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Collaborative Learning Chatboard

Learning Community

by Big Al

Nov 1, 2016

I'm having a difficult time establishing learning communities in my school. I want to have more teacher conferences where everyone can mentor each other. Any ideas?

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monh Interestingly, my current work revolves around how to improve educator buy-in for collaborative inquiry. First, it is important to frame learning communities around the core ideas of collaborative inquiry. Collaborative Inquiry is when members of a learning community work together and share experiences to prompt effective change in instructional p...See More Interestingly, my current work revolves around how to improve educator buy-in for collaborative inquiry. First, it is important to frame learning communities around the core ideas of collaborative inquiry. Collaborative Inquiry is when members of a learning community work together and share experiences to prompt effective change in instructional practices through design and intervention. This includes partnering with others to investigate challenges students have within their learning; CI occurs when "teachers come together, asking questions, looking at research, and exploring student thinking to discover the way their students learn best" (Collaborative Inquiry, 2013). The CI process is cyclical and involves collaboration, inquiry, problem solving, and design. Successful learning communities depend on the quality of the process. Therefore, it is key that the process align with the seven characteristics of effective collaborative inquiry; it should be: relevant, collaborative, reflective, iterative, reasoned, adaptive, and reciprocal. Ultimately, collaborative inquiry engages educators, through teamwork, in a process of knowledge building (a form of collaborative inquiry focused on knowledge development) through inquiry; CI connects educators in collaboratively investigating focused aspects of their professional practice by exploring student responses to instruction, leading to new understandings and changes in classroom teaching" (DeLuca, 2014, p. 1). Sounds great, right? So, why are some educators not buying-in to collaborative inquiry? There are a number of key reasons researchers have identified as challenges to teacher buy-in for collaborative inquiry. Three main challenges include trust, leadership, and data literacy. First, trust is pivotal to the collaborative inquiry process within a learning community; "[w]ithin the collaborative relationship, teachers described the need to feel safe. "There needs to be a lot of trust and support before you can even tackle a project together … that partnership needs to be developed first" (Deluca, 2017, p. 72). When educators feel safe and connected to their learning community they can trust the process and engage in collaborative inquiry through open dialogue; "CI frameworks emphasize dialogue as central for co-constructing knowledge and responding to inquiries... "CI involves "a stance of 'knowledge negotiation'" (Deluca, 2017, p. 68). If the learning community as a whole does not promote collaborative inquiry as a culture it will be difficult to engage educators in the process. Furthermore, it is important to address intrapersonal challenges educators may struggle with in the face of collaborative inquiry, such as fear, defensiveness, and cognitive biases. It is important to train all members of the learning community to recognize and identify assimilation versus accommodation, as well as confirmation, vividness, and omission biases (Katz, 2014). Second, educators my struggle with data literacy which is an integral part of the inquiry, problem solving, and design stages of collaborative inquiry; "across CI initiatives, using student data to formulate inquiry questions and guide teacher learning is fundamental to the CI process" (DeLuca, 2014, p. 655). Thus, it important that educators receive specific training on data collection and interpretation to facilitate a successful collaborative inquiry process; "knowledge of collecting and analysing data is as critical as knowledge of subject matter and pedagogical skill, if teachers are to be truly effective in conducting CI" (DeLuca, 2014, p. 665). Finally, it is important that the leadership with a learning community also model and engage in a culture of collaborative inquiry; "[i]n addition to the critical role that middle leaders play in facilitating networked professional learning across systems, school principals play a central role in supporting and spreading systemic professional learning initiatives within their school contexts" (LaPointe-McEwan, 2019, p. 5). Leadership that nurtures a culture of collaborative inquiry through active participation, dedicated time, and modelling will foster collaborative inquiry within teachers, students, and all stakeholders within the learning community. In addition to these ideas, I highly recommend taking a look at the Lesson Study model to help kick start the collaborative inquiry you wish to see in your learning community; I have shared links below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr15SLGaSZI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv0HJ-ftOAU

I hope that helps! Mona

Aug 13, 2021

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