(Newswire.net — July 25, 2016) — Take a page from Dr. Timothy Stuart’s new book, released earlier this month, and get teachers of the same subject on
that same page. The result? More effective educators, and higher levels of learning for all students.
In Global Perspectives: Professional Learning Communities at Work in International Schools, Stuart makes the case for creating high functioning collaborative teams in high performing and international schools.
“Students learn more when teachers work in collaboration with each other in order to have learning focused conversations that focus on student learning,” says Stuart, who is currently the executive director of strategic programs at Singapore American School (SAS).
Published by Solution Tree Press, Stuart collaborated with numerous international school educators who each submitted a chapter for Global Perspectives. He chose contributors who were experts in their fields of international education with the book centering on the concept of professional learning communities (PLCs).
When he joined SAS as high school principal six years ago, Stuart and his colleagues began implementing PLCs at the school and have seen the benefits over the last five years.
An hour at the beginning of every Wednesday is dedicated to PLCs (school starts an hour later), which means teachers of the same subject meet to discuss student learning, learning strategies, successes, and struggles.
PLCs are meant to help teachers identify learning targets, review the curriculum, and answer four critical questions: What do we want students to know and be able to do? How are we going to know that they know it? What are we going to do if they don’t know it, or aren’t learning it? What are we going to do if they already know it?
“They start becoming better teachers because they’re sharing strategies and resources on how to reach those kids who aren’t learning, and how to keep those who learn quicker to get to the next level,” says Stuart. “Better teachers mean better students. Fewer kids are falling through the cracks, more are achieving at higher levels.”
Setting up PLCs at schools also ensures a level of consistency that benefits students and teachers, alike, says Stuart.
“It’s a very powerful outcome. It’s not enough to have a common standard and common rubric; you have to have teachers talking about it. Giving teachers time to collaborate and have focused conversations yields real consistency.”
Being part of the international school community, at one of the largest and most prominent international schools in the world, puts Stuart in a unique position—one he doesn’t take lightly.
“Our vision is to be a world leader in education, cultivating exceptional thinkers, prepared for the future,” he says. “We hire people who are collaborative and pushing the envelope on educational practice. We have the responsibility to become better than we are and to share that with the world.”
Stuart acknowledges that without government mandates or restricted budgets, international schools can operate completely independently.
He wants to use this role and have international schools serve as a global model. It’s his responsibility to give back to education systems around the world and use his (deleted) resources to explore best practices in the field.
When it comes to PLCs, Stuart believes it’s a concept that can be emulated by public education systems as well, regardless of budgetary requirements.
“Many schools say they could never do it, their schedule wouldn’t allow it,” he says. “But the reality is, you can’t afford not to do it. You have to give your teachers the ability to collaborate with each other. When we carved out that time in our week, it only impacted classes by 30 minutes per semester.
“There’s no correlation between more class time and more learning. There is, however, a very strong correlation between having clear learning targets and more learning.”
Stuart is currently at work on his next book due for a June 2017 release. The book will be an expansion of a chapter in Global Perspectives where student agency and ownership of the learning process is examined.
Education Newswire
Education Newswire is a single source for all news and features related to global education and education models around the world. We examine, explore, and compare what different education systems are doing, how they’re impacting future generations, and how successes in one part of the world can be applied to another.