Becoming A Learning System

[00:01] SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.

[00:06] Announcer:

Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center and Champion of High Performance Instructional Leadership, Justin Bader. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.

[00:15] SPEAKER_01:

I am your host, Justin Bader. And I'm thrilled to be joined today by one of my heroes in education. Stephanie Hirsch is Executive Director of Learning Forward, which years ago was known as the National Staff Development Council. And as Executive Director of Learning Forward, Stephanie has spearheaded a number of incredible initiatives really to advance the state of the profession. And the one that we're here to talk about today is her new book with her co-authors, Becoming a Learning System.

[00:45] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:48] SPEAKER_01:

Stephanie, thank you so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio.

[00:51] SPEAKER_02:

It's my pleasure. Thanks for inviting me.

[00:53] SPEAKER_01:

Well, Stephanie, I know you've worked very hard to get where you are in the profession, and I know you work very hard to have an impact in your role with Learning Forward. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and what drives you as an educator?

[01:04] SPEAKER_02:

Sure. That's a great question. I appreciate every nice thing you've said to this point. I am really driven by the mission and the vision of this organization, even though it has evolved over time. I think every time it's evolved, I've gotten more excited about the work. I'm Totally committed to ensuring that we understand across North America what is effective professional learning and we put that into practice so that we can make sure that all educators have the knowledge and skills that they need to ensure that students are incredibly successful.

[01:45]

I'm driven by the fact that While we seem to know a lot about what is effective professional learning, we have few examples of where it's put into practice to get the best results possible. One of the things that is really motivating me these days is that I feel like we have a greater consensus around what is effective professional learning, but we still only have pockets of excellent practice. And as a result of that, I really wonder if we truly know what is most effective and or if we need to look at entirely new delivery models for professional learning. The only way we can truly close the gap in terms of helping all students be successful is by making sure that all educators get the support they need to help their students.

[02:39]

And we have got to be able to scale that support. And so far, we haven't found the answer to that challenge. So I often say to people in this last chapter of my service to the organization, that's the problem I'm working to solve.

[02:56] SPEAKER_01:

Very well said. And I think that same challenge is what a lot of district-level leaders are staying up at night thinking about as well. And when it comes to that idea of a learning system that you write about in the book, I think we all want to be a part of organizations that are doing whatever it takes to kind of close that learning-doing gap, which it's kind of funny that we have a term for that in education, that it's so much the reality of that we know what to do and we're just not doing it and yet at the same time we know that we don't know enough and it's a continual challenge to need to keep learning. What is a learning system to you and how did you solidify around that idea in putting this tremendous resource together?

[03:39] SPEAKER_02:

So I would define a learning system as an organization that recognizes that the core to success is learning for educators and students. And everything is organized around the learning. And I think we have examples in our country of school systems that if you ask them to what do they attribute their results and their success, they would say, first and foremost, it's investing in people. and ensuring that they have the knowledge and skills it takes to be successful in their work. It's creating a system that is supportive of people from the time they enter the profession, they join their organization throughout their career. And so I think of people like Chris Steinhauser in Long Beach, that if you ask Chris,

[04:33]

what is the secret to the Long Beach story, he will say, number one, it's the way we think about professional learning. And there aren't many system superintendents that will respond that way. I think if you now go to Fort Wayne, Indiana, kind of the inspiration for writing the learning system, and you ask Wendy Robinson, the superintendent there, What is the secret to the fact that they are now the fastest growing, fastest improving school district in the state? She will say that we recognized that it's the responsibility of everybody in the organization to continue to learn and to help others continue to learn and improve. And so there are maybe three or four other superintendents in large urban settings that I could point to who would say that's the secret to their success.

[05:27]

And that's that continuous improvement path that they've chosen.

[05:31] SPEAKER_01:

Now that there's a book around this and you have some trainings and different professional development opportunities, I think there's a very good possibility that becoming a learning system is going to become one of those things that we say in our profession because we know it sounds good, but there's a big difference between the rhetoric and the reality. And I wonder, as you've worked with districts around the country, what have you seen as some of the pitfalls to actually becoming a learning system and not just talking about it? Where do we get... hung up along the way?

[06:02] SPEAKER_02:

So I think in districts that say it's a priority, but they don't act as if it's a priority. So examples are in how they allocate time, how they allocate dollars, how they allocate personnel. Say we have all these things we need to accomplish, we don't prioritize what we need to accomplish, and we attempt at a very surface level to accomplish many things and then in reality we don't accomplish anything. We don't go deep into anything. districts district leaders who will say what we know follow-up is really important we know job embedded learning is really important but we just don't have the resources to do it so they invest everything in upfront training and from the research we know that means that they're going to get 10 return on their dollar and they know that and why they can't feel then recognize and make the switch

[07:04]

to then what are the few things that we're going to do well. It's like we have so many things to do, we feel like we need to tackle it all and as a result of that, nothing really gets done well. So that's another barrier. I think the other big barrier is they tackle part of the system and that's they create the time for teacher collaboration and teacher learning, but they don't think about how that time will be spent. So they don't invest in identifying and cultivating teacher leaders with the knowledge and skills to facilitate substantive professional learning communities. You know, the study that we released at the conference, the BCG study on what teachers think about professional learning, said that teachers now rate among the lowest forms of professional learning, the PLC.

[08:01]

And that is really frightening because isn't that the vision that we have, that every teacher is a member of a high-functioning PLC? And I think, you know, and people said, what do you think about that? And I said, I think in too many places, PLCs have been hijacked by administrators and they're PLC in name only. They really aren't the true PLC. And or districts have set aside time, have assigned teachers to PLC and assume they could just go at it. And so for teachers, it's become wasted time.

[08:35]

And nobody likes to feel like they're wasting time and taking time away from students and that it's not even valuable time.

[08:41] SPEAKER_01:

That's a really good point. And I think it's a symptom of something that's happening nationwide, both to teachers and administrators, where we're responsible for results. You know, we're accountable for our work and the impact that we're having on students. And yet, at the same time, there's a consequence of another good thing that's happening at the district level. We're often getting more aligned. We're having better coordination.

[09:03]

There's kind of more of a plan at the district level. And people feel like at the school level and even at the PLC level, I don't have the same autonomy that I used to have to do what I believe needs to be done in my own work and on behalf of my students. And there's this sense of just kind of pressure from every side. and not enough room to maneuver. What do you see the best learning systems doing to kind of manage that tension so that people aren't just participating in this kind of rigid top-down hierarchy, but there is a sense of coordination and there is a sense that we're all rowing in the same direction?

[09:40] SPEAKER_02:

I think you articulated that frustration really well. Because, you know, when professional development was first introduced, it was all about what do I want to learn? And there was a lot of choice involved, and there wasn't a lot of accountability for results in terms of whatever I chose, okay? And slowly over time, we've recognized that we have limited resources for professional development, and really professional development exists. in order for us to be able to achieve better results across whatever the system has identified as the results it wants for its educators and for its students. So some districts have adopted the approach that that means that everything needs to be top down, and we're gonna tell you, we're gonna detail all the professional development, okay?

[10:33]

And I think you have to find the right balance from top down and bottom up, but no matter which direction it comes from, it still needs to meet certain standards of quality. So even if it's bottom-up teacher-driven, it still needs to be grounded in the data on the student's performance and the teacher's performance so that we're looking at legitimate needs to guide the decision about what do I need to learn. If it's top-down or bottom-up, the designs we choose still need to be the designs that we know that research has shown will get us, will help us be able to implement the practices that we're trying to change and get us the support we need to sustain that change over time. If it's top down or bottom up, you know, it still needs to make sure that a big part of it is done and supported in community because we're trying to reduce that variability across classrooms and across schools.

[11:36]

and we need that sense of collective responsibility so that there isn't a single teacher that is really struggling working next to another teacher who is not struggling and the students in the struggling teacher's classroom struggle because that teacher is not getting the support that he or she needs and it's right outside the school right outside the classroom door so standards help us define the help us ensure that whether we're doing it from an individual personalized perspective or a district oriented perspective that we have consistent quality and we get consistent and we get good results from all of those investments.

[12:20] SPEAKER_01:

And I think you've described a best-case scenario that is a well-managed polarity. And I've got on my desk here a book that you published jointly with Corwin, probably our mutual friend Jane Kesey, has a terrific book, Unleashing the Positive Power of Differences, and describes... that kind of polarity thinking that we can't just take a one-sided approach and say, if we want to create alignment in our district and be a learning organization, we're going to do everything top down. You know, we know that that approach, as well-intentioned as it might be, is going to have a lot of unintended consequences.

[12:56]

And similarly, when we try to do everything in kind of a self-directed, you know, I can take basket weaving if I want to for my professional development approach, kind of approach, then we don't get those kind of optimal results that we want either.

[13:09] SPEAKER_02:

Right. Our goal here is coherency. It's shared vision. It's not a vision. It's a shared vision, a shared mission. It's collective responsibility.

[13:20]

It's everybody working together toward the same goal. And everybody wants what's best for children. We know that. You know, personalized doesn't necessarily have to mean individualized, and it's getting clarity around the definitions. What do we mean by these words? I had a really interesting conversation many years ago with a colleague at NEA.

[13:44]

when we were talking about what does it mean to have teacher-driven professional learning? And did that mean teachers decide on their own? And what she said to me was, it means teachers are at the table. Teachers are part of the process. Teachers contribute to the decision-making. It doesn't mean every teacher wants to go off and be able to do their own thing, nor would teachers think that that's in the best interest of a school, of students, of a system.

[14:18] SPEAKER_01:

So as you've worked with successful leaders and school districts around the country like Wendy Robinson in Fort Wayne, Indiana, what considerations did you have in mind as you put the book together to take all of those insights and put them into a book format? And how do those considerations show up in the book and the other resources that you've included with it?

[14:36] SPEAKER_02:

So the book, I mean, it has this wonderful picture of a circle on the cover, right? The palette of colors. And the book is intended for people to open it up and figure out which part of it is most helpful to them, where they are in the process of becoming a learning system. So We really encourage people to read the introduction and read chapters 1, 2, and 3 because they kind of provide the foundational pieces of what do we mean by a learning system. But beyond that, chapters 3 through, I think there's 24 chapters in the book, it's where do they want to start because we think you can start at any place within the book. The other piece that I'm really proud of is

[15:26]

At the start of each chapter, we have questions that kind of help you gauge where you are right now, as well as then thinking about where do you want to be along these questions as you continue to work to become a learning system. What's exciting about the book is then on the website, all of the tools that are referenced to support the implementation of the ideas in every chapter are in a locked website. So someone can go there. And I think there's over 200 plus pages of tools that people can manipulate to help them be able to use them that will be most helpful to them. So you cannot read this from beginning to end because it would be over 500 pages. So you need to think of it as a resource guide that you look to as to fit your own path that you've chosen for creating a learning system.

[16:24]

I think those are some of the things that I'm most proud of. I think the case studies are great. We have some video that's in the locked resources as well. And I don't know, Justin, if you know that the...

[16:37]

becoming a learning system followed becoming a learning school. And so it's kind of the next step in the development of, well, it's really nice to have one school that has all these great pieces in place, but how do we make sure that we support all schools? And really, that's the challenge that Wendy Robinson brought to us. She had some schools that were learning schools, and she wanted to know how to change her district office so that it was in the position to be able to help and support all of their principals to lead learning schools. There's one other thing I just want to point to.

[17:19]

My co-authors, Kay Pencik and Fred Brown, have actually been doing on-the-ground work in Fort Wayne. Kay's been there for almost a decade, and Fred has been there for the last three years. So everything in the book, almost everything in the book, has actually been tested with the Fort Wayne District Office. So I'm really proud of that. And I think my contribution to all of this was I work with a lot of system leaders in a lot of large system kind of initiatives in conversations and listen to a lot of people and do a lot of reading and engage with a lot of people over a lot of years. And so it was drawing from those experiences, those conversations, and

[18:10]

how some of these amazing leaders that we wrote about have informed my own thinking for the last two decades.

[18:17] SPEAKER_01:

And I know there is a training as well. Isn't there that Fred and Kay provide to school districts? Is that right?

[18:26] SPEAKER_02:

That's correct. It's pretty self-explanatory, though, too. There's a lot of guidance in here.

[18:33] SPEAKER_01:

Stephanie, thank you so much for sharing with us some of your insights from the process of doing this learning and putting the book together. How can people find out more about the book Becoming a Learning System and where can they find that on your website?

[18:46] SPEAKER_02:

So it's in the bookstore on our website. We've done a lot of newsletters that have pulled different pieces of it that are free on the website as well. So you can just search on Becoming a Learning System and you'll get lots of the tools already available free. We hope people will...

[19:02]

consider becoming a member you can become a member for as little as $49 or you can even sign up for our free monthly newsletter and a lot of content that we include in that newsletter comes from the book so there's lots of ways to either get it get some of the information for free or Or you can purchase the book. I think if you're a member, it's like $64. And I think you'll have enough to keep you busy for a long time. And then I always tell people, if you cry poverty to me, but you really have to have it, send me that note and I will be glad to send you a copy.

[19:40] SPEAKER_01:

That is a very nice offer. And I have to say, you know, I get a lot of newsletters. I think we all get a lot of newsletters. But when I think it was probably a special issue that focused on the book, when that came across my desk, I really had to stop what I was doing and look at that for about half an hour. And I said, wow, this is really something different. So yeah.

[19:57]

Yeah, I would encourage everybody to get on those lists with Learning Forward and keep an eye on what's coming out because it really is tremendous and really is the leading edge of professional learning in the world of education. Stephanie, thank you so much for your time. It's been a pleasure to speak with you and a delight to interview you on Principal Center Radio.

[20:17] SPEAKER_02:

Thanks so much, Justin. Look forward to seeing you soon.

[20:21] SPEAKER_00:

And now, Justin Bader on High Performance Instructional Leadership.

[20:26] SPEAKER_01:

So high performance instructional leaders, what were your takeaways from my interview with Stephanie Hirsch about becoming a learning system? For me, one big thing is the idea of collective responsibility at every level of the system for being a learning system. When we think of a large organization like a district or an archdiocese or an independent school that has a lot of different campuses, we think about the superintendent or the head of school or whoever's in charge of that organization at the top of the hierarchy. We think of that person as being responsible for learning across the system. But one thing I really appreciate that Stephanie pointed out to us is that it is a collective responsibility. It does not have to start at the top.

[21:07]

And even if it does, it can't only come from the top. It's something that needs to permeate every level of the organization. So if you're looking for ways to become a learning system, I would highly encourage you to check out Stephanie's book and learn more about the work that's being done in Fort Wayne, Indiana and elsewhere around the country to be learning systems on behalf of the students that we serve.

[21:30] Announcer:

Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio.