop a pre-school. This was not just any pre-school; its focus was the development of democratic citizens for Italy. A ground up movement, the philosophy of education was unlike anything that was taking place in Italy at the time.

Today people from around the world are grappling with the implications of the Reggio Emilia approach to education. This approach provides the learner with the chance to develop their authentic self as opposed to the voice of a system as Robert Starratt (2010) refers to in his book Refocusing School Leadership. Fraser and Gestwick (2002) highlight the principles at the heart of the approach to learning including: the image of the child (competent, strong, inventive, and full of ideas); environment as teacher (designing an environment that facilitates learning); relationships (with the environment, the people in that environment, and its involvement in the co-construction of knowledge); collaboration (amoung teachers, children and teachers, children and parents, children and children and the larger community); documentation (a verbal and visual trace of the experiences and work and opportunities to revisit, reflect and interpret); progettazione (making flexible plans for the further investigation of ideas and devising a way to carry them out); provocation (listening closely to children and devising a means for provoking further action and thought); one hundred languages of children (making symbolic representations of ideas and doing so through a number of different media; and transparency ( using light as a symbol of the openness to ideas and theories from other parts of the world) ( p. 11).

Learning as viewed through the lens of Reggio Emilia and its philosophy can be simplified to the basic formula of "adult + child + context = learning". Note that the adult in this formula could be any individual that is involved in that child's life. It is the role of the adult to provide space for a child's learning. There is also an acknowledgement of the role of context in the learning process. Schools of the future must play the role of citizen houses where students can form their own opinions and not those that the system perpetuates. Often we as adults can get in the way of learning and this is evident in the high level of dissatisfaction that can be seen particularly in the high school context. Learners are reduced to cattle that are to be herded through an education system that favours the development of an inauthentic learning experience which can be reduced to a superficial understanding that is brought on by the demands of a high accountability framework based on standardized assessment.

Reggio Emilia and its philosophy is not something that you define yourself as. Unlike the approach that is found in the Montessori School's, Reggio does not have a defined curriculum. Educators will find in Reggio an inspiration to change their approach to education. It provides you the opportunity to reflect on your beliefs of what good education looks like. For those of us who struggle with what the new postmodern approach to education should look like, Reggio Emilia provides insight. The approach involves students as researchers and our job as educators is to provide stimulation in questioning, in documenting the process and participation as a learner ourselves.

Are we breeding through didactic instruction a group of learners that will lead to a passive society? I think so, but I whole heartedly feel that the inspiration that Reggio Emilia provides will be the future's response.

References

Fraser, S. , Gestwick,i C. (2002). Authentic childhood: Exploring Reggio Emilia in the classroom. Albany, NY: Delmar- Thomson Learning.

Starratt, R. J. (2010). Refocusing school leadership. New York: Routledge.

For those that are interested I have included websites that Mara Krechevsky included during her keynote address. They are related to project zero, a Reggio inspired project for the North American context.

Project Zero; http://www.pz.harvard.edu/

Visible Thinking; http://www.pzweb.harvard.edu/vt/; specifically look for thinking routines

Making Learning Visible: http://www.pzweb.harvard.edu/mlv/ Resources: http://www.makinglearningvisibleresources.org/

School Reform Initiative: http://schoolreforminitiative.org/ specifically look at the protocols that are listed