1. INTEGRATING IMPROVEMENTS:
how three principals leveraged professional learning to reshape school culture
Jessica G. Rigby & Anita Lenges
University of Washington
Jessica: Principals are supposed to lead and shape the culture of schools. This has an impact on schools and student achievement. We are investigating what that looks like, and how that is focused on high quality instruction. Culture and high quality instruction are not separate from that.
How do you reshape school culture to be about high quality instruction?
Here we are going into some ways that principals do that.

2. AGENDA
AIM: learn about three specific leadership actions principals used to shape their schools’ instructional cultures towards collaboration and collective learning.
What to learn to improve math instruction
What are Math Labs?
Julie: Building Teacher Leaders
Cindy: Making Practice Public
James: Developing Share Vision of Practice
Framework for school transformation
Application to your context
Note that these aren’t the ONLY ways to do this or even necessarily the BEST ways for every context—they highlight three ways these principals intentionally shifted their schools’ instructional cultures.

3. What do teachers need to learn in order to improve math teaching and learning?
You don’t need to improve culture, and THEN work towards improving instruction. You can change culture through the work.

4. Teachers learn mathematics
Math Knowledge for Teaching (MKT, Ball & Bass, 2000; Hill, Schilling, & Ball, 2004)
Common content knowledge
Specialized content knowledge
Knowledge of content and students
Knowledge of content and teaching
We have a shared understanding that teachers need to enhance our content knowledge.

5. Teachers learn inquiry-oriented pedagogy:
NCTM Mathematics Teaching Practices
Establish mathematics goals to focus learning
Implement tasks that promote reasoning and problem solving
Use and connect mathematical representations
Facilitate meaningful mathematical discourse
Pose purposeful questions
Build procedural fluency from conceptual understanding
Support productive struggle in learning mathematics
Elicit and use evidence of student thinking
Also, to improve math teaching and learning, teachers need to learn Ambitious Teaching Practices.

6. Teachers learn a new way of learning together: learning, not performing
Develop professional community that includes risk-taking (Bryk, Sebring, Allensworth, Luppescu, & Easton, 2010)
Deprivatize practice (Kruse, Louis, & Bryk, 1995)
Reconstitute power relationships (Kazemi, 2008)
Talk concretely and precisely about teaching practice to build shared language and enable collegiality and rigor of experimentation (Little, 1982)
Create shared meaning of practice (Horn & Little, 2010)
Content and Pedagogical knowledge are both in the head and in practice. So we also have to learn new ways of learning together
They also learned about how to work together –
Teaching can be thought of as an improvisational performance. It is an art, a science, a craft.
It is complex
Learning to teach is lifelong, because it is complex and because the field is growing and learning
If we stay in performance mode, we are always trying to do our best. But you can’t learn new things unless you move into a learning space.
Learning spaces demand a different stance toward an activity.
Learning zones are spaces where we are trying to learn and grow. Performance zones are spaces where we are not learning and growing but we are trying to do our best and not make mistakes. Teachers could create a learning space, but if principals expect performances then teachers won’t be able to do this work. So there has to be clarity and agreement on when they are learning and when they are performing. Learning labs are definitely about learning. you might have other times in your practice that is also about learning. But clarity is helpful among principals and teachers about when they are in each space.

7. Turn and Talk
What kinds of learning structures support educator learning about high-quality practice while also reculturing the school to create a productive learning environment for students and educators?
The principals in this paper used a professional learning model, Math Labs, to work on knowledge in practice while concurrently developing a culture that supports both Teacher learning and Student learning

8. Math labs create opportunities for teachers to try out, practice, and reflect on instruction and student thinking.
A Math Lab is a structure that is designed to develop teachers’ mathematical knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and to shift the ways that teachers, coaches and principals work together on practice. They can take place over the period of a half day or a day. They are environments for being experimental about practice. This allows us to actually try out new things together with the intention of improving practice.

9. Teaching Practice and Instructional Activity
The Learning Cycle 4
Analyze 1
Introduce
Teaching Practice and Instructional Activity 3
Enact 2
Prepare
Labs are designed around a cycle that allows us to investigate teaching ideas at multiple levels. We begin by thinking through a teaching practice or content idea that we want to work on together and we set the practice inside an instructional activity. We introduce the practice or the activity, planning together a short lesson to try with children, try it out with children, debrief our learnings—And then often from that will arise something else that we want to investigate--which leads us to beginning a new cycle…
McDonald, Kazemi & Kavanagh, 2013

10. Instructional Activity
The Learning Cycle
Instructional Activity 1
Introduce
Introduce
Teachers, coaches and principals learn about a new instructional activity, teaching practice, or content idea
Might involve watching video, reading a protocol, reading an article, or participating in a modeled activity
We begin in the unpacking stage by thinking through a teaching practice or content idea that we want to work on together. We examine content and practice standards, have an opportunity to read research on mathematical thinking, introduce the practice or the instructional activity that we will try out-this can involve watching a video or teachers engaging in the activity as learners, and unpack that activity.
McDonald, Kazemi & Kavanagh, 2013

11. Instructional Activities Instructional Practices
Instructional activities, teaching practices and content ideas that could be worked on in a Learning Lab
Instructional Activities
Instructional Practices
Content Ideas
Leading a number talk
Launching a story problem
Leading a solution strategy discussion in math
Leading discussion
Using “talk moves”
Eliciting and responding to students’ ideas
Representing students’ mathematical ideas
How kids learn about fractions
How children’s problem solving can support place value understanding
These are some that we have experience with trying.
Turn and Talk – What are some things you might consider working on in a school you are strongly connected to?

12. Instructional Activity2
Prepare
Instructional Activity
The Learning Cycle
Prepare
Try the activity with children
Co-plan the moves they will make, the questions they will investigate and what they will listen for in children’s participation
They might rehearse the lesson in this phase as well 4
Analyze
In the co-planning phase,
We prepare to try the activity with students
We anticipate how students might engage with the mathematical ideas
We co-plan the moves we will make, the questions we will investigate, and what we will listen for in students’ participation
We might rehearse the routine in this phase as well 3
Enact
McDonald, Kazemi & Kavanagh, 2013

13. Instructional Activity3
Enact
Instructional Activity
The Learning Cycle
Enact
Teachers and leaders try out their activity with children
Children’s ideas become a resource for teacher learning
They might talk during the lesson to confirm ideas, get help, and make changes to their plans as they go (Teacher Time Out)
Who teaches?
Pass the pen
Spontaneous switch – want to try something out
Sit with the students
“You can’t look good and get better at the same time” - Jessica
McDonald, Kazemi & Kavanagh, 2013

14. Instructional Activity
The Learning Cycle 4
Analyze
Instructional Activity
Analyze
Teachers & leaders debrief their lesson
Focus on the ideas that emerged from children
Teachers & leaders consider the complexity of the teaching practices in play how the moves they made affected what students said, did and might have learned
Teachers and leaders make commitments to try out practices in their own classrooms
McDonald, Kazemi & Kavanagh, 2013

15. Turn & Talk What do you understand about Math Labs?
What questions do you have?
30 minutes in

16. THE JOURNEY OF THREE SCHOOLS
Principals used math labs to develop three change-making elements for instructional improvement in their schools:
Building Teacher Leadership
Making Practice Public
Developing a Shared Vision of Practice
5 minutes
How three principals used Math Lab structures to shift key educatinoal cultural elements

17. Developing Teacher Leaders
Julie Ray, former Principal
Lakeland Elementary
Building Teacher Leaders
5 Minutes

18. What needed to change in instructional practices?
The learning goal was not clearly connected to the task.
Gradual release was focused heavily on “I Do”.
Teacher talk was dominant in most rooms.
Students were working passively on worksheets.
Teachers worked in isolation in many grades.

19. How did I use math labs to promote teacher leaders to build instructional capacity?
JuJuJU
Collaborative lesson design
Unpacking student learning goals
Taking risks co-teaching in other grades

20. Leadership Actions to Develop Teacher Leaders
Initial teacher selection
Spread learning
Teacher→ teacher support

21. Outcomes of Teacher Leadership
Inquiry cycles in PLCs to unpack student learning goals & design problem based tasks.
Anticipated students thinking & developed questions to scaffold student thinking.
Focused on student-to-student talk
3 teachers started math labs 1st year/8 teachers in math labs 2nd year
Shared with whole staff at staff meetings, PLCs, and PD & shifted practice in all classrooms
Transformed PLCs to a shift in lesson design & informing instruction
Transitioned from number talks tasks to build student talk in core instruction

22. Making Practice Public
Cindy Dracolby
Principal, Camelot Elementary School

23. From Labs to Whole School: Intentionally Co-Planning Lessons
Starting with a focus on student thinking
Co-planning during Labs
Co-planning during PLCs

24. From Labs to Whole School: Intentionally Co-Teaching
Designing portions of lessons together in Labs
Co-teaching during labs
Co- teaching once per week in regular practice
Voluntary video-taping and sharing of lessons
“Opening my classroom allowed observation of my students in their regular learning environment, giving me insight as to what worked well and what I might like to change.”

25. From Labs to Whole School: Teachers’ Understanding of Math Concept Development Through Grades
Lab participants: cross grade-levels (PreK through Fifth Grade)
Using same instructional activity across grade levels
“Observing and teaching in various grades showed how a concept can be developed through the grades.”
Whole school understanding of how a mathematical concept develops through the grades

26. Developing a Shared Vision of Practice
James Crawford, former principal at Valhalla Elementary
Before Math Labs: teachers were not paying close attention to student thinking and were not carefully planning lessons
5 minutes

27. Developing a Shared Vision of Practice
Labs focus on collaborative lesson planning
First year:
Two grade levels; six teachers
Worked together to plan with a focus on student talk, sharing with staff
Second year:
All teachers in the school were in a lab
Focus on student talk as well as other elements of lesson planning: student thinking, launching tasks, purpose, student conceptions and struggles, questioning

28. Developing a Shared Vision of Practice
Shift in Culture: teachers initially hesitant to participate in a new vision of practice were more willing to explore new ways of planning, teaching and learning, had increased trust, and higher expectations for their students.

30. APPLICATION TO YOUR PRACTICE
Turn + Talk
What about these individuals’ leadership actions was salient for you?
What can you take from these principals’ experiences to your own contexts?
5 minutes

31. THANK YOU! Questions? Jessica Rigby | jrigby@uw.edu
Anita Lenges |
5 minutes