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Leading Powerful Professional Learning
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Leading Powerful Professional Learning
Responding to Complexity With Adaptive Expertise

A Joint Publication with Learning Forward, Foreword by Viviane Robinson



October 2019 | 160 pages | Corwin

Effective facilitation is complex


What is central to leading powerful and effective facilitation in professional learning? You. Gone are the one-size-fits-all answers—instead, you’ll draw from your own knowledge and expertise to lead your PLC in actively solving complex problems that are unique to your context. 

For professional learning to have an improvement impact for both teachers and students, it needs to be more than a single event. Truly successful professional learning is sustained, collaborative, evidence-informed, and student-focused—generating multifaceted solutions to real-life, real-time issues rather than focusing on one piece of the practice puzzle at a time.

This book, based on the results of a five-year research study, provides:

An innovative approach to the design and delivery of professional learning grounded in principles of adaptive expertise
Easy-to-use one-page summaries of “Deliberate Acts of Facilitation”
Guidance that’s fully congruent with Learning Forward Standards for Professional Learning

The current educational landscape demands a new kind of leadership. This book gives you the tools you need to apply the principles of adaptive expertise to your leadership and facilitation—enabling you to draw on your own deep knowledge to address the complex challenges you and your teachers face every day.

 


 
Foreword
 
Preface
 
Acknowledgments
 
About the Authors
 
Introduction
 
Chapter 1: The Roots
Root #1: Adopting an Evaluative Inquiry Stance

 
Root #2: Valuing and Using Deep Conceptual Knowledge

 
Root #3: Being Agentic

 
Root #4: Being Aware of Cultural Positioning

 
Root #5: Being Metacognitive

 
Root #6: Bringing a Systemic Focus

 
 
Chapter 2: The Trunk
Exercise #1: Trunk: Responsiveness through Relationships with a Generative Improvement Orientation

 
 
Chapter 3: Branches and Leaves
Branch 1: Purpose and Focus

 
DAF #1: Clarifying Purpose

 
DAF #2: Focusing on Valued Student Outcomes

 
DAF #3: Building Coherence

 
DAF #4: Creating Commitment and Taking Action

 
Branch 2: Knowledge and Inquiry

 
DAF #5: Deepening Knowledge

 
DAF #6: Using Evidence Critically

 
DAF #7: Using Focused and Deep Collaborative Inquiry

 
Branch 3: Effective Learning Processes

 
DAF #8: Surfacing and Engaging Theories and Beliefs

 
DAF #9: Navigating Perceptions of Risk

 
DAF #10: Developing Self-Regulation

 
DAF #11: Providing Appropriate Support and Challenge

 
DAF #12: Co-constructing Learning

 
 
Chapter 4: Facilitating Improvement
Facilitating Improvement and Adaptive Expertise

 
How Does Adaptive Expertise Fit With Other Forms of Expertise?

 
Developing Your Own Adaptive Expertise

 
Developing Adaptive Expertise in Others

 
Putting It All Together

 
 
Research Appendix
 
References

Leading adult learning is difficult and many educators do not have the skills needed, nor do they know where to start. Our mental model of professional learning is skewed by years of substandard learning provided by well meaning leaders. This book will help build capacity for learning leaders to identify shortcomings and improve their craft.”

Terri Iles, Executive Director, Learning Forward Texas

"Leading Powerful Professional Learning is a valuable resource to those responsible for designing and facilitating professional learning."

Amy Colton. Executive Director , Learning Forward Michigan

"Leaders often are unaware of the scope of their responsibilities when it comes to professional learning. Leading Powerful Professional Learning's 
diagrammatic and metaphoric way of presenting the content allows readers to access the book’s content in a variety of different ways."

Joellen Killion, Senior Advisor, Learning Forward

"Most of what is currently available centers around professional learning for a specific content area (i.e. math, science, reading) but does not focus, in general, on the development, delivery, and evaluation of effective professional learning. Leading Powerful Professional Learning fills a void that currently exists for those of us charged with providing professional learning experiences."

Leading Powerful Professional Learning
Leading Powerful Professional Learning
Leading Powerful Professional Learning
Eric C. Lee, Director, Jacksonville State University Inservice Center

"Leading Powerful Professional Learning provides specific support for those leading professional learning, giving readers the option to read cover to cover or identify specific areas of focus and read those sections. The authors present a book that moves beyond the description of what professional learning is but would provide solid examples and support for those who are leading professional learning in their school and district."

Bryan McDonald, Assistant Professor, University of Central Missouri

The text provided a very useful research-based framework for our graduate course. The mixture between theory and practical strategies was appropriate for the course and well received by the students. We are pleased with our decision to adopt this book and would use it again for a similar course.

Cathryn Smith
Educational Admin Dept, Brandon University
September 1, 2021

Still under review. the book is explicit about professional learning.

Dr Jonathan Chibuzo Okeke
Leadership Studies Dept, Beulah Heights University
February 21, 2020

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