Facilitating Purposeful Peer Learning
The top priority of any leader is to develop leaders.
When the leader is at the center of all activity, they are managing, not leading. They are intentionally, or unintentionally, signaling to other team members to direct everything towards them and anything team members need will come from them. When these leaders leave, they create a vacuum.
Instead of relying on one efficient leader, the top priority for any team should be to work interdependently to plan work, solve problems, make decisions, and review progress in service of a shared purpose. By this definition, there are many ways that team members can lead, given the opportunity and resources.
The best way a Middle Leader can develop other leaders in service to the team is by facilitating meetings where all team members can lead and influence their peers professional learning. This was the premise for my EARCOS presentation two weeks ago.
Everyone Needs Peer Learning
I began my presentation with this provocation. On the whole, everyone agreed, but like any good provocation, (and especially when educators are being provoked) there was some resistance as the statement read like a mandate to some.
You can’t mandate peer learning, but you can create the environment in which peer learning can flourish, and in time, everyone will benefit from the knowledge and experience of their peers.
To achieve this, though, takes a lot of resolve and resources. It is not enough to simply block a period in the timetable for collaboration or professional development or whatever your school wants to call it. Andy Hargreaves rightly referred to this as contrived collaboration.
Creating an environment for peer learning to flourish
Some of the resources I shared in my presentation included a case peer learning was mandated, which the result was staff passively revolting. Imagine showing up to a learning community where the topic of discussion is why peer learning won’t work.
I also shared the case of a school that succeeded at fostering an environment that relished peer learning. The major differences between the two cases, the school that succeeded did the following:
Articulated how peer learning contributes to the Vision and Mission of the school
Provided guidance on what staff can collaborate on that will further the school’s development
Trained PLC facilitators on how to lead collaborative meetings
Trained staff on how to craft professional inquiries that aligned their needs with that of their PLC and the school
Aligned Professional Growth and Evaluation policies and processes to support staff professional inquiries
The role of the facilitator
Without the necessary groundwork established by the school, it is very unlikely that anyone will be able to effect authentic and impactful peer learning, unless the cause for such relationships organically develops. Organically induced peer learning is a very rare instance, which is often the result of very closely aligned staff members that prefer this mode of learning.
If the necessary groundwork is put in place, the responsibility now falls to the facilitators of the PLCs, which even with all the necessary supports, can still be a very difficult task.
As I moved the focus from the school to the facilitator, I stressed the importance of not trying to be a leader of learning, but an enabler of team member’s learning interests. To effectively facilitate this shift I introduced a tool, the Focus Inquiry Interview, which was introduced to me by a good friend, Chris Jansen at Leadership Labs.
Once an effective professional inquiry has been established, aligned with the interests of the school, team and teacher, the facilitator of the PLC can begin to withdraw from the center of the PLC and put in place the structure for team members to lead the learning. The tool I introduced was a novel use of Affinity Mapping.
With Affinity Mapping, once the professional inquiries of all the team members have been collected, they can be grouped into categories. These categories become the basis for forming working groups within the team that team members can lead. This is a fantastic tool for large departments.
For smaller teams of 3-5 people, I recommended jointly agreeing on an inquiry and then use Affinity Mapping to group and categorize various themes, ideas, outcomes, etc., related to that inquiry so that each team member can lead the investigation and reporting on each category.
Click here if you would like to download my EARCOS presentation and click here if you would like to schedule a call with me to learn how I can help your school set the groundwork for authentic and impactful peer sharing and learning.
It’s a long stretch to the next big break, so look after yourself and your team,
Mike
Michael Iannini is an education management consultant that is recognized by the Council of International Schools as an expert in Strategic Planning, Governance, Human Resource Management, and Leadership Development. He is the author of Hidden in Plain Sight: Realizing the Full Potential of Middle Leaders, and coordinates professional development for a network of over 250 private schools in Asia for the Association of China and Mongolia International Schools and Search Associates. You can learn more about Michael and his work by visiting www.pdacademia.com and www.middleleader.com.
