Small Learning Communities That Actually Learn: Lessons for School Leaders

Collaborative communities of teachers have great potential for bringing about improvements in teaching and learning. But, as Mr. Supovitz and Ms. Christman found in their study of teacher communities in Cincinnati and Philadelphia, simply creating a community structure is not enough to change practice significantly. EDUCATION reformers have increasingly invested in developing collaborative communities within schools as a central strategy for improving teaching and student learning. This strategy comes in various guises, including small schools, small learning communities, and teacher teams. Several assumptions about how these communities will enhance instruction underlie the push for these more collaborative learning environments. Supporters assume that teachers will get to know their students and respond to their needs better. There is also the expectation that small communities will make it easier for teachers to share practices and will encourage them to create a culture for sustained instructional improvement, which will in turn enhance student learning. Are these hopeful assumptions warranted? Our work evaluating small community initiatives during the late 1990s in two urban districts, Philadelphia and Cincinnati, suggests that the key to widespread improvement in student learning through teacher collaboration is the formation of communities of instructional practice that are focused on improving the instructional core of schooling. District and school leaders must provide these communities with the necessary structures, strategies, and support to help teachers hone their instructional craft knowledge. The structures of the reforms in Philadelphia and Cincinnati were different, but their purposes were similar. Participating schools in Cincinnati featured small teams of three to five teachers working with students over multiple years. Small learning communities in Philadelphia, essentially schools within schools, consisted of larger groups of teachers working with students over several years. In both cases, reform leaders believed that teachers would benefit from the collective knowledge of their peers and form deeper, sustained relationships with students and their parents, thus becoming better equipped to meet students' learning needs. Furthermore, while reform leaders in both cities recognized that the new learning communities would need support, they believed that the new structures could flourish within existing school and district organizations. Our examination of the reforms showed these beliefs, typical of advocates for small communities, to be largely invalid. Both reforms did influence school environments positively. In Philadelphia, teachers felt their schools to be safer and more orderly, partly because learning community coordinators monitored student behavior and followed up with parents. In addition, students felt more connected to their learning communities and wanted to "show respect. " Because of these improvements in the working environment, the reforms were extremely popular with teachers in both cities. Yet in neither locale did these improvements alone translate into greater instructional focus. In Philadelphia, each learning community had a unifying theme that provided opportunities for its teachers to plan and teach intellectually engaging units of study together. However, themes were most often addressed through isolated events, such as field trips and special assemblies, that did nothing to promote the intended collaboration around instruction. In Cincinnati, no significant differences in instructional practices appeared between team-based schools and other schools in the district. The reforms in these two cities failed to increase instructional focus, largely because the learning communities did not spend enough time discussing instruction. As one Cincinnati team member put it, "Team issues are administrative, not academic. It has nothing to do with planning instruction. …