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Global Source Education and
Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction Social Studies Program
Present:
Teacher Leadership and the Future of Social Studies Education: Building Professional Learning Communities Around the Classroom-Based Assessments (CBA's)
Special One-Day Programs at the 2007 OSPI Summer Institutes*
June 20, Spokane, WA
August 1, Vancouver, WA
August 8, Auburn, WA
Program Overview:
We invite you to be part of an initiative to develop teacher leadership in connection with the WA State Social Studies Classroom-Based Assessments (CBA’s). We are actively seeking out teachers who have already taken leadership roles in their schools and districts in implementing the CBAs. Specifically, we are looking to create a leadership network to support the statewide implementation of the CBA’s. These sessions at this summer’s OSPI Institutes are a first step in this effort.
Richard Elmore’s 1996 article Getting to Scale with Educational Practice makes the most compelling case for building a teacher leadership network around the Social Studies Classroom-Based Assessments (CBA’s) developed by OSPI. His extensive research on educational reform reveals that "the problem of scale in educational innovation can be briefly stated as follows: Innovations that require large changes in the core of educational practice seldom penetrate more than a small fraction of US schools and classrooms and seldom last for very long when they do" (pp.1-2).
Hence, the statewide implementation of the CBA’s slated to take place in 2008-2009 faces this same fate unless we can somehow learn from the lessons of previous educational reform efforts. Fortunately, Elmore concludes this article, as do other researchers in more recent studies, with a hopeful call for the development of "strong external normative structures for practice" for teachers.
Elmore goes on to explain that teachers would "begin increasingly to think of themselves as operating in a web of professional relations that influence their daily decisions, rather than as solo practitioners inventing practice out of their personalities, prior experiences, and assessments of their own strengths and weaknesses" (p.19). This new way of thinking captures what we hope to foster among a select group of educators who want to be part of a CBA Teacher Leadership Network. Moreover, it supports the work of other researchers, including Milbrey McLaughlin, who highlight the importance of developing professional learning communities when trying to ensure that educational reforms have the opportunity to succeed.
Following the belief that teachers must be the primary driving force behind school change and educational reform, these day-long sessions at the three OSPI Summer Institutes create the professional time, space and setting for participants to explore, discuss and engage in:
- How to develop "strong external normative structures for practice" informed by the design and purpose of the Social Studies CBA’s.
- How the Social Studies CBA’s can help build professional learning communities in their district and a teacher leadership network across the state.
- How teachers are already using these common assessments to promote powerful conversations with their colleagues and positive change in their schools.
- How to create opportunities for those who would like to become a part of a CBA Teacher Network.
Facilitated by Caleb Perkins, from OSPI, and Jon Garfunkel, from Global Source Education.
(Reference: Getting to Scale with Good Educational Practice, by Richard Elmore, Harvard Educational Review, Spring 1996)
Program
Information:
Space is limited to 25 participants.
For more information on attending the OSPI Summer Institutes, visit http://www.k12.wa.us/conferences/summerinstitute2007
What
Educators Are Saying About Global Source
Program subject to change.
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