International evidence suggests that educational reform’s progress
depends on teachers’ individual and collective capacity and its link with schoolwide
capacity for promoting pupils’ learning. Building capacity is therefore
critical. Capacity is a complex blend of motivation, skill, positive learning,
organisational conditions and culture, and infrastructure of support. Put together,
it gives individuals, groups, whole school communities and school systems the
power to get involved in and sustain learning over time. Developing professional
learning communities appears to hold considerable promise for capacity building
for sustainable improvement. As such, it has become a ‘hot topic’ in many
countries.

Professional Learning Communities: A Review of the Literature

Continuing to learn is universally accepted and expected by professionals and other stakeholders across all professions. However, despite changes in response to research findings about how professionals learn, many professional development practices still focus on delivering content rather than enhancing learning. In exploring reasons for the continuation of didactic practices in professional development, this article critiques the usual conceptualization of professional development through a review of recent literature across professions. An alternative conceptualization is proposed, based on philosophical assumptions congruent with evidence about professional learning from seminal educational research of the past two decades. An argument is presented for a shift in discourse and focus from delivering and evaluating professional development programs to understanding and supporting authentic professional learning.

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Reframing Professional Development Through Understanding Authentic Professional Learning

Teachers Resilience: A Necessary Condition for Effectiveness.

This article argues that system‐wide excellence in student learning is attainable at reasonable cost, using education policies differing from conventional market‐oriented reform strategies prevalent in many other countries. In this respect, Finland is an example of a nation that has developed from a remote agrarian/industrial state in the 1950s to a model knowledge economy, using education as the key to economic and social development. Relying on data from international student assessments and earlier policy analysis, this article describes how steady improvement in student learning has been attained through Finnish education policies based on equity, flexibility, creativity, teacher professionalism and trust. Unlike many other education systems, consequential accountability accompanied by high‐stakes testing and externally determined learning standards has not been part of Finnish education policies. The insight is that Finnish education policies intended to raise student achievement have been built upon...

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Education policies for raising student learning: the Finnish approach

Background: Implicitly, innovative schools have historically contained some (but not usually all) of the properties of learning organizations and professional learning communities but have a weak record of sustaining success over time Can innovative schools that selfconsciously establish themselves as learning organizations and professional learning communities sustain their early promise of success in the face of the predictable cycle of the “attrition of change”; of pressure and envy in the surrounding district, profession, and community; and of the historically specific and recent pressure of standardized reform? Purpose: This article explores the impact of these influences on three innovative schools and their sustainability over time It concentrates in particular on the promise and viability of one of these schools, which has been consciously modeled as a learning organization and professional learning community Conclusions: Although further research is required, the article concludes that the learning organization and professional learning community model may provide a more robust resistance to conventional processes of the attrition of change and of surrounding change forces, but much like other innovative schools, it also shows signs of defaulting to conventional patterns of schooling in the face of standardized reform

David Hamilton

Papers

Teaching in the knowledge society: education in the age of insecurity