Conference Material

What Have We Learned? Local Systemic Change Initiatives Share Lessons From the Field

D. Redefining the Professional Development Culture

     Create an awareness of need.

LSCs have the potential to enhance teachers' identity as professionals, but to do so, they must dispel the notion of professional development as "something that is done to teachers." They must build a culture where teachers and administrators value professional growth - where teachers see themselves as participants, not recipients. Said one PI: "Often teachers get the message that they're doing it wrong. You have to talk about it in terms of, 'This is how we were all taught. '" Teachers may also have misguided ideas about their needs: they may think their content knowledge is adequate, or their interest in pedagogy may interfere with deepening content knowledge, or they may harbor beliefs about who can learn mathematics and science. To prevail over these misconceptions, LSCs must increase teachers' capacity to recognize their limitations, and create experiences where they can explore these weaknesses and safely feel "puzzled or inadequate." In sum, LSCs must bring participants to the level of saying, "I've got to find out more," and then provide for their needs.

Developing teachers' awareness of professional development needs "Professional development has to be congruent with need, but one can develop teachers' awareness of the need. Student work is very powerful for this. Whenever you can link what you're doing in professional development to what kids can do, you raise the teachers' level of consciousness of that need." - Conference Participant "At the beginning of a project or during the pre- project period, very few teachers have perceived needs relative to elementary science. So you have to create an awareness of the needs. We have usually spent time during the pre- project year doing preview professional development, focusing on good elementary science teaching." - Conference Participant "LSCs have to distinguish between what teachers WANT versus what they NEED. [You have to] develop the need.... and have professional development that develops a vision and a need for school reform, not curriculum- specific professional development." - Conference Participant

In reality, LSCs have struggled with providing teachers with choices, while ensuring that they enroll in the workshops they need most. Requiring teacher participation flies in the face of autonomy. Some LSCs advised putting the responsibility on teachers to develop their own professional development plan and to self- select courses, within the context of standards or the instructional materials. Said one PI: "You have to give teachers options, but [it's also important to] limit the options. To achieve critical mass, you have to get them to see it as a sequence." LSCs must convey the message that professional development providers are there to support teachers, not to evaluate them, and that there is value in seeking support from colleagues through discussion and collaboration. Finally, reform leaders can show teachers how to access local and national professional development activities that address specific needs in content and pedagogy.

     Embed equity in the professional development design and culture.

Equity should permeate LSCs, cutting across how reform leaders engage students, teachers, and the community. Conference participants emphatically noted that equity is not a one- topic workshop, nor is it an "add- on." Rather, LSCs advised attending to equity in creative, explicit, and on- going ways, embedding it in the project design from the outset and using an "equity lens" in selecting teacher leaders and in targeting teachers for treatment.

Projects should expect to encounter difficulties in convincing teachers that they can make mathematics and science accessible for all children. Some PIs advised using data with teachers and parents to look at student enrollment in specific courses; others focused on teacher content knowledge, noting that "teacher limitations are often perceived as student limitations." Still others cited the importance of working on teachers' belief systems, insisting that you "can't avoid equity issues because you are afraid to make teachers uncomfortable."

Projects targeting the high school grades were particularly challenged in building teacher appreciation for mathematics and science for non- college bound students. To address these barriers, LSCs suggested meeting regularly with mathematics and science departments, taking LSC activities into the schools, and developing solid existence proofs to use with secondary teachers. Conference participants also recommended the use of rubrics to look at equity in instruction at all grade levels, and the need to seek out tools and expertise from other equity focused projects. LSC- Net - the website for Local Systemic Change projects - was seen as a prime vehicle for helping LSCs link with existing resources so that projects do not expend large amounts of time seeking out or developing their own equity materials.

     Empower teachers through participation in networks and learning communities.

While many of the LSCs indicated that schools are the unit of change, they also noted that reform leaders cannot work with schools in isolation. Conference participants saw teacher empowerment - a "combination of knowledge and staying power" as vital to reform, and teacher networks as a key strategy for empowering teachers. Teacher networks can help build a professional development culture that promotes on- going learning. Further, teacher networks can create "positive subcultures" that can sustain "small pockets of reform." As one project drew to an end, it encouraged teachers at schools with less supportive department chairpersons or principals to transfer to other schools where support is strong to increase the likelihood of institutionalization. Innovative instructional materials can provide the focus for teacher networks - the "fiber that holds them together."

Empowering teachers "Teacher empowerment both to participate in a new mathematics culture and to become motivated to create that experience for their students is the foundation on which any successful institutionalization of mathematics reform will rest." - Conference Participant

Some projects recommended structuring professional development sessions so that all grade level teachers in the same school can attend together to promote school- based learning communities. Others recommended structuring time for cross- grade seminars, study groups across schools, grade- level meetings in school clusters, and other similar strategies to help broaden teachers' views. Cross- grade discussions put content into the "big picture;" grade- level discussions helped with more specific content needs in the context of the materials. Both formats were highly valued, particularly in LSCs dealing with multiple grade levels or different instructional materials across districts. But LSCs have to build time into the design for these kinds of activities. They must also encourage schools to build in time and opportunities for meeting, and advised working toward allocated in- service time to support networks across schools and districts.

The benefits of cross- grade networks One LSC project sponsored "seminars" interactive, reflective groups of about 25- 30 elementary, middle and high school teachers. The strategy was designed as a way to "get a conversation going" about content across grades, and as a way to reinforce the entire K- 12 scope and sequence. It was a huge challenge for the project to create mathematical problems suitable for cross- grade discussions, but it led to quality interaction among teachers, elegant ways to solve problems in progressively more complex ways, and a better understanding of the rationale for doing a set of exercises. Keeping high school teachers involved, and keeping the groups thinking and working together was also a major challenge: group members initially looked at high school representatives - those with more content background - and said, "You work this out." To overcome these barriers, LSCs have to provide training on cooperative learning, give groups an operating philosophy, and provide time for brainstorming and processing.

E. Tensions and Trade- offs

The previous section has covered much ground: what to consider in structuring professional development, the shifting balance and focus of professional development activities, and altering the professional development culture to one that promotes a more equitable and collegial approach to learning. Again, to help LSCs as they grapple with these decisions, we have summarized some of the challenges and dilemmas associated with these topics.