Faculty study groups can effect positive change because they create conditions that promote teacher learning. In their recent book The Teaching Gap, co-authors James Stigler and James Hiebert state that "a little-recognized truth in education reform is that every recommendation for improving teaching requires teachers to learn" (1999, p.142). Although this is a requirement, most schools do not provide an appropriate environment for teachers to learn. Teachers work in isolation and have little time to collaborate with their colleagues. The authors believe that improving teaching cannot be "left to refresher courses in the evenings or during the summer in university classrooms. It must be seen by teachers, parents, and administrators as a substantial and important part of the teacher’s workweek" (p. 144).

Successful study group programs usually involve small groups that meet regularly, at least one hour every week. With a focus on student learning issues, group members typically research and practice new methods for meeting student learning goals. In their book on whole-faculty study groups, Carlene U. Murphy and Dale W. Lick state that "the professional study group process allows teachers the freedom and flexibility to explicate, invent, and evaluate practices that have the potential to meet the needs of their students…. As teachers work together in these study group approaches, they alter their practices to provide new and innovative opportunities for their students to learn in challenging and productive new ways" (1998, p. 2).

When fully supported by the school administration, whole-faculty study groups can become the process for managing change. By researching and testing new practices within their groups, teachers develop a common language and processes for analyzing the learning that is happening in their classrooms. By giving teachers responsibility for improving instruction, they take charge of their own learning and develop a professional culture focused on meeting the needs of all students in their school.

Alliance Schools Study Group Initiative

The Regional Alliance recognizes the potential of faculty study groups to generate a system for continuous professional development. In an effort to help schools institutionalize the use of school-based professional study groups, the Alliance is supporting five schools who have made a commitment to implement the professional development strategy from January through June 2000.

The Alliance began the initiative with a workshop in December 1999. Carlene U. Murphy, co-author of Whole-Faculty Study Groups, A Powerful Way to Change Schools and Enhance Learning, facilitated the one-day working session.

Ms. Murphy began the morning by asking each participant to choose an experience from their previous week at school that said something about who they were. The simple exercise seemed to be an icebreaker, but it did more than that. In the process of sharing their teaching experiences, the team members began establishing a way of relating within the group—a way that builds trust and respect. It helped to establish conditions important for successful learning groups.

She offered simple forms for recording the action plans and maintaining the log. The action plan form asks the group to identify the specific student needs that the group will address and what the teachers will do within their study groups that will help them meet those needs. Ms. Murphy emphasized that the group articulate what they will do within the study group, not in their classrooms. This puts the focus on learning within the group. The members will be researching and practicing with each other what they may later bring to the classroom.

Participants had the opportunity to review logs from study groups that had met once a week for an academic year. These records of a group’s work clearly showed how momentum builds from week to week as research leads to more questions, more areas of research, and more classroom applications. One participant noted that it seemed like the groups could just keep going with their study. In fact, many groups do.

The Alliance School study groups have developed their action plans and are now beginning their study. We hope to include the teachers’ reflections on the study group process in future issues of Alliance Access.

References

Murphy, C. U. & Lick, D. W. (1998). Whole-faculty study groups: A powerful way to change schools and enhance learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, Inc.

Stigler, J. W. & Hiebert, J. (1999). The teaching gap. New York, NY: The Free Press.

For more on developing and implementing study groups, see Access to Resources.