Conference Agenda

Professional learning creates opportunities for educational change at a variety of scales from individual, institutional, and system-level. The pathways from inspiration through implementation to transformation are rarely linear or smooth and leading improvement is complex. In this symposium we will explore a new conceptualisation of educational change. Five dynamic phases will be introduced (Lofthouse et al, in preparation), through which relational and reciprocal affordances and constraints between individuals and their contexts evolve. The significance of professional learning networks and networking will be critically explored through exemplification at school and system levels as well as in a more rhizomatic community.

We offer perspectives as pracademic leaders ‘working astride and dynamically across both practice and academia domains’ (Hollweck et al, 2022, p.8). We consider how as leaders we enable encounters and reflect on the extent to which these become foundations for professional learning. We discuss the capacities and pitfalls of having (and not having) funding and strategic responsibility for improvement. The five dynamic phases will be used to articulate each example and offer a critique of the extent of sustainable change.

Participant discussion will explore how the five dynamic phases can frame understandings of educational change through practitioner, policymaker and researcher lenses.

A culture of professional learning is at times a complex and dynamic map that adapts to the nuance and context of the organisation. Adding structure to something that thrives on natural growth may appear a contradiction, but in this paper we share how clear processes and conditions can be witnessed at different stages of a PLC development. The paper exemplifies how we are creating and sustaining a whole school culture of leading and learning through our whole school PLC and how this has supported high-quality teaching and learning across the school.

This paper draws on the experiences of educational leaders in an all through British international school who have created, led and sustained a whole school professional Learning community for the last 6 years. Our PLC rests on genuine, sustained collaboration that enables trusted-creativity, purposeful-reflection and focused-analysis of learning and leadership. It is a whole school model that values the inquiry and collaboration of all of our community members, sharing expertise and learning within and beyond the school. Since 2016, we have used the terms ‘self’, ‘others’ and ‘organisation’ to understand the layers of our PLC ecosystem. To add momentum to the cultural growth of our PLC, staff can apply for two-year positions as ‘Professional Learning Partners’ who help drive innovation forward.

Literature reviews have provided evidence of staged processes to the growth and development of a PLC, and in this paper we reflect on our experiences in relation to the models offered by Stoll and Bolam 2006, Hargreaves and Fullan 2012, Lofthouse, Hollweck and Booten (In Preparation), Hargreaves and Fink 2006, Stoll and Fink 1989 and draw on evidence from previous papers presented at ICSEI 2019 & ICSEI 2020.

This paper reports on the analysis of qualitative data gathered from individual and group interviews, discussions, staff and student feedback surveys, meeting minutes, and recorded reflections. Additionally, since 2018, The British School of Brussels (BSB) has invited the critique of external trusted partners and critical friends to share their perspectives contributing to our growth and development.

It is hoped that by sharing our story and inviting like-minded colleagues to contribute to discussion, it can open the door to a wider network of professionals learning from each other, strengthening our PLC and creating dialogue to support teacher and leader development. We believe, in accordance with wide and varying literature, that a strong PLC not only builds professional capital, but ultimately can ensure deep learning for all students (Datnow & Park, 2019; Hargreaves and O’Connor, 2018; Fullan, 2017; Timperley, 2011; West Burnham & O’Sullivan, 1998). As a unique whole school setting where all of our community members have an active role in our PLC, we believe we are leading a genuinely sustainable PL culture. We continuously review both the conditions that support growth and the barriers that need to be overcome and look forward to sharing our findings.

This paper critically examines the initiation, implementation and ultimately, sustainability of a national network while also exploring the extent to which its deliberately designed learning encounters influenced network member’s classroom practice, professional collaboration and school culture. Taking a pracademic stance, the inquiry also explores what it means to lead improvement collaboratively and sustainably at a national level by highlighting some of the successes and tensions experienced by the network leader.

The following inquiry question is addressed in this paper:

In what ways does the national network’s design and deliberate learning encounters influence its members’ professional learning and development and contribute to mobilising future positive change?

The aim of the national network presented in this paper is to bring together 41 school teams from different contexts and communities across 7 provinces in Canada with a shared purpose of the network to bring more play-based learning into the middle years (grades 4-8) classrooms. Over the course of one academic school year, each school team of 3-4 teachers and one school leader, were provided with support to co-design and implement their own learning through play project that would meet the needs of their school community. The support provided by the network included funding for their project and monthly teacher release time for school team members to work together. Team members also participated in a coaching session with the network leader at the start of the year and were invited to participate in a variety of structured network ‘choose your own adventure’ activities that enabled them to learn from international experts, connect with other network members, share innovative practices and resources, reflect on their experience, and help spark a movement to drive positive change in public education.

With an aim to examine the impact and sustainability of the national network after its first year, this inquiry used the five dynamic phases of educational change introduced in this symposium as its theoretical framework. Data collected from semi-structured interviews, school visits, monthly reflections and group discussions from the 41 participating school teams (n=160) were analysed abductively with and against the five phases. Abductive analysis is described as a “creative inferential process” (Tavory and Timmermans, 2014, p. 5) whereby researchers work iteratively to generate theoretical insights from unexpected findings (Chew, 2020).

Some of the emerging findings and insights that will be shared in this paper include the importance of a shared purpose and sense of legitimacy that comes from being part of a national network, striking a balance between deliberately designed learning and accountability encounters and agency for network members, and providing structured and sustained opportunities for collaborative work and reflection. The paper will also highlight the type of network activities that were reported as most impactful for members. Finally, the paper will discuss the challenges of designing and leading a sustainable network that aims to create educational change and spark a positive play-based movement in public education but which is situated in an unstable funding and dynamic post-pandemic political context.

This paper focuses on a group of educational ‘others’ who form a university-hosted network or ‘collective’ which aims to expand the available knowledge base on coaching, mentoring and collaborative professional development and to develop new approaches to active knowledge mobilization. The values and purpose of the community include to increase the opportunities for positive educational change through enhanced professional agency and wellbeing.

This paper will explore the extent to which the creation of this fluid, and largely virtual community has built and sustained momentum towards positive change. In doing so the following enquiry question is addressed;

What role can a rhizomatic network of individuals with shared interests, but diverse educational contexts and roles lead, or even influence improvement?

The enquiry is undertaken through a pracademic stance, with the director of the network creating a series of vignettes which depict episodes in the five year history of the collective. These are shared for reflection with members of the network who are invited to respond in two ways;

• Adding comments related to the vignettes to a padlet

• Attending focus groups to discuss themes emerging from both the vignettes and the emerging padlet reflections

This qualitative data is analysed in relation to the conceptualisation of the five dynamic phases of educational change. The findings and implications are emergent, but include

• Participants value engaging in informal learning opportunities within a cross-phase, cross-sectoral, international and cross-role community.

• Adopting virtual meeting spaces with a variety of forms (including networking, themed discussions, book and article ‘clubs’) helped to create a new education network.

• Sustaining activity in the network required pracademic leadership which extended the role and academic identity of teacher educator and researcher to help ‘preserve the currency of their knowledge’ (Dickinson et al., 2022, p301)

• The network has become a critical mass allowing practice, research and innovation to be shared and co-constructed.

• Educators who have discretion about their attendance and participation in opportunities for professional learning are making deliberate decisions that they recognise as having value for them: this helps build momentum and motivation for individual practice-based developments away from the network.

• The online spaces enable conversation around themes of common interest; participants discover each others’ expertise and ambitions and build further informal and formal collaborations based on new working relationships and friendships and new opportunities for change have emerged.

• Through its rhizomatic character the community becomes curriculum (Cormier, 2008) and there is an organic quality to this work. It is neither linear or simply objective-led. Participants find this a welcome change to much of the current education practice and policy in professional development.

• While hosting the network within a university has created affordances for the members it also creates internal organisational tension. Navigating these is a source of turbulence within academic practice.

• Tracking the influence of the network through the five dynamic phases of educational change reveals a mosaic of changes rather than a pathway to impact.