Successful Small Learning Communities for Student Achievement

How can small learning communities boost student achievement?

New small learning communities are not necessarily better school programs.

They must revitalize the teaching & learning culture if they are to lift student achievement beyond that of the regular public schools.

Systemic renewal is the greatest challenge that we face.

There are no quick fixes that can occur without full staff participation at the classroom level--which is precisely the area we need to focus on if we are discussing the renewal of public schools.

In many large high schools, teachers often practice without knowing what their neighbors in the next classroom are doing.

Within large academic departments, there is often little formal agreement about the skills, competencies, assessments and learning sequences that should be emphasized by all teachers at the same level. Within these same departments, clear linkages between courses, concepts and learning activities--say between 9th and 10th grade--are almost non-existent. Confirmation of this can be found in the lengthy course descriptions that are on file at the Curriculum & Instruction office at the district level. The cut & past of state standards from course to course is unconscious, and bears little relation to what occurs--or does not occur--within individual classrooms.

After 19 years in a large public high school, I began my career with small learning communities in order to develop an alternative to this lack of alignment and articulation.

Bellevue International School was the creation of six experienced teachers who, previously, had worked in relative isolation in secondary schools. Coming together as a team we were able to discuss curricular aims, best instructional practices, strategies for intervention, and standards for participation and performance.

The creation of small learning communities within large high schools will be the catalyst for these important conversations--both across disciplines and within disciplines. The challenge that has to be met will be to engage school staffs in the conversation about:

What we do

Why we do it

When we do it

What skills and assessments are necessary to guarantee that we are doing it

And why it is essential to do any of this in any particular order

School renewal cannot go forward without this discussion, and the movement to small learning communities within districts provides the ideal venue for this to occur.

The transition to Small Learning Communities provides a District with a way to accomplish student achievement and program renewal objectives simultaneously, for the means to achieving these goals are embedded in the act of creating quality small schools—not just “smaller” schools that may or may not be effective.

Several of the most important tasks to be accomplished on the way toward effective schools would be:

Each SLC (Small Learning Community) is guided through the process of deciding what the core content must be at each instructional level.

This core content is expressed in terms of specific learnings that are sequenced so that what comes first prepares the way for what comes second; and what comes second prepares the way for what comes third.

This results in a logical, intentional progression where previous learning is the platform for subsequent learning.

Teachers commit to upholding this agreement at each level.

Each SLC is guided through the process of deciding what fundamental skills must be developed and mastered, again ordering these sequentially as above.

All teachers commit to upholding this agreement at each level.

Each SLC is guided through the process of identifying those essential questions (versus entry level questions) that will underlie and inform all instructional activities.

These essential questions will be carried forward from class to class and from year to year in each content area because they are essential to the act of doing history, or the act of doing mathematics and so on. Teachers commit to these, at each level.

An underlying design principle established here: these essential questions will be consistently held up before the students in each and every course in the content area.

Because their teachers deliberately and intentionally link all learning activities, students will be placed at the center of an educational journey that they are constantly called upon to chart, link-up, interpret and describe. This is the real meaning of "student centered" curriculum.

These essential questions may be added to as the student moves forward in the curriculum.

But because they are essential they will never be discarded.

So easy to say: but it is absolutely crucial that this occur. Clicking this link will help your school get there, if you don't know how.

Finally, each department is guided through the process of describing those “Habits of Mind” that will form the metacurriculum for each content area.

These are those scholarly habits, expectations and attitudes that students must bring to class, and that are required for success in each content area, regardless of the level.

These too are carried forward from year to year and, like the EQ’s, may be added to but never discarded.

Students will be promoted or retained according to the degree to which they have mastered both curriculums. Teachers commit to these, and make them co-equal with traditional content.

The act of asking and answering these questions marks the beginning of the establishment of professional and collegial dialog within the team. I have found that committed educators have an affinity for this process.

What kinds of assistance do new school developers need as they begin to think about, and design, the alternative program that they envision?

School developers--whether they are parents, administrators, teachers or board members--need the benefit of experience as they begin to think about revitalizing the teaching and learning cultures within their under-performing schools.

They need to know what works and what doesn't work: not only for effective program design and curricular articulation grades 7-12, but also so that they can develop academic and school policies that will promote school goals, as well as sustain an over-arching philosophy of excellence.

The act of breaking up a high school into small groupings of teachers and students is merely change of the first order--and it in no way guarantees that quality programs will be the result, or that student achievement will be improved.

Instead, small learning community teams must become engaged in the task of identifying their values, their expectations, and in crafting a curriculum that is not a random sequence of courses, but a well orchestrated assault upon fundamental competencies and essential questions--a coherent four year design that focuses on developing a student who has the knowledge, experience, capabilities and intellectual temperament that the program has described as its outcome or goal.

This refashioning occurs when teams are engaged in the task of asking questions like:

What is important?

What knowledge and capabilities do we want our graduates to have?

How can we design learning sequences and activities that will logically and deliberately lead to this end result?

What key skills and essential understandings must be taught at each and every level by each and every staff member?

Second order change requires staffs to answer questions like these, and to commit without reservation to following through in support of each other as the program goes forward.

Questions like these are second order questions that need to be answered before any new 7-12 school program can begin to accept students.