Learning Cycles: A Powerful Tool for Teacher-to-Teacher Professional Learning. CenterView

This latest installment in a series on teacher leadership describes how a learning cycle framework can provide a useful structure to support teacher leaders as they plan and facilitate powerful teacher-led professional learning. Teacher leaders have the potential to use learning cycles to strengthen...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inCenter for the Future of Teaching and Learning at WestEd
Format Report
LanguageEnglish
Published Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning at WestEd 01.05.2018
Subjects
Faculty Development
High Schools
Inquiry
Learning Processes
Middle School Teachers
Peer Influence
Problem Solving
Reflection
Secondary School Teachers
Teacher Collaboration
Teacher Leadership
California (Los Angeles)
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Summary:This latest installment in a series on teacher leadership describes how a learning cycle framework can provide a useful structure to support teacher leaders as they plan and facilitate powerful teacher-led professional learning. Teacher leaders have the potential to use learning cycles to strengthen teacher professional learning, making it more purposeful, reflective, and relevant to how teachers learn. Compared to traditional "sit-and-get" professional development, which has very little teacher engagement, teacher-to-teacher professional learning structured as a learning cycle offers teachers meaningful opportunities to engage deeply in learning that is grounded in their actual practice. Since 2013, hundreds of teacher leaders have been participating in the Teacher Practice Networks (TPN) initiative designed to advance instruction aligned to state standards through teacher leadership. Through annual data collected across the TPN, including surveys of teacher leaders and the teachers they lead, The Center for the Future of Teaching & Learning at WestEd has found that teacher leaders are better prepared to lead when armed with tools or a structure, such as a learning cycle, to guide how they lead professional learning for their peers. Two sidebars present the learning cycle in action.