Influence of Professional Learning Community (PLC) on secondary science teachers’ culture of professional practice: The case of Bangladesh

The post teaching and workshop discussions sought to find out influences on the ways in which these teachers learnt about, and developed, their science teaching practice. These discussions ultimately led to a change in the culture of their professional practice in a number of ways. The following sections discuss how the establishment of a PLC offered these teachers the opportunity to develop their leadership capacities, share their mission, vision and goals in relation to improving their practice and focus on collective learning through shared personal practice, all of which supports their commitment to continuous improvement in their particular contexts.

The intervention process guided participant teachers to develop the capacity for building shared leadership through sharing their teaching practices which empowered them to share. Participant teachers engaged voluntarily in the learning process in order to enhance the quality of their teaching practice. The intervention process allowed them to observe a full period of classroom teaching, discuss their observations with their colleagues and attend the professional workshops. These various opportunities helped teachers feel more comfortable to share their feedback with their colleagues. The teachers enjoyed opportunities to share and critique their colleagues’ practice and also to reflect on their own practice in relation to identifying positive and negative aspects of their teaching. It is evident that initially these teachers felt shy or hesitant in sharing; however, gradually they realized that it helped them to improve their teaching and they felt more comfortable in so doing in the latter part of the intervention implementation stage. Teachers’ increased confidence may be due to collaborative activities where they found good support and ways to improve their teaching practices. The collaborative process allowed them to expand their capacity in developing a personal vision for their own teaching practice for enhancing student learning (Senge, 2000). As a consequence of their experiences, these teachers may well find in the future that they have now developed ways of working together as a teaching community based on collaborative approaches rather than a state of isolation.

The intervention process offered participant teachers the opportunity to join together in a structure where they were encouraged to question, investigate and seek solutions concerning aspects of their practice. This was evident when these teachers received constructive suggestions from their colleagues about how to improve their teaching. The discussions between colleagues allowed them to agree or disagree with the observations, even challenge each other’s observations whenever they felt confused. These questions about their practice helped them to not only clarify their observations with their colleagues, but also to clarify their content knowledge, pedagogy and the learning environment in their classrooms. As a consequence, it appears as though participants also felt more comfortable in exploring their own problems regarding their own practice. Discussing and addressing their problems together, appears to have helped these teachers to develop a positive attitude towards establishing a professional learning community. The structure or frame used for discussions with their colleagues helped them to learn more from their colleagues and to raise their issues about their needs through this process of job-embedded learning (DuFour, et al., 2008).

Participant science teachers also showed respect, trust and wisdom in order to build their professional commitments. This trust and respect helped them to overcome the hesitation and inertia in sharing with each others. With this trust and respect, an environment was created whereby teachers found opportunities to challenge each other in order to clarify aspects of their teaching. Moreover based on this trust and respect for their colleagues, participant teachers explored their difficulties openly with their colleagues. Trust and respect therefore may have helped them to move from feeling shy to open sharing, and is important in developing a collective commitment to their students’ learning rather privatization of their practice (Kruse, et al., 1994).

Participant teachers became involved in a continuous learning process and applied what they learnt to their practice. They engaged in reflecting on and clarifying their own teaching. The processes include agreement, disagreement and even challenging each others’ observations. Their collective learning brought results that aligned with their expectations. For example, participant teachers found difficulty in matching the information and labeling the diagram in the text book in the fourth teaching cycle. Most of the post teaching discussion within individual peer pairs did not bring fruitful outcomes regarding this issue. They discussed with their colleagues what they considered to be the proper grouping of different parts of the human brain e.g., cerebrum, cerebellum and medulla oblongata during the professional workshop. They also discussed the confusion arising from the Bangla name of these parts of the human brain. After a long discussion all participant teachers appeared equally satisfied about the outcome from their discussions. This instance illustrated the value of collective efforts for all participants as it mobilized each individual’s energy (Senge, 2000). These processes encouraged collective learning through working together to overcome difficulties in explaining subject matter through organizing and structuring content appropriately. This process also developed an expectation among them that learning is ongoing and occurs as an integral part of routine practice.

The intervention process guided participant science teachers to share their personal practice with their colleagues. They found opportunities to support each other’s practice through observing each other’s classrooms, and discussing observed practice with colleagues within and across the schools. It is evident from teachers’ comments that the scope of the intervention process provided them with an opportunity to integrate the experiences of other teachers into their thinking and practice. The process helped them to explore several challenges they faced in their regular practice. For example, confusion with science content understanding (variation of liquid pressure), language issues in science (bent or broken) and, lack of quality resources (labeling issues within a diagram) that were collectively explored during the intervention process.

Participant teachers in this study supported each other as a part of their commitment to professional development during the intervention process. It is clear that participant teachers received support from other colleagues and even from their students in planning for their teaching. In most cases they received support from their colleagues regarding the teaching aids before the class. In some cases they also discussed the sequence of a new teaching strategy and how they could make it more effective.

The schedule and structure offered by this intervention also helped to reduce the state of isolation amongst these teachers that is a very common complaint for teachers in Bangladesh. Participant teachers wanted to maintain this collaborative approach to their practice and suggested rescheduling their class routines to provide scope for regular collaborative meetings. They also suggested reducing their existing teaching load to provide more scope for sharing and observing each other’s teaching practice. The intervention process also encouraged these teachers to find new approaches toward communication structures with their colleagues. The processes utilized in this study may have helped these teachers to come together as a unit to do the learning, and support decision making, problem solving, and creative work in ways that characterize a professional learning community (Hord, 2004). These processes also highlight the importance of time and support for learning as variables for school improvement.