Content area
Full Text
interview / MICHAEL FULLAN
'We're talking about a change in the culture of schools and a change in the culture of teaching'
J SD: When I first interviewed you 10 years ago for an NSDC publication, you said, "We know that the best way for people to learn about new policies and innovations is through interaction with other people." Some types of interaction are more helpful than others, though, and I'd like to hear your views on the kinds of relationships that are most powerful in promoting innovations in teaching and leadership for the benefit of students.
Fullan: It has become increasingly clear from various sources that we need professional learning communities in which teachers and leaders work together and focus on student learning. But they must be infused with high-quality curriculum materials and assessment information about student learning. David Cohen and Heather Hill, for instance, describe three policy levers - assessment, curriculum, and teacher learning. They say if those levers aren't pulled together, schools can't get very far. Milbrey McLaughlin and Joan Talbert found two types of learning communities. In one of them, teachers work together to innovate to improve their teaching practices. In the second type, teachers interacted around their traditional teaching practices, which simply reinforced those things that weren't working in the first place.
This research tells us two things. First, we need far more intensive professional learning within a culture of continuous deliberation. Second, it has to be continually tested by external ideas or standards about best pray tices. Outside curriculum ideas and student assessment information help ensure that the process isn't too insular.
SPREAD POSITIVE DEVIANCE
JSD: Virtually all schools have some teachers who produce high levels of learning for students. In addition to drawing on outside sources of knowledge, a powerful way to improve the quality of teaching in schools, it seems to me, is to spread the practices of these "positive deviant teachers" throughout the school.
Fullan: The effective schools research found that classroom-to-- classroom differences in effectiveness within schools is greater than schoolto-school variation. Professional learning communities internal to a school should reduce the variation across classrooms with more and more teachers gravitating toward the best practices.
Positive deviant teachers can be used within...