By Cathy Gassenheimer
Education is not the only profession that recognizes the importance of professional learning. In fact, other sectors, including business and industry, both recognize the importance and invest a lot more in the development of their employees.
And they do it in strategic ways that pay dividends in the form of better resourced, committed, and capable employees.
This finding comes from a March 2016 report issued by Learning Forward and the American Institutes for Research’s Center on Great Teachers and Leaders. The report, Looking Outside Education: What School Leaders Can Learn About Professional Learning from Other Industries, examines five general sectors: business, medicine, military, psychology, and law enforcement. It highlights eight different approaches to professional learning and growth employed by these five sectors.
Sadly, too many schools and districts are almost exclusively still pursuing workshop learning models—sit and get, conferences, and what many call “death by PowerPoint.” As I type this, I’m reminded of an anecdote shared by one of my mentors, retired Learning Forward leader Dennis Sparks, partly in jest.
Dennis overheard a teacher walking into one of those workshops comment: “Oh Lord, I hope when I die I’ll be attending one of these sessions. The transition will be so much smoother!”
(To be fair, as I type this, I’m also reminded that almost all of the ABPC’s professional learning is workshop based. Because it is focused, interactive, and designed with the expectation that schools and districts will take what they are learning and continue to work on it back home – we hope our participants find it valuable and never a waste of time.)
What successful industries do
The eight approaches outlined in the report include a variety of ways to support professional learning and growth, including:
- Emphasis on growth mindset
- Expectations and structures that support ongoing development and growth
- Simulations
- Video review, reflection, and coaching
- Targeted training and support based on the employee’s specific role
- Emphasis and awareness of the role of context in learning and growth
- Mentoring
- Intentional networking
To adequately review the report and provide connections for our readers, I’m writing this blog in two parts. This first installment will address the first four approaches.
1. Emphasize the Growth Mindset
Certainly, emphasizing the importance of both teachers and students possessing a growth mindset is critically important. And, Carol Dweck’s research on the growth mindset is addressed in almost every resource used by the ABPC. But for many educators, embracing the growth mindset is more easily said than done. It requires more than just stating that we have one.
The businesses studied for Looking Outside Education prioritized adoption of a growth mindset in employees in several ways, including changes in the interviewing process (developing questions that surface the employee’s mindset and looking at an employee’s potential in addition to experience) and in the workplace by recognizing effort and using a growth-mindset coaching model.
For educators, the report recommends several steps that can be pursued to develop and/or strengthen the growth mindset, including:
- Laser-like focus on student learning and continuous improvement
- Use data to gauge need for change and measure impact
- Providing resources and discussion forums on the growth mindset
- Giving teachers greater choice in determining their professional learning needs
2. Expect and Support Ongoing Development and Growth
This section of the report is titled “Deliberately Developmental Organization,” a title with which I was unfamiliar. As it turned out, my guess about what this option would entail did not go deep enough. On closer reading, here’s what I learned.
There are in fact organizations that have been named “deliberately developmental organizations (DDOs)” because they “provide structure and opportunities that promote owning mistakes (and) learning from them (p. 4).” These organizations work hard to create a safe space that enables employees to reflect on mistakes made. They foster both growth and introspection.
Education leaders can learn from DDOs by (a) Recognizing improvement in practice and/or progress made by as a result of professional learning; (b) Promoting leadership opportunities and continuous improvement; (3) Identifying and exploring “problems of practice,” something that the ABPC emphasizes during its annual instructional rounds; and, of course, (4) fostering a culture where mistakes are expected and embraced as learning and growth opportunities.
Using Technology to Promote Professional Learning
The use of technology is embedded in the next two actions: simulations and the use of video. This section of the report begins by referencing a framework used by the medical profession that identifies four stages in the development of a physician’s clinical skills: “Knows (Declarative Knowledge), Knows How (Procedural Knowledge), Shows How (Competence), and Does (Performance).” (p. 6) Clearly this framework could easily be adapted by districts and schools committed to ongoing growth and development of their employees.
3. Simulate Professional Work
Simulations are used widely in many of the business segments investigated by the report’s authors, Lauren K. B. Matlach and Janice Poda.
As examples, the report points to the medical field, which uses computer-based patient scenarios, and law enforcement, which simulates possible “use-of-force” scenarios.
SimSchool, a classroom simulator currently used in more than 124 institutions, is highlighted by the report as a promising practice for educators interested in using simulations. And, while not mentioned in the report, use of case studies—often employed by ABPC in its networks—is another way to get educators thinking deeply about possibilities and options.
4. Use Video for Review, Reflection, and Coaching
Video review is not just for athletic coaches anymore. Videoing performance, and the resulting reflection and coaching, are the activities most employed by the ABPC, particularly through the Instructional Partners Network. Instructional Partners (IPs) report that viewing videos of themselves coaching others or leading a planning or reflection session serves as a powerful growth and learning opportunity.
And video review is not just limited to the IPs. They report that teachers are becoming much more open to videotaping their classroom, particularly when the video is either displayed on the teacher’s laptop or erased after the viewing conference. It enables teachers to take the “balcony view” by watching students’ reactions and actions and by reflecting on what the teacher did—or didn’t—do.
Some states are considering using teacher-recorded lessons as part of a comprehensive teacher evaluation system. Getting ahead of the game by making video a part of the professional learning culture makes sense.
Part II of this blog will address the remaining four practices used by different business sectors. After reviewing the first four, it’s clear to me that these practices offer much to be desired to those teachers tired of “inservices” that have little relevance to their day-to-day practice.
