Grammar Gazette- Issue 1, 2017

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OPEN DOORS: A NEW MODEL OF PROFESSIONAL LEARNING

feedback from the 2016 Professional Review Conversations attests to the personal and professional growth experienced. One staff member who found the initial thought of being observed ’intimidating‘ came to appreciate how ‘inspiring‘ the experience had been. She had been willing to experiment and incorporate new ideas into her classroom practice. Another teacher defined his cross-faculty observational experiences as ’energising‘ and a ’catalyst‘ for reconsidering examples for helping his students grapple with complex theoretical concepts. Research has found this collegial, growth-model to be the most effective for teacher professional learning and for elevating student achievement. Canadian researchers, Mitchell and Sackney (2016), observed that the intensity of professional conversations in fifteen high-capacity schools concerned teaching, learning and the impact of particular strategies on students’ understanding. Certainly, an integral component of our Open Doors has been engendering robust conversations to prompt self-reflection and adjustments to practice within a culture of trust. At our Staff Professional Learning Day earlier this year, several cross-faculty presentations recounted Open Doors experiences. Ms Anna Flourentzou (Humanities) and Mr Andrew Lanning (Mathematics), for example, spoke enthusiastically about the formative assessment strategies they had selected to stimulate ’thinking about thinking‘ and understanding learning intentions in a Year 11 Maths C and a Year 10 History Class. The benefits of implementing student peer feedback and questioning for students and teachers were explored by Mrs Romy Fritz (Humanities) and Miss Kayley McCorley (Health and Physical Education). Through adopting the Open Doors model, the professional learning landscape and performance review process at the School have been reframed. 2017 begins the next three-year cycle of Open Doors and it is expected that further personal-professional, departmental and faculty growth will ensue, thereby continuing to enrich our girls’ broad, liberal education. REFERENCES Euler, J. (2016). Professional Review 2016 [Internal email communication]. Brisbane Girls Grammar School. Mitchell, C. & Sackney, L. (2016). School improvement in high-capacity schools: Educational leadership and living-systems ontology. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 44 (5), 853–868. Netolicky, D. M. (2016). Rethinking professional learning for teachers and school leaders. Journal of Professional Capital and Community, I (4), 270–285.

AUTHOR Dr Kay Kimber Director of Centre for Professional Practice

SINCE BRISBANE GIRLS GRAMMAR SCHOOL’S FOUNDATION IN 1875, OUR DEDICATED TEACHERS HAVE BEEN MENTORS AND ROLE MODELS OF SCHOLARSHIP FOR LEGIONS OF GRAMMAR GIRLS. INDIVIDUALLY AND COLLECTIVELY, THEIR PROFESSIONAL EXPERTISE HAS CREATED STIMULATING LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS FOR THEIR STUDENTS ON A DAILY BASIS, YET OFTEN REMAINING UNKNOWN TO OTHER TEACHERS. COULD OPENING CLASSROOMS TO TEACHING COLLEAGUES WITHIN AND ACROSS FACULTIES CREATE A NEW PROFESSIONAL LEARNING SPACE FOR TEACHERS AND ENRICH STUDENT SCHOLARSHIP? Such was the impetus for framing the School’s new Open Doors model for teachers’ professional learning. Its rigorous, authentic process ‘was designed to be a genuinely reflective approach to professional practice and … a pathway for rich collegial interaction and creative dialogue’ (Euler, 2016). In the Open Doors model, teachers negotiate an observational focus with a colleague from their own or another faculty for classroom visits and subsequent professional conversations. Drawing on readings from designated school-wide texts like Embedded Formative Assessment (Wiliam, 2011) and The Expert Learner (Stobart, 2014), teachers probe the effectiveness of particular teaching strategies to stimulate student engagement and deep learning. knowledge. Rather, effective honing of expertise arrives after frequent opportunities for ’deliberate practice’ (Stobart, 2014; Wiliam, 2016) are coupled with informed peer feedback. Hence, ‘new’ professional knowledge transforms theory or intuition into enacted practice, so becoming part of the teacher’s self. Australian researchers have also found that: the best professional learning is more than collaborative, targeted, and ongoing … it deeply involves the teacher or school leader’s notion of self. Learning that taps into educators’ identities seems to have the most impact on belief, thought, behaviour, and practice (Netolicky, 2016, p. 280). This transformational outcome of professional learning is at the heart of our Open Doors model. It now underpins a three-year cycle that culminates in a Professional Review Conversation with the Principal or her delegate. Staff Educational research has revealed that acquiring professional expertise requires more than adding

Stobart, G. (2014). The Expert Learner: Challenging the myth of ability. New York, NY: Open University Press.

Wiliam, D. (2011). Embedded Formative Assessment. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

Wiliam, D. (2016). Leadership for Teacher Learning: Creating a culture where all teachers improve so that all students succeed. Great Britain: Learning Sciences International.

GRAMMAR GAZETTE