Something I'm looking forward to when we meet on January 22 is seeing everyone again, and hearing about how your school years are going, how your holiday breaks were, and how inquiry is unfolding in your districts this year. I'm a bit nervous about Sabrina leaving NEFEC - she's been the anchor on this project since its inception, so I'm also looking forward to getting some reassurance from everyone and hopefully from Brandy Arnold that inquiry will continue to move along at the incredibly wonderful pace we've set. We've come so far in such a short period of time -- it's both WONDERFUl and SCARY -- Can we keep up the pace we've set for revitilizing teacher professional development in NEFEC districts through inquiry? . . . and, as we continue to grow and expand, how can we best manage our growth? I also have some great ideas and plans for this year's showcase expansion I can't wait to share with all of you, but again, I'm a bit scared -- will it all go smoothly and will participants continue to enjoy it as much as they have in the past as we continue to grow? I definitely feel that one word that describes most what I am looking forward to at our January 22 meeting is reassurance (that we're doing some good and important work, that everything will turn out OK, and inquiry is moving along and ahead in your individual districts)! I'm also wondering how many of you are in need of reassurance as well. Miss everyone and looking forward to seeing you soon!

Ooops . . . I just realized that you all don't have the capability to respond to an announcement, just to a blog. So, please respond here about your thoughts regarding meeting in January and any dates that absolutely wouldn't work for you should we decide to meet. I've pasted the original portion of the announcement I made yesterday about meeting below:

QUESTION THREE: When will we meet again?

In talking with Sabrina, she agreed that it would be nice to plan another face-to-face meeting as we have much to discuss and share with one another. Rather than plan this meeting for Feb/March where it was in our schedule as a tentative meeting time and potentially interfere with FCAT, we thought a better time to get us all together would be January. NEFEC will pay for your substitute teachers. On our agenda would be the following: (1) Showcase Updates (There’s a ton of information to share and discuss about new ideas for the Showcase), (2) Time to Share and Reflect on How Everything Is Going with Local Meetings, (3) Our On-Line Learning Community – Continuing the discussion on if it is OK to add someone, and (4) Preparing Your Inquirers in March for the Showcase Program Abstract and Inquiry Write-Ups. Please respond to this announcement and let me know if you would like to hold a face-to-face meeting in January, and what dates in January are absolutely impossible for you to attend should we agree to have one.

BEWARE - Long Post - I'm Trying To Think Something Through On-Line

I am enjoying facilitating this on-line PLC immensely . . . it seems to me to be doing some great things for us already. I like that we can share resources with one another and that we can have an instant place to make announcements about logistical happenings (like opportunities to present at conferences, details about upcoming events like the kick-off, and reminders from NEFEC to submit important paperwork, etc.). In addition, I like that we have created a space not only to deal with swapping useful materials with one another and making announcements, but to share individual reflections on the inquiry process, how coaching is going, and our personal thinking and challenges as we embark on this incredible inquiry journey together this year!

Emulating the power of a face-to-face PLC in the on-line environment continues to be both intriguing and challenging for me! I thought I’d use a blog entry to get my thinking out on one of my latest dilemmas in facilitating this community on-line . . .

I recently received an email from someone who is familiar with our on-line community and requested to be added because the person thought it was extremely valuable and would love the opportunity to learn from the site . . . now comes my dilemma. While adding someone to the site might seem pretty simple, I must say it has become fairly complicated in my own mind. I find myself wanting to add this person to the community since I want to be inclusive of anyone and everyone who is interested in inquiry to be a part of the work . . . BUT, I am sensitive to the fact that if this is an on-line community, we need to be sure that all members feel comfortable with each other and to use this on-line space to share thinking and wrestle with issues related to this inquiry work with one another. Adding additional members could have the potential to inhibit the present membership of the community from sharing openly with each other. We have done a good deal of work to establish ground rules and build relationships with one another so we can trust our communications in the on-line environment. We probably need to continue to do some work in this area, but what would it mean to add someone that is not a facilitator to the community?

I then began to think about all the facilitators this year, and a parrallel situation that may have already, or could potentially happen in the future to all of you. Suppose you have gone through most of your local meetings, and you are coming up on your data analysis meeting, where a number of your group members are going to present the data they have collected thus far and receive feedback from other members of the group. Up to this point, everyone in your group shares a history, and is very familiar with each others’ inquiry to date. Then, you are approached a week before your meeting by another teacher (or maybe even a principal) and asked if they can join your group and come to the data analysis meeting. What do you do?

Maybe the situations aren't exactly the same, but I could use some help in thinking this one through – should our on-line community be open to others? If not, that’s fine!! If so, do we need to set any parameters around adding a member who is not a facilitator?

I spoke with Chris about this, and he was a great sounding board. He shared with me a few principles from a book he is currently reading by Anklam called, “Net work: A practical guide to creating and sustaining
networks at work and in the world.” These principles included the following:

"Principle #7. Successful networks are reflective and generative. Networks
are complex, not chaotic" (p. 6).

I am definitely feeling success – our community both is, and is becoming reflective and generative . . . I am definitely also feeling complexity . . . and I don’t want our community that has so much potential to become chaotic! . . .

HELP!

Nanc

Warning - Long Post - A Bit Rambly

There is a lot swirling around in my head in relationship to the kick-off, so it's hard to know where to begin. . . I guess I'll start with our 12:00 meeting with the district personnell. I was pleased with the organizational structure of that afternoon, and thought Gail Ritchie did for us just what she needed us to do -- I think we were definitely at the point in our work when it was good to bring in someone from the outside with knowledge and expertise to help us think about where we are going with the next step of this work.

When I listened to Gail and the teacher research practices at Fairfax County Public Schools, two things happened for me. First, the work we have been doing as a NEFEC group was reaffirmed! I saw so many parrallels between the organizational structures Fairfax County has in place, and the ways our work has evolved with NEFEC. Both my intuition and the data we've collected over the years has led me to believe we have been on the "right track," but it is always good to get affirmation from an outside source.

Second, when I listened to Gail and the teacher research practices at Fairfax County public schools, I was reminded of the importance of teacher incentives when introducing teachers to the process. I liked her use of the word "WIIFM," standing for "What's In It For Me?" I do believe that another important point for your districts to be thinking about as they strive to embed inquiry into their normal staff development practices is "What will constitute an effective incentive to draw teachers into this professional development process?," and "How can we creatively fund whatever incentives we come up with?" I thought the provision of 3 days of a substitute over the course of the school year so that teacher researchers can meet 6 times during the school day was a brilliant incentive that Fairfax County Public Schools provided. I think, more than anything, teachers need time! 6 meetings over the school year also coincide nicely with the critical junctures teachers face in the inquiry process. I also liked the differentiation for earning professional development points that Fairfax used (So many points for engaging in the process, so many additional points for presenting at their conference, and so many additional points if teachers write-up their work). Also, the points Fairfax County teachers received appeared to be fairly significant! Like NEFEC, they also provided a stipend for coaches. These are all points to be thinking about this year, and sharing with one another so we can learn from each other about how individual districts are tackling the "WIIFM" question.

Also, when I heard Gail speak about points, a random thought came into my mind -- can we provide points for others just to attend the showcase? If we do this, we'll accomplish two things - One, we will get more people from your districts to the Showcase so we potentially will have larger audiences for each presentation. Two, we will get potential inquirers to experience the Showcase, and they might be inspired to engage in the process themselves the following year. I'd really like to investigate this notion with Sabrina, and make a number goal for each district to bring other attendess besides the presenters themselves this year. If this is going to work, we've GOT TO START NOW, organizing the incentives for others from your districts to come, even if they are not presenting. I'll have to follow up with Sabrina on this . . .

OK, I'm off topic, but another thought swirling in my head after we met yesterday is the Showcase itself. I'm anxious to get a final count of how many teachers each facilitator is working with so I can begin to rethink the structure of the Showcase to adjust for our rapid growth over the last few years. . . this will come with time, and I'm sure we'll figure out a great plan.

Back to my reflections on our 12:00 meeting. I was glad to see so many district representatives in attendance, but of course, I also wished that every facilitator had representation from their districts with them. I worry some about the ways inquiry/action research might be interpreted by district administration if they do not have a knowledge base about the process. Two facilitators shared concerns that they think the way their districts might be going is that everyone has to action research on an assigned topic. This made me think a little more about the tension between the critical importance of the inquiry process being the teacher owning his/her wondering, and exploring something that he/she is really passionate about, and the power inquiry can hold for larger school improvement efforts, where wonderings might emerge from school improvement plans, or larger district efforts. I don't think the later is inherently a bad thing, but it certainly has the potential to become bad if the way it's translated into practice is district mandates that require teachers to do inquiry on a "canned" question. I am going to keep thinking about this and how we can effectively head-off the "canned question" approach.

I wonder what the nature of the discussions were between the facilitators and their district representatives when they had time to discuss Gail's talk.

I thought the Kick-Off itself was incredibly inspring! I ALWAYS love to hear teachers talk about their research, and all the facilitators who presented did an incredible job. I really liked Gail Ritchie's diagram that she shared about the differences between teaching and teacher research. All of the participants seemed ready to begin . . .AND, the cookies were really yummy! (Can't ask for more than that)!

I'm off to do another workshop today on teacher leadership, so I'll be really tired by Friday. Even though I'm fatigued, so many thoughts keep swirling around in my head about the kick-off . . . this blog helps me keep track of them and gives me a space to get them out of my head and lay them aside to come back to later.

Nancy

I thought I'd use my post to reflect on and share a little bit about my thinking about professional learning communities.

To me, a tremendous amount of knowledge about teaching and learning resides in the heads of teachers, but unfortunately, because of the ways schools are set up, teachers don't have the opportunity to share that knowledge with one another, and collaboratively build on what they know to create new knowledge about teaching and learning and make schools better places for those who inhabit them (students), and those who work in them (teachers and administrators). To me, professional learning communities (affectionately referred to as PLCs) are a wonderful way to tap into the knowledge that teachers have, and foster collaboration among professionals so everyone learns and furthers the work of teaching together. PLCs are groups of 6 - 12 individuals that meet on a regular basis to discuss teaching, often using protocols (specific, timed steps for fostering discussions). I have been a member of many learning communities in my professional lifetime, and have enjoyed facilitating them as well!

All of the PLCs I've facilitated to date, however, have met face-to-face. It seems like what I know about PLCs and their faciliatation ougth to be able to be translated into an on-line environment. The on-line space affords "flexiblity" for meeting, as members can check into the community at different times. The on-line space affords a record of the learning community - what's been discussed, what we've discovered, etc., that would seem to valuable to have. The on-line space helps makes the literal distance that separates us geographically less of a hurdle to gathering a group of committed, dynamic educators together. The on-line space connects us to others outside our immediate vacinity, so we get fresh and new perspectives from others. Finally, I'm finding the on-line space to be just plain "cool," as my 11 and 14 year olds might say - it seems to be the wave of the future and it feels to me like when we're using the on-line space we're "on the cutting edge."

Intellectually, I know there are good reasons to be charting new waters and trying to facilitate a PLC on-line, but I find myself vacilating between the thrill of trying something new, and the agony of not knowing how it is working, what I should be doing as a facilitator, and what value it will add to our work together!

When I facilitate a face-to-face learning community, I can read the members' facial expressions and body language, and these often give me good clues as to where to move the group next. When I facilitate an face-to-face learning community, I can pose questions and I get immediate feedback from members of the group, and this helps me determine where to go next. In the on-line community, I am not getting these clues and so I am constantly questioning, "I wonder if members of our community read a post," "I wonder what they're thinking," and "What should I do next?"

This is really hard for me. I guess this is all a part of working through something new, but there are sure plenty of things I am worried about as I attempt to be the facilitator of this group. I'll keep at it though, and with your help, we'll all learn together!

Nanc

One word or phrase I would use to describe how I feel about participating in our on-line learning community is nervous-excitement! I chose this phrase because there are so many wonderful opportunities this on-line learning community will bring to us - a place to share, reflect, help each other, and grow! I'm nervous because I like seeing everyone face to face, and will miss seeing you more often. Can our participation in our on-line learning community be as wonderful as our face-to-face participation in our learning community? Can it be better? Time will tell . . .

Attached is the recruitment letter that was in your folders, so you can use as is or adapt in any way you'd like. -Nanc