Multivoicedness as a tool for expanding school leaders’ understandings and practices for school-based professional development

ABSTRACT

This article presents findings from the implementation of a pilot study of a professional development model, Schools Inquiring and Learning with Peers (SILP) in Chile. SILP includes a network learning setting involving a cluster of three schools supported by university partners that conduct peer reviews and a school learning setting involving school teams in conversations to mobilise new leadership for learning practices. The notions of joint practice development and multivoicedness in professional conversations are the essence of these processes. Data produced through the review process, understood as voices, enabled participants to incorporate the perspectives, conceptual horizon, and intentions of administrators, students, and teachers who need to collaborate for teaching to produce learning. Across schools we observed common learning as well as important differences. These differences show that by taking an active role in making sense of their participation in a professional development programme, learners achieve outcomes that may be much more meaningful than what program designers prescribed. As facilitators we learned with participants about their specific contexts, expanding the affordances they and we envisioned for the use of new tools that became available through their participation in SILP.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher learning
• school leadership
• professional development
• peer review

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Source: Agency for Quality Education. Retrieved from http://archivos.agenciaeducacion.cl/PolicybriefCD2018.pdf.

2. Pseudonyms are given to all participants.

3. Data excerpts are identified by the position of the speaker (P = Principal; TPH = Technical Pedagogical Head; TL = Teacher Leader), the school (A, B, and C) and the data context (University Workshop, Plenary, Reflection Session at each school, Data Sharing Workshop).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by CONICYT Grant #FB 0003. Funding agencies have not had editorial control of the contents of this article.