Full Description
"Taking your school from great to greater—this compelling book gives you tools to use with staff for reflecting on and refining professional practices. You and your team will find tools for taking learners to the next level of improvement!"
—Lynn A. Kaszynski, Principal
Harrison Street Elementary School, Sunbury, OH
Networked learning communities: A powerful school improvement strategy for school leaders!
Ideal for school leaders and superintendents leading change efforts, this book describes how separate professional learning communities can be linked across schools by common instructional and learning issues to create dynamic networked learning communities (NLCs). Drawing on their work with schools throughout North America and England, Steven Katz, Lorna M. Earl, and Sonia Ben Jaafar show how participants in NLCs can share professional knowledge that ultimately improves performance at the school and district level.
Through a sample school narrative, the book illustrates how NLCs can significantly enhance instruction, increase student performance, and empower local professional learning communities. This resource examines:
Collaborative inquiry as a process that challenges teachers' thinking, generates new learning, and fosters trusting relationships
The development of formal and informal leadership roles in NLCs
How NLCs support systematic data analysis and accountability
Demonstrating how NLCs—small or large, local or statewide—can promote critical reforms while strengthening the work of individual professional learning communities, this invaluable resource reveals how educators can join forces across school and district boundaries to generate deep, meaningful, and sustainable change.
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
1. Why Networks? Why Now?
It's About Learning
Networks: A Powerful Organizational Tool
Time for Reflection
2. How Networked Learning Communities Work
What Are Networked Learning Communities?
How NLCs Work: The Theory of Action
Using NLCs to Focus Local PLCs
The Anatomy of a NLC: A Refined Theory of Action
Time for Reflection
3. Establishing a Clear and Defensible Focus
Focus Foremost
Evidence-Based Focus
From a School Focus to a Network Focus
Time for Reflection
4. Collaborative Inquiry to Challenge Thinking and Practice
The Importance of Relationships
From Inquiry to an Inquiry Habit of Mind
From Relationships to Deep Collaboration
Getting to Powerful Collaborative Inquiry
Time for Reflection
5. Leadership in Networked Professional Learning Communities
Roles of Formal Leaders
Roles of Informal Leaders
Time for Reflection
6. From Student Learning to Teacher Learning
Towards Focused Collaborative Inquiry
Collaborative Inquiry for Teacher Leaders
Within-School Focused Professional Learning: Collaborative Inquiry for Teachers
Time for Reflection
7. Using the Network to Support Professional Learning for Leaders
Collaborative Inquiry and Focused Learning for Leaders
Using Critical Friends to Promote Inquiry and Focus Efforts
From Collaborative Inquiry to Instructional Leadership Actions
Time for Reflection
8. Sustaining Networked Learning Communities
Sustaining Collective Understanding
Sustaining Professional Learning
Sustaining and Broadening Leadership
Sustaining Powerful Networked Learning Communities
Time for Reflection
References
Index
