As I review the exchange of comments I can’t help thinking that this is what collegial dialogue is all about. The question challenged you to think about your practices. Now your responses are challenging me to think about my basic beliefs. When you engage an entire staff in this discussion, the process is as valuable as the product.

A few reactions:

First, I need to stress that I am not suggesting we agree on how teachers should teach. I am suggesting it is possible to reach consensus on some aspects of how children learn. There is a difference. There can be many ways to teach that are aligned with the same theory of how students learn. I am very much aware of those districts that straight jacket their teachers with a script and deny them the opportunity to use their experience and expertise. These are districts that do not have a commonly agreed upon, research-based theory of how children learn because if they did they would see that they cannot defend a system that denies teachers the use of their judgment. It is contrary to any reasonable interpretation of research on teaching practices. Two teachers can agree on a theory of how children learn and use totally different practices, each aligned with that theory. It happens all the time - just look in the classrooms of two excellent teachers. Chances are they are using different practices with the only thing in common being that their practices can be defended in terms of what we know about how children learn.

Call it a common theory or set of beliefs - that doesn’t matter as far as I’m concerned. I think it’s possible for a faculty to agree on which beliefs (or theories) it thinks should guide instructional practice. I have been able to facilitate large faculties into a true consensus on their beliefs (theories) within a reasonable amount of time. It can be done in a way that does not restrict the ability of teachers to use their own judgment about what are good teaching practices.

Not only does such agreement not have to restrict creative and outstanding teachers, it takes the shackles off. I’ve worked with innovative teachers for 25 years - our summer conference is designed to be a once-a-year haven and think tank for them. Nothing holds a good teacher back more than the few poorer teachers and administrators who are not only threatened if they are asked to change their practices, but are often threatened if others want to teach differently. Having a basic set of beliefs (defensible by current research) creates a focal point for meaningful dialogue about appropriate practices and it can replace the usual gut-level debates that deny the opportunity for reason and research to prevail.

The key to facilitating a consensus on how a staff believes people learn is that where there are disagreements you create umbrella statements that recognize divergent views. However, there are a significant number of beliefs that teachers and administrators will agree on and having these discussed and in writing can be invaluable. An agreed upon theory or theories of how people learn (or belief statements) should be 1) a guide to setting criteria for hiring new staff, 2) a guide for new staff when they come on board, 3) a reminder to current staff, 4) a signal to those who would shoot from the hip without any sound basis, 5) a focal point for redesigning teacher evaluation instruments – often irrelevant to what is important in classroom pedagogy, and 5) as a message to parents of what they can expect and, hopefully, reinforce.

Here are some examples of questions that can be catalysts for discussion and, eventually, lead to common ground on a set of beliefs among teachers and administrators:

• Do people learn by building on prior knowledge?
• What kinds of lectures can be effective as part of a learning experience for students, what type are counter productive and how and when should lectures be integrated into lessons?
• What do we know about how people learn that we can agree on?
• Is there a homework policy we can agree on that will improve our ability to improve student learning in lieu of letting every teacher determine how much and what kind of homework to assign without any commonly agreed upon guidelines?
• What can we conclude from research are the most and least effective types of homework and the best ways to assign homework?
• What are the implications of current brain research for classroom practice?

Does anyone really believe faculties are incapable of agreeing on responses to some of these questions? When they do agree on a response to any of these questions, they are creating a belief statement.

There is nothing magical about these questions – add, subtract or change any of them. What is important is that a staff dialogue on important questions about pedagogy and reach agreement where it is possible. The fact that a staff may fail to agree on some beliefs is not a reason for denying it the opportunity for dialogue and the chance to agree on at least some beliefs.

Almost every private sector business functions from a vision, mission statement, and set of beliefs. Education departments are frequently imploring school districts to create their own. Yes, most school districts waste a lot of time creating vision and mission and belief statements. But that’s because they take too much of their staff’s valuable time to develop them and then they put them on a shelf and forget them for years until someone else comes along and asks a new staff to repeat the process. Creating a guiding philosophy is only worthwhile if staff can support it and if it is made highly visible and is used to guide instructional practice. Everyone in a school district needs tobe immersed in whatever theories of learning are agreed upon as the guide for instructional practices. And, as stated earlier, the process of generating meaningful dialogue, if done right, is as valuable as the product.

Walk through the halls of “School Without Walls,” the Ithaca Alternative School,” or any other exceptional school that has stood the test of time and gained recognition for creating an environment that helps raise student achievement. An agreed upon philosophy of how children learn is evident (and known by staff, students and parents) in all these schools. Talk with the teachers. They don’t feel restricted by a commonly held set of beliefs – they feel unshackled.

And as for Rita Dunn and learning styles theory, knowledge of individual differences among students in any classroom is important, but to categorize according to any model risks problems with stereotyping, not to mention the classroom management difficulties that follow.

For a comprehensive critique of learning styles, with a lengthy section devoted to Rita Dunn, see Learning styles and Pedagogy in Post-16 learning: A systematic and critical review. It’s a large pdf file, but worth looking at, I believe.

In addition to deciding which learning theory is best for learning which task, we need to know the individuals in our classrooms well enough to know how they learn best.

“Most teachers assume that if they care about the youngsters they teach and
“cover the curriculum,” their students should be able to master it. Most teachers
know what to teach, but don’t realize that they can’t possibly know how to
teach it without first identifying how their children learn. And most children do
not learn traditionally through lectures, readings or discussions.

Prize-winning research has made it clear that most children can master the
curriculum when they’re taught with strategies, methods or resources that
complement how they learn. However, students in the same class often learn
differently from each other and many actually learn backwards from each
other. As a result, Strategy A can produce an A for one student and a C for
another, whereas Strategy B can reverse these same two students’ grades.”
“-How do we teach them, if we don’t know how they learn? “Apr 1999 by Dunn,
Rita Dunn

I don’t advocate everyone teaching the same thing, the same way…I do believe we need to give more thought to WHO we are teaching and HOW they learn best. Schools should be “learning communities” that are in constant conversation about continuously improving teaching and learning practices. Without these conversations, teachers go about their business with doors closed…isolated from their colleagues and there is little hope for systemic change.

Pete