TITLE:
Whatever It Takes! Developing Professional Learning Communities in Primary School Mathematics Education
AUTHORS:
Marilyn Chaseling, William Edgar Boyd, Karen Robson, Luke Brown
KEYWORDS:
Numeracy Teaching, Professional Development Communities, Teacher Professional Development
JOURNAL NAME:
Creative Education,
Vol.5 No.11,
June
23,
2014
ABSTRACT: In recognising the need to develop skills in
numeracy teaching in a regional primary school, this paper examines a case
study of one school response. The Principal of the school instigated the development
of professional learning communities, to assist all the teachers, who are not
numeracy specialists, to develop appropriate classroom skills. This study
describes the early stages of this development, using the beginning of a
planned action research approach to reflect on the processes and success of the
development. Through staff feedback and participant observation, a general
satisfaction with the process and its outcomes is recorded. A benchmarking
exercise against a published case study in an American middle school setting
identifies where that success originates from—the adoption and articulation of
key concepts and principles, the role of deliberative leadership, the creation
of a safe working environment, and a number of practices considered crucial to
the success of professional learning communities. However, the benchmarking
exercise also identifies weaknesses in the case study, which helps explain some
misgivings that some staff express about the process, in particular a default
assumption about staff recruitment, and a weakness of managing time to account
for existing staff time demands.