Learning Labs Collaborations for Transformative Teacher Learning (pages 320–349)

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Feature Articles

Learning Labs: Collaborations

for Transformative TeacherLearning

RUTH BRANCARDJENNIFER QUINNWILLIAMS

University of Colorado Denver

Teachers in a middle school and a high school with highpercentages of English language learners showed evidence oftransformative learning during the 2 years in which they collab-orated in an ongoing professional development activity calledlearning labs, which include focused discussion of observationsof colleagues classrooms. An analysis of qualitative data foundteachers stated beliefs about their own and students roles,responsibilities, and capabilities changed as a result of their par-ticipation in learning labs. Teachers also implemented changes

in their instructional practices. The authors argue that effectiveprofessional development activities must go beyond the deliv-ery of information to support teachers examination and revi-sion of assumptions about students, teaching, and learning thatguide their practice.doi: 10.1002/tesj.22

Kathyhad never tried any of the strategies she read about in

her sheltered instruction book in the high school science class shetaught. The strategies seemed to her overwhelming to plan andimplement, and she had no clear vision of whether they wouldwork. Even though she knew she needed to do more to helpthe English language learners in her class to access the content,she just didnt have the courage to try something so new anddaunting. Then, she had the opportunity, along with a group of

teachers from her school, to see collaborative group work used ina colleagues classroom. She was impressed by students levels ofengagement and the fact that the class did not spin out of control.

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After the observation, she and her colleagues met to talk aboutwhat they had seen and how students were learning in that class.With this conversation supporting her, Kathy was inspired toarrange her students into groups and implement a new strategythat allowed the students to interact and work cooperatively.Although the strategy did not go off perfectly, Kathy wasconfident that she could try it a few more times, ask for help froman instructional coach, and take what she learned back to thegroup of teachers for more discussion and refinement.

The colleagues in this example were part of a learning lab,1 agroup of teachers who decided to use evidence from their ownpractices to grapple with a shared teaching dilemma. Host

teachers from the group opened their classrooms and theirpractices to provide this evidence as a basis for conversation andreflection about effective teaching and learning.

Many professional development activities for in-serviceteachers are informational in nature. University professors, schoolprincipals, program developers, authors, and teacher leaders tellteachers about ways in which they can improve their teaching.

This approach assumes that what teachers need is more directionabout how to teach, that it is the lack of knowledge about thestudents in their class, the content they teach, the teachingstrategies they use, or the ways they assess students learning thatimpedes change in teaching practice. It assumes that ifprofessional developers supply information, teachers will changethe way they teach and students will learn more. Studies of theeffects of professional development on teachers practice show that

informational professional development alone brings aboutchanges in the practice of a small percentage of teachers (e.g.,Darling-Hammond, Wei, Andree, Richardson, & Orphanos, 2009;Joyce & Showers, 2002). Although informational professionaldevelopment may be sufficient in some situations and for someteachers, we argue that professional development that supportsthe transformative learning of teachers is necessary to bring about

1 Learning labs were developed in the early 1990s at the Public Education and Business Coalition(www.pebc.org), a nonprofit Denver, Coloradobased coalition of educators and business leaders,

by Ellin Keene and Stephanie Harvey.

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sustained changes in their practice when those changes requirethem to see their roles, responsibilities, and students differently.

In this article we report the results of a study we conducted oftwo groups of teachers organized as learning labs, one in a middleschool and the other in a high school, in an urban school districtin the United States. Both schools have high percentages of poorand immigrant students and have struggled, with some success,to raise academic achievement. The schools are participants in auniversityschool partnership project, the goal of which is toimprove the learning and engagement of English languagelearners through professional development for school leaders andteachers (Clarke & Davis, 2007).

The purposes of the article are to describe the learning ofparticipating teachers and to suggest an explanation of how thelearning lab protocols and processes support teachers learning.We believe that learning labs are more effective than informationalpresentations in supporting teachers in making difficult changes intheir practice because they incorporate support for transformativelearning. What we learned can be helpful in planning and

facilitating professional development activities for teachers.We begin with a description of the learning lab process to helpthe reader situate the theoretical discussion in the context in whichwe worked. This is followed by an explanation of transformativelearning and the role of collaborative work. After outlining themethod, we report the results of the study with descriptions andexamples of the ways in which teachers shifted their beliefs aboutstudents capabilities and their own roles as well as the kinds of

changes teachers made in their practice. Finally, we discuss theteachers learning in the study in light of a theory of adulttransformative learning and teacher collaboration.

THE LEARNING LABSThis study examines the collaborative work of two groups ofteachers, one at a high school, the other at a middle school. The

teachers chose to meet in learning labs to address a sharedproblem of practice. The learning labs encompassed severalsessions, with most of the same teachers taking part, over thecourse of 2 school years. Each learning lab session had three

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components: setting the stage, the classroom observation, anddebrief of the observation.

The focus session set the stage. At their first meeting, labparticipants and the facilitator decided to focus on an aspect ofteaching that all members of the group wanted to improve. Thefocuses dealt with how to improve content area instruction, inEnglish, for English language learners. In subsequent focussessions, teachers read and discussed relevant book chapters andjournal articles to ground themselves in the current research andthinking about the focus. For example, at both schools theparticipants read selections fromMaking Content Comprehensible forEnglish Learners: The SIOP Model (Echevarria, Vogt, & Short, 2008)

before some labs and discussed the implications of what they hadread in the focus session. Then a member of the lab volunteered tohost a class in which elements of the focus were present, and alllab members planned to observe.

On the day of the observation, with substitute teacherscovering their classes for the day, the lab members met andfollowed a preobservation protocol to discuss their current beliefs

about the focus of the observation. During the class observation,lab participants used the established focus to guide them in thekind of data they collected as they took empirical, nonjudgmental,specific notes of what they saw, heard, and noticed.

Finally, lab members debriefed the observation. During thedebrief, teachers looked at how the evidence they gathered in theobservation supported or contradicted their beliefs about teachingand learning. Often, they modified their beliefs to fit the new

evidence. There were three rounds in the debrief discussion. First,teachers reported what they saw, heard, or noticed in theclassroom. Next, they responded to and discussed the question:Given what we saw, heard, or noticed, what might we infer aboutstudent learning in the classroom we observed today? In the finalround, teachers discussed the question: What connections can youmake to your own practice or beliefs about teaching and learning

based on our observations and discussions today? Each participanthad a turn at contributing in each round.Comments from each round were recorded on large pieces of

chart paper, with lab members negotiating and conferring on the

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best way to articulate their thoughts. As the lab wound down,participants wrote and talked about how they would take whatthey learned into their own practices. In many labs, teachersmade commitments to trying new strategies. Coaching, either bya peer or by a support person, was arranged. The cycle wasrepeated 1 or 2 months later, with time for teachers to talk aboutsuccesses and challenges they encountered as they tried newpractices.

UNDERSTANDING AND SUPPORTINGTRANSFORMATIVE LEARNINGAs demonstrated in the example of Kathy in the introduction,

informational learning is often not sufficient to bring aboutsustained change in teachers practice. Informational professionaldevelopment may be successful when teachers are simply lookingfor new strategies or information, but at other times teachers needprofessional development that allows them to examine and revisetheir beliefs about teaching and learning. Some changes in practicerequire that teachers change how they view their schools, their

students, and their roles as teachers. Transformative learningtheory (Mezirow, 1978, 2000) and constructive developmentalpsychology (Kegan, 1982, 1994; Kegan & Lahey, 2001, 2009) informour perspectives on adult learning and development and form thebasis for our explanation of teachers learning in learning labs inthe next section.

Technical Versus Adaptive Challenges

To understand the gap between informational professionaldevelopment and changes in teachers practice, the distinctionbetween technical and adaptive challenges is helpful. Heifetz(1994) describes differences between technical problems andadaptive problems. Technical problems are those that respond tosolutions based on existing knowledge that implementers are ableto use and apply. If a teacher needs additional content knowledge,

additional information about students, or new strategies, he or shemay be able to get and use that information and implementchanges in his or her practice. However, as we saw with Kathy,

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many teachers are unable to implement changes in the ways theyteach simply by getting information about how to do it.

Adaptive problems, in contrast to technical ones, requirechange on the part of those seeking to address the problems.Those working on the problem create the knowledge they need asthey address it (Wagner et al., 2006). If changes in instructionalpractice require the teacher to change her attitudes, values, orhabits in fundamental ways, to shift the way in which she viewsher roles and responsibilities or the roles and responsibilities ofher students, then the learning required is transformative ratherthan informational.

Technical Learning Versus Transformative LearningLearning links prior understandings to new experiences orinformation, and when it is transformative, learning results in therevision of those prior understandings to construct new guides forfuture actions (Mezirow, 2000). For this study of teachers learning,we definetransformative learningas the process by which teachersrevise their taken-for-granted views of the nature of teaching and

learning and the roles of teachers and students to adapt thoseviews to conform to new experiences and to generate new beliefsthat will guide their practice more effectively.

A revision of what it means to teach is often required ofteachers as they encounter students from cultures different fromtheir own, students who face the challenge of learning English andnegotiating cultural differences as they learn concepts and content.For example, a science teacher like Kathy needs to see herself as a

language teacher as well as a science teacher (Echevarria et al.,2008; Walqi & Van Lier, 2010).

Figure 1 illustrates how informational activities organized in atechnical learning setting are insufficient to bring about sustainedmodifications or changes in a teachers practice when theinformation provides conflicts with the teachers beliefs andassumptions. For example, if teachers believe that students waste

time and do not learn when they participate in group work, theyare highly unlikely to implement group work regularly inclassroom activities. Figure 1 shows that an activity that istransformational, that supports transformative learning by

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providing a space for the teacher to examine and modify beliefsand assumptions, may result in changes in the teachers practice.

Holding environments for transformative learning. Learningenvironments can be structured to increase the likelihood thatadults will make transformative shifts in their assumptions andrevise them in ways better fitted to their current situations(Baxter Magolda, 1999; Drago-Severson, 2009; Kegan, 1994).Transformative learning requires a holding environment for thelearner, an environment that controls and eases the stress thattransformative learning generates while at the same timesustaining the attention of the learner and supporting the adaptivework required for change (Heifetz, 1994; Kegan, 1982). A holdingenvironment should be a safe one for learners (Drago-Severson,

2009). They should be able to voice their beliefs and assumptionswithout risk of ridicule, fear of evaluation, or danger to job status.Holding environments for adaptive, transformative learninginclude the learners experience and worldviews. Learners startfrom where they are in their understanding of the world, buildingon their experience by bringing it to the learning environment(Baxter Magolda, 1999; Drago-Severson, 2009; Kegan, 1994).

Effective professional development for teachers should occurwithin a holding environment that is safe and respectful ofteachers experience and their currently held beliefs andassumptions. A learning environment supportive of transformative

Figure 1. Transformative learning

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learning provides opportunities for teachers to voice their beliefsand to work together to make sense of their experience as teachers.

Testing of assumptions. Holding environments for teacherstransformative learning must allow opportunity for teachers toexamine and test their assumptions. Transformative learningrequires that teachers revise their assumptions about their roles,about students and their capabilities, and about teaching andlearning. To revise those assumptions, teachers need theopportunity to test them.

Brookfield (1995), in his work on the role of critical reflection inteaching, defines assumptions as the taken-for-granted beliefsabout the world and our place in it that seem so obvious to us as

not to need stating explicitly (p. 2). Kegan and Lahey (2009)suggest that individuals and organizations can uncover theassumptions that get in the way of the changes they want toimplement and test those assumptions. Assumptions are revised inthe light of evidence to the contrary. When assumptions arerevised, teachers can modify the ways in which they work.

In learning labs, teachers have time to voice and discuss with

their peers their beliefs about the problem of practice on which thegroup has chosen to focus. During the subsequent observed classsession, a colleague experiments with a practice designed toaddress the problem of practice identified by the group. The classsession constitutes a test of individually and collectively heldassumptions about teaching and learning. The teachers have theopportunity to gather evidence during the observation. In thediscussion after the mutual experience of observing a class,

teachers share observational data and inferences about studentlearning, and through examination of the gathered evidence theymay confirm or disconfirm their taken-for-granted assumptions.

Role of collaboration in transformative learning and learninglabs. Collaborative, cohort learning plays a central role in theholding environment for transformative learning and is a keyelement in learning labs. Collaborating teachers are no longer

isolated behind closed classroom doors. Further, learning labstructures support effective collaborations. Finally, collaborativework, as structured in learning labs, draws on the sharedexperience of teachers to create the knowledge they need to meet

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the challenges they face in their classrooms. Collaboration breaksdown the isolation of a teachers classroom, allowing for thepooling of knowledge and human resources (Honigsfeld & Dove,2010). Collaboration works against reliance on a single perspective(Whitford & Wood, 2010). Learning labs include a groupobservation of a classroom lesson followed by a discussion thataccommodates multiple perspectives of what happened in thelesson. In Kathys case, without the collaborative element oflearning labs, she might have given up on her attempts to changeher practice. Instead, she had the ongoing collaborativeperspectives of group members to help her innovate and moveforward.

Honigsfeld and Doves (2010) framework for collaborativework among teachersthe 4 Cs of Collaborationcalls forcollaborative conversations, collaborative coaching, collaborativecurriculum work, and collaborative crafting of teaching practice.Similarly, Barth (1991) advocates for school environments thatfoster collegial conversations among teachers rather than onlycongenial ones. Collegial conversations are ones in which the

adults in a school talk about practice, observe each other teaching,work on curriculum, and teach each other what they know. In thelearning labs we studied, we saw evidence of all four aspects ofcollaborative work and of the collegial conversations Barthdescribes.

In addition, the learning labs situated learning squarely in theshared experience of the teacher-learners, positioned teachers asconstructors of the knowledge they needed to address their

problems of practice, and fostered a sense of shared responsibilityfor student learning. Two studies of college students (BaxterMagolda, 1999, 2001; Brancard, 2008) identify three principles forthe creation of learning environments that support transformativelearning: situating learning in learners experience, validatinglearners as knowers, and providing opportunities for interactiveconstruction of meaning. In such learning environments, learners

work together to make meaning of past and new experiences.Learners are valued as people who can and do make sense ofwhat they are working to learn. In line with these principles, thelearning labs in the study took place in the participating teachers

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schools, with their colleagues and students. Learning labdiscussions were structured to allow teachers to collaborate inassembling a body of evidence they could use to revise or confirmassumptions about students, teaching, and learning.

In a synthesis of international research, Darling-Hammond etal. (2009) report consensus around characteristics of effectiveprofessional development. Effective professional developmentrelated to gains in student achievement is ongoing, school based,and embedded in teachers practice. Research has found thatapproaches that include collaboration among teachers and fosterthe building of strong relationships are more likely to bring aboutschoolwide change in teaching practice. The learning labs in this

study fit this description of effective professional development.To summarize the theoretical perspective, teachers learning is

transformative when it includes the revision of beliefs aboutthemselves, their students, and their respective roles,responsibilities, and capabilities in ways that guide them to meetthe challenges of their schools and classrooms more effectively.Teachers transformative learning is supported by a holding

environment that is safe, collaborative, and embedded in theteachers experience and that provides opportunities to test andrevise beliefs and assumptions.

METHODWe analyzed data from two groups of teachers who participatedin learning labs, one at a middle school and one at a high school,over a 2-year period. In all, 22 teachers participated in the labs.

The data, collected as part of the ongoing formative evaluation ofthe learning labs, were of three types: documents generatedcollaboratively by the teacher groups during the learning labs,teachers descriptions of their own learning, and our field notesabout the learning lab sessions or about coaching sessions withindividual teachers.

The collaboratively generated documents, referred to by the

learning lab groups ascharts, were large sheets of paper on whichthe facilitator or a teacher volunteer recorded each teacherscontribution to the discussion. The facilitator wrote thesestatements for the whole group to see and use as evidence that

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would inform the further rounds of the debrief conversation. Ineach lab session, teacher discussions were recorded under theseheadings, corresponding with rounds of discussion: Focus OurObservation; Saw, Heard, Noticed; Implications for StudentLearning; and Connections/Beliefs. After each lab, the charts weretranscribed and archived. Teachers descriptions of their ownlearning were documented in three ways: written responses toquestions after each lab session, interviews at the end of the schoolyear, and personal reflection essays.

Data analysis was conducted to answer this research question:What evidence is there that the learning of teachers in the learninglabs can be described as transformative? In other words, what

evidence points to changes in the ways teachers viewed studentsand their roles as teachers? We began our data analysis by opencoding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) of the charting data, withattention to evidence of shifts in beliefs and resistance to newideas about teaching and learning. Emergent codes weretriangulated with teacher reflection data and field notes.

RESULTSOf the 22 teachers who participated in the learning labs in thestudy, 18 (80%) reported implementing new strategies in theirclassrooms. Sixteen (73%) reported noticing increases in studentengagement and learning in their classes. Observations of theteachers classrooms by instructional coaches and learning labfacilitators confirmed the implementation of strategies thatsupported the learning of English language learners in the

classrooms of 16 of the 22 (73%) teachers.In most labs teachers were asked to write about and discuss

changes they might make to their practices based on what they hadlearned in the lab. Through essays, interviews, or discussions insubsequent labs, teachers reported plans to revise classroompractice and actual changes in classroom practice. Observations bycoaches corroborated classroom teachers reports. Changes

included modifying or initiating group work and trying newstrategies, such as implementing ongoing assessment to determineunderstanding and provide quicker feedback to students. In somecases, teachers also identified ways to evaluate the effect of changes

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on student learning. Because the learning labs took place over thecourse of 2 years, we observed that many of the changes teachersmade were sustained, not temporary, modifications to practice.

Analysis of the qualitative data yields examples oftransformative learning on the part of teachers that helps toexplain why teachers made changes to their practice. Examinationof what teachers said, wrote, and did during the learning labs,between the lab rounds, and after the labs provides evidence thatmany teachers changed or refined their beliefs about studentlearning and about teaching based on the experiences andconversations they had in the labs.

We found multiple examples in the data indicating that

teachers changed their beliefs about students and their roles asteachers. Teachers changed some of their beliefs about whatstudents can do and how they learn. They changed their beliefsabout teacher roles in the classroom and their views of teachercollaboration and professional development. These amended waysof thinking corresponded with new classroom practices for manyof the teachers. In the following paragraphs, we give examples of

each of these changes.

Changes in Beliefs About What Students Can Do and How TheyLearnAt the high school, teachers were being told by administrators andcoaches that they needed to increase the visible, active engagementof students in learning. At the middle school, the emphasis was onimproving standardized test scores. Teachers were being asked to

consider what changes they could make for English languagelearners to improve their content area learning. In both schools,teachers in the learning labs focused during their first year oncollaborative group work and in the second year on higher levelthinking, student responsibility, and scaffolding higher level work.Some teachers, however, struggled with doubts about whetherstudents were able to participate in nontraditional approaches in

the classroom. Data, as summarized below, document shifts inteachers beliefs about students capabilities in the areas ofparticipating in and learning from group work and learning fromtheir peers.

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Students can participate effectively in group work. Initially,some teachers expressed doubts about the effectiveness of groupwork, citing a school culture that did not support studentsworking together to learn, a lack of maturity in students, and somestudents tendency to sit back while the strong students did thework. Other teachers feared losing control of the class or thatgroup work did not fit with their teaching styles. However, thedata show that many teachers modified or refined these beliefsafter seeing evidence to the contrary. See Table 1 for a summary ofteacher beliefs about what students can do and how they learnand corresponding changes in practice.

Marcia, a teacher at the high school, began her participation in

learning labs voicing strong doubts about the effectiveness of

TABLE 1. Changes in Beliefs About What Students Can Do and HowThey Learn

Belief Belief shift Change in practice

Students cant participate incollaborative group work.

Students cant, and dontwant to, learn from eachother.

Students, especially Englishlanguage learners, cant useacademic language indiscussions.

Students canparticipate

effectively ingroup work.Students can learn

from each other.Students can

engage inacademicdiscussion.

Teachers incorporatedscaffolding practices such

as clear directions; posted,written directions; use ofnative language; sentencestems.

Teachers developedstrategies to teach studentshow to learn from eachother.

Students were given

responsibility to teach eachother.Teachers used scaffolding

such as visual aids postedaround the classroom,explicit vocabularyinstruction, and sentencestems.

Teachers taught, and gave

students opportunities topractice, academicdiscussion from the start ofthe year.

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group work for students. During a learning lab session, she andher colleagues observed and discussed a lesson in which studentsworked in groups. Before the observation, Marcia talked about herbelief that students see group work as play time because ofexperience in previous grades and schools, a student perceptionthat she thought pervaded school culture. During thepostobservation discussion, she qualified her original statementabout peer culture, saying it is not applicable to every student andevery classroom. Seeing a classroom where students weresuccessfully engaged in group work caused her to question andbegin to change her beliefs and assumptions. By the end of thestudy, visitors to Marcias classroom observed frequent use of

interactive group work.After observing a lesson in which students in an honors

class participated in group learning activities, some teachersexpressed doubt that such learning was possible with younger,less academically oriented students. They assumed that onlyacademically oriented students could succeed in group activities.To test this assumption in a safe environment, Laura volunteered

to host the next learning lab observation in her classroom. Shetaught ninth graders and chose to have the learning lab groupobserve her most difficult group of students. After thatobservation and discussion, Tom, previously doubtful about theeffectiveness of group work for younger students, voiced the beliefthat ninth and tenth graders (14 to 15 years old) can do groupwork if assignments are shorter and less complex.

Because of the recursive nature of learning labs, teachers had

repeated opportunities to find ways of testing whether all studentscould learn with group work. Several teachers focused onobserving the ways in which students participated in the groupwork. They noted what students said and did. Some estimated thepercentage of students in the classroom who participated orthe percentage of classroom time in which students were activelyparticipating in group work. After gathering this data, and over

time, teachers talked about what they had seen in class that mightexplain the student participation. They identified activities andstrategies they could try in their own classes in an effort toincrease student participation. These ideas included clear

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directions; posted, written directions to which students couldrefer; sometimes encouraging students to use their nativelanguage; and using sentence stems to scaffold the Englishstructures required for students oral participation. By the end ofthe first year of participation in the learning labs, all of the highschool teachers reported implementing more effective group workin their classrooms.

Students can learn from each other. One reason some teachersdoubted that group work would result in learning was that theydid not think students could learn from each other, or evenwanted to learn from each other. However, observing group workin colleagues classrooms caused many teachers to change their

assumptions about student

student interaction. Teachers talkedabout their perceptions of students notions of what school is,students expectations of their teachers, and their own ideas ofhow students can learn from each other.

Alice shared her initial distrust of student-directed learningand said that, until she saw it in lab observations, she did notreally know what it was. She described the idea of losing that

teacher control, which she associated with student-directedlearning, as intimidating. From the learning labs she gainedknowledge of how to increase student responsibility for their ownlearning. Following participation in learning labs, many of theteachers became convinced that students learn more when they aregiven more responsibility to teach each other.

Sean began the school year with a belief that teachers mustexpect their students to take an active part in their own learning:

I am a firm believer that at the high school level, our studentswill only be successful if they can become thinkers and problemsolvers instead of passive learners whose only initiative is toask their teacher. We do our students a severe disservice byconsistently affirming their need for us instead of teaching themhow to find information for themselves and become indepen-dently successful.

Even with this strong belief, Sean acknowledged that studentsideas about school often hindered his efforts to help them havethe strategies and tools to find their own answers. In the lab, Seanand the other teachers supported each other as they worked to

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change students ideas of what school is and how they can learn.He said, Teachers realized they had to teach students how tolearn together, to help them understand what they could do. Likemany teachers in the labs, Sean continued to work to changestudents perceptions of what school is, reporting progress inhelping students be more independent and interdependent by theend of the year.

Students can engage in academic discussion. Before thelearning labs, some teachers were resistant to the idea thatstudents could use academic language to talk to each otherand the teacher in class. Academic language was seen as toocomplex, or not in the students skill sets, especially for English

language learners. Observing in colleagues classrooms gaveteachers the opportunity to see how students could be taught toengage in academic discussion. In data collected during the labobservations, many teachers recorded instances of these academicdiscussions.

For example, in one middle school classroom, teachers heardstudents talking about the definition of an equation, using both

Spanish and English to explain English academic vocabulary. Onanother occasion, a student explained a concept to a groupmember, referring to and using academic language from visualaids posted in the classroom. In a third classroom, studentsquestioned the teachers solution to a problem, using the academiclanguage she had provided earlier in the lesson. Based on theseand other observations, teachers came to the conclusion that, withthe proper instruction and scaffolding, students can engage in

academic discussion, commenting that English language learnersneed additional scaffolding to apply, analyze and evaluate andthere should be a shift [from teacherstudent questioning] tostudentstudent questioning.

At the high school, in contrast to their own statements earlier,teachers said that students can engage in higher order thinkingfrom the beginning of the school year, can learn to have academic

discussions with their peers, and can use academic discussion toassess each others learning. Kathy summed up the groups beliefthat teachers need to give students opportunities to engage inacademic discussion: Sometimes were too influenced by students

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who wont and forget about students who will. Sometimes weneed to say, I do have a class that can handle that.

Changes in Beliefs About Teacher RolesAs teachers talked about the implications of their observations ofother teachers, and as they reflected on the learning lab process,they began to describe their roles as teachers in ways thatindicated shifts in how they saw teachers roles in the schools.They described themselves as learners. They talked about thebenefits of giving up some control in the classroom and trustingstudents more, in effect becoming learning facilitators as well asexperts in their subjects. And some described increasing

leadership roles, or a desire for more understanding of how tolead, as decision makers, advocates, and examples for otherteachers. See Table 2 for a summary of changes in beliefs andpractice about teachers roles.

Teachers as learners. Early on in the project, Josh, a mathteacher, balked at attending learning labs. After some persuasionby another teacher and the lab facilitator, he finally participated.

After a year of participating in learning labs, he hosted teachers inhis classroom for one lab and facilitated another. When asked why

TABLE 2. Changes in Beliefs and Practice About Teachers Roles


Teachers arent learners.Direct instruction is the

most time-efficient,effective path to studentlearning.

Administrators, notteachers, are schoolleaders.

Teachers continue tolearn, both on their

own and from eachother.Teachers can act as

learning facilitators.Teachers can have

leadership roles inthe school.

Teachers voluntarilyparticipated in

collaborative professionaldevelopment.Teachers increased time

spent in reflection.Teachers implemented

strategies that requirestudents to rely on eachother for learning.

Teachers hosted,

facilitated, and advocatedfor learning labs.Teachers coached new

teachers.

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he had been so reluctant at first, Josh said that he hadnt thoughthe could learn from his colleagues. He thought they could learnfrom him but not the other way around. In fact, he found thatcollaborative, structured conversations with colleagues could helphim analyze his and his colleagues teaching.

Teachers noted learning new techniques or strategies duringlearning labs, but some also described new commitments toexamine their own practices and continue the learning process.Marcia wrote,

The major impact the SIOP [Sheltered Instruction ObservationProtocol] learning lab has had on my career is the inspirationfactor. I also feel challenged to try new things, and I recognize

the importance of being flexible and not falling into my ownways.

More evidence of this kind of change is in the learning labcharting. For example, at the end of one lab session, teacherscollaboratively crafted this statement: I need to spend more timereflecting on effectiveness, student engagement, learning, studentresistance.

Teachers as learning facilitators. With the focus on interactivegroup work and students roles in their own learning, manyteachers found themselves rethinking their roles as teachers andasking whether they ought to be spending more time as learningfacilitators and less time in direct instruction. One teacher broughtup the idea that instead of filling students heads with as muchinformation as possible, the teacher might slow down to help themthink through important concepts with each other. As teachersfocused on evidence of learning in the interactive classrooms theyobserved, they began to question assumptions that directinstruction is the most time-efficient, effective path to studentlearning.

The fear of losing control of the classroom and of studentssurfaced as a reason some teachers were reluctant to implementinteractive strategies. Observing and teaching interactive lessons

helped teachers gain the confidence to experiment with lessonsthat gave students more autonomy. Through participation in thelearning labs, Alice, who had voiced her fears of losing control of

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students, announced her intention to use more student-directedlearning. She explained, It seems like my comfort and couragelevel in trying out new strategies has risen because of thesuccesses I had . . .in this learning lab.

Changes in teachers views of their roles were nuanced anddeveloped over time. Starting after a class observation in whichstudents in groups did not necessarily get to the correct answer orprocess, the middle school teachers returned again and again totrying to understand the role they ought to play when students arestruggling to learn. Over the course of several labs, these teachersdeepened and refined the notion of allowing students to struggle,or come to their own understanding of a concept. At first, teachers

mentioned vaguely that it was acceptable for students not tounderstand a concept, but they did not talk about what happensnext, how long students should be left to work things out, andwhat their roles as teachers were in this situation. As theyunderstood sheltered instruction better and saw how theircolleagues scaffolded instruction for student understanding, theidea of struggle itself and the teachers role in supporting that

struggle shifted. Allowing students to flounder through a lessonwas rejected in favor of creating appropriate supports to helpstudents successfully understand challenging concepts. Ways ofgradually removing those supports were discussed andstrategized.

Teachers found the learning lab allowed them to refine theirbeliefs about the teachers role and be honest about the difficultyof changing. Kathy said,

I think many educators talk about how the teacher needs to bethe facilitator of learning instead of the deliverer of information.I want my students to find the structure in the classroom groupsto rely on themselves and each other as the first line of informa-tion and to see me as the facilitator. It is difficult to be the facili-tator until your students are prepared for you to be in thatrole. . . . I want to change these conceptions in my classroom,but find the adage of old habits die hard to be true for both

the students and me.

While acknowledging the difficulty of the change, after severallearning labs, she said that teachers need to trust that students

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can work together, learn together, and inspire each other to thinkmore deeply.

Teachers as school leaders. Some teachers took on leadershiproles in their schools after participating in learning labs. Over theyears of the project, three teachers at the middle school and fiveteachers at the high school facilitated lab sessions. Josh, who hadbeen reluctant to get involved in leadership in the past, agreed tofacilitate a learning lab and said he would like to understand whatit means to be a teacher leader. Marcia described the experience offacilitating a learning lab as enjoyable and challenging; currently,3 years later, she is working with a coaching mentor to become ateacher coach. Kathy recruited most of her science faculty

colleagues to the learning lab in its second year and became theleading voice for teachers in her subject area. All of the highschool teachers in the learning lab were instrumental in makinglearning labs possible for all teachers in the school. Nita, at themiddle school, became a strong advocate for learning labs as apart of the schools professional development plan.

Teachers Changed Their Views of Collaboration andProfessional DevelopmentMany teachers who participated in the learning labs talked aboutthe value of collaboration, of having conversations with otherteachers in ways that move beyond small talk to the sharing ofideas and, in fact, beyond the lab, influencing the way teachers seeprofessional development and how to talk to colleagues. Some saidthe structure of the lab kept the conversation focused and allowed

them to go deeper in their conversations, and others noted thebenefit of a supportive environment for talking about new ideasand strategies. See Table 3 for a summary of teachers changedbeliefs regarding collaboration and professional development.

Value of collaboration. Teachers mentioned that the learninglabs reversed the common practice of teaching behind closeddoors, of never exposing personal practices to the scrutiny of other

teachers. Many found their practices enriched. Marcia wrote,One problem with the teaching profession is that oftentimesteachers will close their doors to the outside world and just do

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things their way in their classroom. Here, we have our doorsopen not only to each other physically, but to each others sug-gestions and insight and professional opinions. We are learningfrom each other and also serving as a means of support for oneanother. Here, in this SIOP lab, we know that we are not alone.

In addition, teachers frequently generated ideas for morecollaboration. At both schools, teachers found opportunitiesduring the structured turn-taking in the labs to generate specific

ideas for cross-content collaboration and ways to implementstrategies that teachers thought would fit their teaching styles.

Josh found that learning labs increased teachers sense ofaccountability to each other, contrasting the small groups inlearning labs with whole-school sessions for teachers: In the smallgroups we had a chance, and also its expected, to participate. [Inlarge-group sessions] when you break off to small groups that are

not prearranged or preorganized you lose that accountability.After participating in 2 years of learning labs, Rosa, a teachercofacilitating the last lab of the year, asked colleagues to thinkabout what the value of collaboration had been to them. Thegroup summed up their thinking: Observing multiple teachershelps us to modify our own practice and commit to applying whatwe learn to our own styles.

How to talk to colleagues. Teachers valued the opportunity to

focus their conversation on teaching and beliefs about teachingand learning. In both schools, there was a sense that conversationswith colleagues often lacked focus or purpose. At the middle

TABLE 3. Changes in Beliefs and Practice Related to Collaboration andProfessional Development


Teaching is a

solitary act.Conversations with

colleagues lackfocus or purpose.

Teachers can benefit from

sharing insights andprofessional opinions.

Teachers can have useful,collegial discussions.

Teachers generated ideas for

more collaboration.Teachers visited each others

classrooms.Teachers grounded

instructional conversation inevidence and usedcollaborative protocols.

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school, before attending learning labs, teachers feared the labsmight just be an opportunity to complain or to judge each othersteaching. However, teachers said that the protocols in labs, theemphasis on what evidence is, and basing the discussion on theevidence of the observed class session provided a useful andeffective way to talk to each other. Middle school teacher responsedata show that nearly 70% (n = 48) of answers to the questionWhat part of the lab did you find most valuable? included someform of talking with colleagues, and the remainder of theresponses cited observing another teacher as most valuable.

Participating in labs changed some teachers regularinteractions with their colleagues. Karen said that before the labs

she hadnt talked much to colleagues about practice. After thelabs, she visited other teachers, especially in other grade levels, tohelp get review material and to see what the students werelearning. She said, I feel like my conversations are enriched bythe type of questions I was asking in learning lab. It helps me seeand really appreciate the education and knowledge of mycolleagues, to look at them as resources.

In addition, the ways of talking about practice learned in thelabs sometimes carried over into other professional development.Teachers at the middle school began to expect that talking aboutpractice would include evidence from teachers practices, as it didin learning labs. They incorporated the practice of grounding theirinferences in evidence from practice into other professionaldevelopment activities at the school.

Safe, supportive environment. Learning labs are structured to

provide participants with supportive environments in which theyfeel safe to take risks, both in teaching and in talking aboutteaching. A coach works with the host teachers to plan the lessonbefore the observation. During the lab debrief rounds, a facilitatorhelps make sure the discussion is based in evidence collectedduring the observation. The facilitator also makes sure that theideas generated by the group are worded in a way that is not

judgmental.Teachers appreciated the space the labs provided to focus onteaching. Laura, a teacher in our study, observed, [In learninglabs] we get to focus just on [teaching]. [We] talk openly. Theres

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no administrator sitting there. In other words, teachers couldshare opinions and ideas with peers without worrying that anadministrator would hold their fears, doubts, or disagreementsagainst them. Laura described how the lab supported her teaching:

I like the teachers that Im working with too . . . just gettingtogether just to focus on teaching. We have so much profes-sional development that has nothing to do with making you abetter teacher. This is the one thing that all we do is focus onbeing a better teacher. It is absolutely the best PD [professionaldevelopment] Ive had in any of my training. All it is is improv-ing your teaching. That is all this is dealing with, and you get todo that. And it is unbelievable that in a school, you have so fewtimes to really work on improving your teaching and sharing

ideas. The sharing ideas with the teachers that we meet with Ithink is huge.

In conclusion, three-quarters of the 22 teachers whoparticipated in the learning labs made and sustained changes intheir practice. Those changes in practice corresponded withchanges in teachers beliefs about what students can do and howstudents learn as well as changes in their beliefs about their roles

and how teachers can work together.

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONSKegan (2000) claims that transformative learning involves anepistemological change in the learner, not just behavioral changesor growth in knowledge, but a change in the waythe learnerknows. Technical learning, he says, takes place within apreexisting frame of mind, whereas transformative learningincludes a new frame of mind. If changes in the ways teachers seetheir own and students roles, responsibilities, and capabilities inteaching and learning constitute an epistemological change, thenthe learning described here meets Kegans criteria fortransformative learning.

Our study and experience with learning labs has convinced usthat transformative learning, as we have defined it for this study,

was required for teachers to make sustained changes in theirpractice to support the learning of English language learners.Informational, technical learning was not sufficient to result in

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deep changes in practice. The teachers had read a how-to book onsheltered instruction (Echevarria et al., 2008) and participated inmonthly sessions at the schools with examples of how toimplement sheltered instruction. They had made some changes inpractice as the result of technical learning or top-down mandates.For example, all of the high school teachers regularly postedcontent and language objectives in the classroom for each lesson.However, changes involving implementing collaborative groupwork and scaffolding higher level thinking posed greaterchallenges for the teachers. They identified these areas as difficultand as the focus of their work together. In the learning labenvironmentone that we argue supported transformative

learning

teachers were able to revise their beliefs about whatstudents can and cannot do and their beliefs about their roles asteachers. Those revised beliefs corresponded with sustainedchanges in the practice of most of the teachers in the study.

Further, we believe that learning labs supported thetransformative learning of teachers because the process embraceselements key to adult learning (Baxter Magolda, 1999; Brancard,

2008; Drago-Severson, 2009; Kegan, 1994; Kegan & Lahey, 2009;Mezirow, 2000) and effective collaboration (Honigsfeld & Dove,2010; Whitford & Wood, 2010). Learning labs provided a safeholding environment in which teachers had opportunities toarticulate assumptions about teaching and learning and toexamine those assumptions with colleagues. They chose the areasof focus to address problems of practice they identified in theirown work. The learning labs took place in their classrooms with

their students, firmly situating the learning in their worlds. Theobservations of their peers classrooms provided the teachers witha chance to gather new evidence. The structured discussions withcolleagues after the observations guided teachers to ground theirlearning in the empirical evidence of the observed classrooms. Incollaboration with their peers, many teachers reevaluated theirassumptions about teaching and learning and made commitments

to make changes in their classrooms.The question arises of which comes firstchange in beliefs andthen change in practice, or vice versa? City, Elmore, Fiarman, andTietel (2009) argue that teachers revise their beliefs after they begin

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to teach differently. Based on our experience with learning labs,we believe that a learning environment for teachers must allow forboth the opportunity to act differently and the opportunity toreflect on the experience of acting differently and what that meansfor teachers assumptions about teaching and learning. Whenbeliefs are revised, changes in practice can be sustained.

Value of ProtocolsLearning labs and the protocols used during discussionsstructured teacher collaboration in ways that shaped how teachersinteracted with each other during the learning lab sessions. Someteachers carried these ways of interacting with each other into

other school contexts. According to Drago-Severson (2009),protocols can nurture adult development and provide anenvironment in which teachers can take the risks necessary forgrowth. Good protocols help create a safe environment in whichteachers do not feel evaluated or judged, one in which teachersdevelop shared norms for working together. Learning labs gaveteachers time to meet; protocols for collecting data; protocols for

discussing, analyzing, and reflecting on the data; andopportunities to try out and reflect on new strategies andpractices.

Long-Term Collaborative GroupsOur experience has also taught us that effective collaborativegroups that constitute the holding environment for transformativelearning for teachers must be built and maintained over time.

Frequent changes in the membership of the group and large groupworkshops undermine the safety of the holding environmentbecause they work against the building of trust. Once-a-yearsessions or frequent sessions with disconnected topics and nosupport in trying new strategies are less likely to result in changesto teaching. In the learning labs we studied, teachers had supportfrom their colleagues in collaborative professional development

and an instructional coach to try out new teaching strategies andto reflect on what they learned. Learning labs were structured asrepeating professional development opportunities, with each labsession providing both the opportunity to discuss what had

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happened since the last lab, including how teachers were doingwith their commitments to change, and the opportunity to see newways to address the problem of practice that the group wasworking on. As we saw with the high school groups changingbeliefs about who could benefit from group work, it often tookmore than one lab session for teachers to test their assumptions,modify their beliefs, and change their practices. Because theycould rely on ongoing support in a collaborative environment,many teachers were able to make changes to their practices inorder to benefit students.

Role of the Schoolwide Environment

This study confirms the importance of the schoolwideenvironment in supporting and sustaining improvement ininstructional practice and supports the assertion that goodteaching is an institutional accomplishment, not just anindividual one (Clarke, 2007). At the high school, teachersfollowed up the lab with discussions of progress in regularmeetings and also received instructional coaching to help

implement new strategies. Teachers came to labs havingmodified strategies in their own classrooms based onobservations and discussions. The whole school was engaged increating a coherent school vision with a focus on instructionalpractices to increase the engagement and learning of Englishlanguage learners, so other school practices, such as schoolwideprofessional development activities and administrators givingteachers feedback based on evaluations, provided additional

support for the teachers in the lab. School policies, norms, andprocesses accommodated the labs.

In contrast, at the middle school, only the instructionalcoaching element was present, and not all teachers took advantageof coaching between labs. Logistical and scheduling issuessometimes interfered with lab meetings. There was littleadministrative support for continued study and work on the

problems of practice between labs. Teachers like Rosa seemed togive up on what they had learned, despite coaching support,because of a lack of grade-level team and administrative support.

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Changes in teacher practice at the middle school were less evenlyspread across the group than at the high school.

The administration and support staff, including coaches andfacilitators, as well as regular collaborative opportunities forcollegial conversation all need to provide a coherent supportsystem for the change. School policies, norms, and processes mustembrace and nurture the change. For example, though a teachermay come to believe that cooperative learning is a better way toengage students than lectures and rote practice, if the schoolsadministration has decided using a program that entails primarilydirect instruction and memorization is preferable, the teacher willfind it hard to act on his or her beliefs.

Care needs to be taken not to overgeneralize this small study of22 teachers to all teacher learning in all schools. Not every teacherin our study had the same learning needs, and not every teacherchanged his or her practice in the same way. Nor do we think thatlearning labs are the only way to respond to teachers learningneeds. However, we argue that professional developmentopportunities for teachers need to take into account the kind of

learning required, that is, technical versus transformative, forsustained change in practice.

Collaboratively Generated Responses to Local ProblemsLearning labs and other activities that support teacherstransformative learning can serve as an antidote to programmatic,lockstep, one-size-fits-all prescriptions for instructionalimprovement. Teachers in learning labs collaborate in the

construction of the local knowledge required to solve localproblems of practice. Whitford and Wood (2010) describe teachersin successful professional learning communities, of which thelearning labs we studied are an example, as co-constructors ofresponses to students learning needs:

The teachers participating in [professional learning communi-ties]and the leaders of schools and school districtsmust

reject recipe-like answers to complex problems, which are all toooften proffered in schools. They must come to see that construc-tive responses to childrens learning problems demand keenattention, not only to generalized ideas about research-based

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practices but also to the specific, the idiosyncratic, the relational,and the personal. (p. 18)

Whitford and Wood (2010) also noticed that the teachers theystudied developed a sense of shared responsibility and

accountability to each other for their practice. Their descriptionapplies to the teachers in the learning labs we studied as well:

They began to build a shared responsibility for developingknowledge with each other about teaching and learning. Theybecame accountable to each other for what was happening intheir own classrooms as they tried out ideas generated in thegroup and shared with group members their tales of success (orwoe). Their work together became highly meaningful for their

work with their own students. (p. 5)

The results of this study of learning labs corroborate thevalue of collaborative, cohort approaches to professionallearning environments for teachers. Elements of the learning labenvironment that support transformative learning for teachersasafe environment to take risks; embeddedness in teachersexperience and current practice; and opportunities to articulate,

test, and revise assumptions about teaching and learning withcolleaguesshould guide the design and implementation ofprofessional learning opportunities.

THE AUTHORSRuth Brancardis a member of the research faculty in the School ofEducation and Human Development at the University of ColoradoDenver. Her work includes designing and implementing

professional development activities for in-service secondary schoolteachers in schools with high percentages of English languagelearners.

Jennifer QuinnWilliamsis codirector of AIMS English, aneducational consulting firm. She designs and facilitatesprofessional development for teachers of secondary and adult

English language learners. Her interests include understandingand supporting organizational and personal change in schools. Sheis coauthor of the Newcomer series of fiction for adults.

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Learning Labs Collaborations for Transformative Teacher Learning (pages 320–349)

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