What Do Teachers Do When They Say They Are Doing Learning Rounds? Scotland’s Experience of Instructional Rounds

This paper reports on research into the practice of learning rounds in Scotland. Learning rounds are a form of collaborative professional development for teachers based on the instructional rounds practice developed in the USA. In recent years learning rounds have gained high profile official support within education in Scotland. The research finds that what teachers in Scotland do when they say they are do-ing learning rounds varies widely from school to school and deviates significantly from the practice of instructional rounds. The implications of this for who is learning what in the practice of learning rounds is considered. The wider implications of the Scottish experience for the development of in-structional rounds practice in other countries is also considered as are the implications for promoting collaborative professional development practice more generally

Accessing the field : methodological dificulties of research in schools

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Reactive Attachment Disorder in maltreated young children in foster care

Reactive attachment disorder (RAD) is one of the least researched and most poorly understood psychiatric disorders. Very little is known about the prevalence and stability of RAD symptoms over time. Until recently it has been difficult to investigate RAD due to limited tools for informing a diagnosis. Utilising a newly developed observational tool along with the Disturbances of Attachment Interview. this short-term prospective longitudinal study explored RAD symptoms in maltreated young children in Scotland (n=100, age range =12-62 months) over 12 months. Children were recruited as part of The Best Services Trial (BeST ), in which all infants who came in to the care of the local authority in Glasgow due to child protection concerns were invited to participate. Prevalence of RAD was found to be 5.0% (n=5, 95% CI [0.7-9.3]) when children were first placed in to foster care. Following at least 1 year of improved care conditions, prevalence in the 76 children remaining in the study was 2.1% (n=2, 95% CI [below 0-4.7]). RAD was associated with some mental health and cognitive difficulties. While levels of carer-reported RAD symptoms decreased significantly over time, observed symptoms did not. Findings suggest that RAD resolved in a small majority of cases but further exploration in larger samples would be invaluable

Teacher agency and professional learning communities; what can Learning Rounds in Scotland teach us?

Recently there has been growth in researching teacher agency. Some research has considered the relationship between teacher agency and professional learning. Similarly, there has been growing interest in professional learning communities as resources for professional learning. Connections have been made between professional learning communities and teacher agency, with professional learning communities seen as an affordance for the exercise of teacher agency. However, it has also been argued that there is little detailed evidence of what happens inside professional learning communities or of teacher agency in action. The research reported here focuses on a form of professional learning community from Scotland: Learning Rounds. It uses data from transcripts of post classroom observation conversations to consider the extent to which Learning Rounds provide an affordance for teacher agency and the extent to which that affordance is utilised. This research makes a contribution in three ways: adding to an empirical understanding of what happens in professional learning communities; understanding how teacher agency is (or is not) exercised in practice; considering what factors might affect the utilisation (or otherwise) of affordances for teacher agency. The paper concludes with several recommendations for developing effective professional learning communities as an affordance for teacher agency

Professional Learning Communities as drivers of educational change: the case of Learning Rounds

Many researchers claim that there is a compelling weight of evidence for the effectiveness of PLCs in promoting teachers’ learning and pupil achievement. However, others raise fundamental questions about their nature and purpose. Some of the uncertainties about the nature and purpose of PLCs relate to the ways in which the macro-context of neo-liberalism has shaped the practices of PLCs in particular ways. The fundamental questions raised about PLCs relate to the type of change they are intended to produce, the model of community they are based on and whether the right conditions and skills are in place for them to contribute to change. Some researchers argue that we need to pay more attention to shortcomings within existing PLCs and their internal dynamics. Others argue that little research focuses on the specific interactions of teachers inside PLCs. The research reported here goes ‘inside the teacher community’ of Learning Rounds to explore what the shortcomings of some examples of this model in practice add to what we know about how to assist PLCs to produce change in education

A Critical Realist study of Learning Rounds: inside the black box

This research study explores a version of professional learning communities (PLCs) in the context of Scottish education. The rise in popularity of PLCs as a means of collaborative, situated professional learning for teachers, in recent years, has led to the growth of several variations on this phenomenon, and a particular version of them, the Learning Round, is the focus of this study. They are considered in relation to the importance of their role in the wider context of teacher professional learning in Scotland. The study seeks to shine a light inside the PLC to investigate the so far under-researched internal processes, interactions and emergent practices. The study is framed by a Critical Realist (CR) approach, as a qualitative case study, using semi-structured interviews in two school settings where LR and other forms of PLC have taken place. CR provides a depth ontology that has been adopted as it allows for the examination of mechanisms that explain how structural, cultural and agential factors have influenced the internal workings of the PLCs in question. Findings suggest the PLC is presented as a structure to enable the collaborative improvement of practice but, in the absence of mutual accountability, the achievement of individual improvement is prioritized for most participants. For participants, support to enable congenial relationships to develop more collegially is essential, in order to achieve critical engagement and mobilise the PLC as a site for the creation of shared work supported by mutual accountability, as opposed to the sharing of practice for individual improvement. For school leaders, some tensions are identified in balancing horizontal and vertical leadership and in calculating how far to step in or step back from the PLC. In stepping out entirely they forgo the opportunity to bring system-level perspective and make an epistemic contribution to the PLC. Finally, implications for practice, policy and research are explored, considering how PLCs might be re-articulated in the light of these findings

Learning rounds:a study of a migrated practice in Scottish schools

Catriona Oates - ORCID: 0000-0001-9043-3122 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9043-3122Item is not available in this repository.An international focus on the link between teacher quality and student outcomes (Programme for International Student Assessment; McKinsey; Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development; Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study etc.) has directed a spotlight on methods and practice in teacher education and development. Teachers’ individual and collective capacities are seen as key to promoting school improvement (Harris and Jones 2010). Teacher professional learning communities (PLCs)could be understood as a dimension of this which is seen universally positive development, and significant research evidence has been generated to support this view (Cordingley et al. 2005; Stoll et al. 2006, 2 007; Edwards 2012). Observational practices such as Learning Walks, Learning Triads or Power of 3 are increasingly advocated in education and other professions as a means of supporting home-grown professional learning situated in the workplace. However, Watson (2012) and Fullan (2007) warn that the growing tendency to see the PLC as almost de rigeur is problematic in its own right. Servage (2009) goes further to add that they serve as neo-liberal sites of micro-management of teacher learning and performance, and Fendler (2006) warns against the dangerous assumptions of assimilation and heterogeneity within the notion of community in professional learning. The PLC debate is clearly polarised by conflicting arguments and further empirical knowledge is vital to inform practice in this area. There is a need for further knowledge to fill this gap by generating deeper understanding of the processes involved in professional learning communities, and their emergent effects. Learning Rounds as an instance of PLCs is now being developed in Scotland and is gaining currency having enjoyed a healthy endorsement from educational policy making bodies in spite of a serious lack of empirical research into the process, either in its Scottish version or in the Harvard-based original one (Oates and Philpott, forthcoming).Using a case-study methodology and borrowing some key concepts from Archer’s social theory (analytical dualism) this study will examine the processes at work in Learning Rounds in action. The study will take place over a period of approximately six months across two sites. Questions will focus on what teachers do and what events occur as part of this process.Methods including interviews, observations and narrative enquiry will generate data for this study

Learning rounds through CPD

Catriona Oates - ORCID: 0000-0001-9043-3122 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9043-3122Item is not available in this repository

Learning Rounds and the development of teacher agency: an empirical study in Scottish schools

Catriona Oates - ORCID: 0000-0001-9043-3122 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9043-3122Item is not available in this repository."[T]he problem is not that schools don't have access to knowledge. The problem is that they don't have a process for translating the knowledge systematically into practice" (City et al 2009, p.9). Learning Rounds has become a high profile method of teacher learning in Scotland. Learning Rounds was initially informed by the Instructional Rounds developed in the USA by City et al (2009). However, Learning Rounds practice emphasises classroom observation over other aspects of Instructional Rounds such as the 'theory of action'. A theory of action is a "story line that makes a vision and a strategy concrete" (ibid, 40). This needs to be kept open ended or it "ceases to function as a learning tool and it becomes a symbolic artefact, useful primarily as a tool for legitimising ... authority" (City et al 2009 p. 9). This paper uses transcript data from Scottish teachers' Learning Rounds to explore differences in how teachers' observations reflect on what is promulgated as good practice. That data is drawn from four transcripts of Learning Rounds debriefs from four different schools each in a different local authority. The debriefs involved twenty six teachers in total. In some data ideas of good practice are largely unquestioned. In other data teachers reflect on how their observations might refine ideas of good practice; they feed into a developing theory of action. The implication is that increased focus on developing, rather than accepting, theories of action in Learning Rounds will promote teacher agency and challenge the "rhetoric of conclusions" (Clandinin and Connelly, 1995) emanating as theories of action from other sources that can limit this agency