Teachers help train colleagues

For public middle school English teacher Joe Killilea, professional development means helping colleagues open themselves up to constructive critiques from their peers.
One such experience evolved after he participated in a four-day Facilitating Professional Learning Community Institute run last August through the Learning Leader Network of the Center for Leadership and Educational Equity, a Providence-based nonprofit whose programming fosters coaching and transformation for principals and teachers.
He also was subsequently coached one-on-one, a new program offered for the first time by the nonprofit.
Trained to be a facilitator in group meetings, Killilea recalled helping colleagues assist math teacher John Kraskouskas in rephrasing math word problems to improve testing for his students. Killilea ran the meeting at which fellow teachers could offer their ideas. Both men teach students in grades 7-9 from Cranston, Central Falls and Providence at the Urban Collaborative Accelerated Program in Providence.
“[Kraskouskas] opened himself up to warm and cool feedback, which was much more critical than we would normally be with each other,” Killilea said.
The teaching team Killilea works with “already gets along,” he said, but often uses team time to “decompress” and “commiserate” informally “without having a lot of intended outcomes. … The institute has given us a more formal way to talk about our teaching and sometimes have a chance to get revelations that bear more fruit.”
Available now for more than five years, the institute is a four- or five-day program that offers a broad overview of how to roll out some of the “protocols” for what makes a strong professional-learning community, said Kirsten E. LaCroix, director for the nonprofit’s Learning Leader Network and lead instructor/adviser for the Principal Residency Network.
“Protocols” are formats or structures used to teach participants how to facilitate adult-learning time in their schools, including staff-meeting time, common-planning time and professional-development time, said Center Director Donna Braun. Protocols are used to look at and learn from student work; look at data to learn about implications of teaching practice; and discuss professional dilemmas and share feedback on how to move forward, explained LaCroix. So a structured format for having a conversation about teaching practice might revolve around sharing feedback about an article or book everyone read, for example, she said.
The approach gives all participants a voice while keeping everyone rooted in what’s best for the kids, LaCroix said.
Coaching, which is only provided to teachers who have been through institutes, helps through one-on-one support or in small groups.
The cost for an individual to attend a statewide institute is $600, which a school or district can contract for a four-day session for 24 participants for $13,200, she added.
“The cost this year for the coaching in seven schools has been 100 percent supported by a $50,000 grant from the Rhode Island Foundation,” LaCroix said.
Besides the Urban Collective, the six other schools that participated in the institute and also got coaching for some teachers in the 2014-15 academic year include: Agnes B. Hennessey Elementary School in East Providence; Central Falls High School; the Met school in East Bay; Blackstone Valley Prep Mayoral Academy Elementary School 2, a public charter school in Cumberland; and Paul Cuffee elementary and middle schools, two public charter schools in Providence.
At Hennessey, Principal Carrie McWilliams has led her school since the fall of 2013 after participating in the R.I. Department of Education Academy for Transformational Leaders. Her school is among the lowest 5 percent of schools in Rhode Island for academic performance set under federal guidelines, she said.
Her entire school of 24 teachers, five of whom are new this year, participated in the institute, and some benefited from coaching as well. “There’s a lot of knowledge in the building, but it’s not able to be presented and shared, and they need a forum and structure for doing that,” said McWilliams.
Tarah Daigneault, who teaches fifth-grade math at Hennessey, has been both a teacher and a teacher leader – someone who helps colleagues.
“We bring samples of student work in, what they’re working on, and we’ve gotten a lot of good feedback that I’ve used during my math lessons,” said Daigneault.
Kayla Creighton, a first-year fourth grade literacy teacher at Hennessey, brought a writing sample that needed grading to a group, or “cluster,” meeting after participating in the institute. The suggestion that emerged was to color-code grading based on different rubrics, such as pink for grammar and green for organization, instead of trying to correct every aspect of each student’s work at once.
These approaches are ways not only to improve teacher practices, but student outcomes, which participants and the nonprofit itself plan to try and measure through surveys and other means, said McWilliams and Braun.
“Before I came along, people were one on one and in silos, so you weren’t given good feedback,” McWilliams said. “The structure [of the “cluster” approach] is outside of some people’s comfort zones, but it’s an accountability tool.”
Mary Vieira, one of two coaches, said she’s seen a “tremendous shift” is teachers’ willingness to collaborate and focus on “norms” that include “maintaining a growth mindset;” being able to “step up” or “step down” when sharing ideas; being present and prepared; and staying within a “zone” of optimal learning and development.
“It’s not [about] congeniality,” Vieira said. “It’s [about] collegiality: Being able to have those critical conversations about practice. They’re not always warm and fuzzy. They can be hard. But everyone recognizes it’s not about them personally; it’s about elevating the collective practice in the school in order to serve all students. They’re able to have those conversations.” •

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