Presentation of PLTs

Today Lee presented very briefly the Leadership's team of our College's PLC and the follow on PLTs that form part of this plan. Lee has mentioned many times that this is our rock for 2017. He presented not only the proposal as well as the meeting schedule, he then presented some brainstorming that the leadership team completed only yesterday on possible topics for PLTs. They included areas such as:

- student voice

- Instructional coaching

- feedback

- flipped learning

- STEAM

- Boys education

- Homework

- GRIT

This is not all only the ones I remembered. It was obvious in this meeting there was a lot of confusion between the PLC program at St Andrews and the action research project I have been involved in in the Senior Years. Many teachers, particularly middle and senior who were at the presentation of our project were puzzled about what connection this had to instructional coaching. This I felt therefore confused teachers about we were going to do as a College in 2017.

Lee's view today was very much a big picture approach. I feel that there were some fantastic ideas in what Lee presented but maybe the details were premature. Ultimately, I feel that our PLTs should change our individual teaching and therefore learning for students as well as whole College priorities - Know thy impact.

The ideas for PLT's action research that leadership came up with were interesting - some ideas I thought had a variety of application and many others that might have less impact. I believe that the Leader of Learning in conjunction with Lee and the Deputy Principal's need to look at the focus for the initiative and make it very clear for the whole staff of the process and what they would like teachers to do throughout 2017. I feel that whoever has this role develops a trusting culture and is enthusiastic and passionate about teaching and professional learning.

PLTs need to be based on trust and the LOL and Principal need to encourage teachers to want to explore and investigate their impact on learning in all those different areas. I feel one major hurdle is the P-12 nature of our college and getting teachers to trust other teachers from other sectors. I feel that if its a choose on a sheet, staff will choose their direct or closest colleagues and not the topics they are interested in. Teachers are generally afraid of change and I feel that gaining trust and making it not about accountability and about reporting back but about improving results and experiences for students.

I believe another really important aspect in this process is Cognitive Coaching. Cognitive Coaching is a research based model that capitalises upon and enhances teachers' cognitive processes. As a cognitive coach you learn to:

- develop trust and support

- develop an identity as a mediator of thinking

- utilise conversation structures for planning, reflecting and problem-solving

- develop teachers autonomy and sense of community

- develop higher levels of efficacy, consciousness, craftmanship, flexibility and interdependence

- apply four support functions: coaching, evaluating, consulting and collaborating

- utilise the coaching skill of pausing, paraphrasing and posing questions

- distinguish among the five forms of feedback

- use data to mediate thinking

I believe this will be integral to effective implementation to a program such as this in a college.