“A research team led by Carol Campbell, Associate Professor of Leadership and Educational Change at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, examined the professional learning that educators experience in the provinces and territories of Canada. The study identifies key components and features of effective professional learning and highlights findings from what educators in the nation experience.”
In this post, we highlight some of the reports that came about from this study. All of these reports are available from Learning Forward. Learning Forward is an organization whose mission is to “build the capacity of leaders to establish and sustain highly effective professional learning.” These reports emerged from the Learning Forward 2016 Conference.
The State of Educators’ Professional Learning in Canada by By Carol Campbell, Pamela Osmond-Johnson, Brenton Faubert, Kenneth Zeichner, and Audrey Hobbs-Johnson, with Sherri Brown, Paula DaCosta, Anne Hales, Larry Kuehn, Jacqueline Sohn, and Karen Steffensen
“Canada has been recognized in international assessments, benchmarks, and research as a country with high educational performance and there is interest, within Canada and internationally, in knowing about approaches to educators’ professional learning in Canada. However, as Canada’s school education system is the responsibility of 10 provinces and three territories, there is limited Pan-Canadian data and research available to examine teachers’ professional learning across Canada. This study sought to address this gap in available research by investigating, ‘What is the current state of educators’ professional learning in Canada?'”
Bringing the Profession Back In by Michael Fullan and Andy Hargreaves
“If you want good return on investment in teachers and teaching, you have to attract, select, and develop teachers with high levels of human capital in terms of knowledge, skill, and talent; you have to deliberately improve these qualities over time through the decisional capital of structured experience and feedback that continuously supports and challenges all educators as professionals; and you have to move this knowledge around or circulate it through the social capital of shared commitment to and engagement in all students’ success. Data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2013) show that high-performing systems such as Canada invest in all three aspects of the professional capital of their educators. But even they have room for greater consistency and further growth.”
The State of Educators’ Professional Learning in British Columbia: A Case Study by Sherri Brown, Anne Hales, Larry Kuehn, and Karen Steffensen
“This case study report, therefore, offers a comprehensive analysis of BC’s education system, the experiences and values of educators, as well as the enabling conditions, opportunities, and challenges to professional learning in the province.”
International Education News 