Professional Learning Conversations

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

   PDF

2. Understanding How Evidence and Learning Conversations Work

   • Lorna M. Earl, Helen Timperley

   Pages 1-12

3. Raising Student Achievement in Poor Communities Through Evidence-Based Conversations

   • Mei Kuin Lai, Stuart McNaughton

   Pages 13-27

4. Structuring Talk About Teaching and Learning: The Use of Evidence in Protocol-Based Conversation

   • Judith Warren Little, Marnie W. Curry

   Pages 29-42

5. Leadership for Evidence-Informed Conversations

   • Lorna M. Earl

   Pages 43-52

6. A Cross-Grade Learner Conversation

   • Linda Kaser, Judy Halbert

   Pages 53-67

7. Evidence-Informed Conversations Making a Difference to Student Achievement

   • Helen Timperley

   Pages 69-79

8. Honey, Wooden Spoons, and Clay Pots: The Evolution of a Lithuanian Learning Conversation

   • Linda E. Lee

   Pages 81-93

9. Learning to Think and Talk from Evidence: Developing System-wide Capacity for Learning Conversations

   • Sue Lasky, Gene Schaffer, Tim Hopkins

   Pages 95-107

10. Learning Conversations Stillborn: Distrust and Education Policy Dialogue in South Africa

    • Brahm Fleisch

    Pages 109-119

11. Using Conversations to Make Sense of Evidence: Possibilities and Pitfalls

    • Lorna M. Earl, Helen Timperley

    Pages 121-126

12. Back Matter

    Pages 127-132

    PDF

This, the first book in the series, ‘Professional Learning and Development in Schools and Higher Education’, is edited by two experienced, committed and skilled educationists from different parts of the world but with converging values and viewpoints. The result is a rich mélange of authors from the USA, Australia, South Africa, Canada and New Zealand all of whom focus on the use of evidence informed decision-making in schools and classrooms. This focus makes for an unusual collection which acts as an antidote to change agendas which are entirely results driven. The book provides evidence from a variety of countries of how s- tem leaders, teachers in schools and higher education must now manage as part of their endeavours to provide the best possible learning and achievement opportu- ties for all students. What makes this book unique is its engagement with the rea- ties of the challenge of evidence informed conversations which all too quickly become ‘activity traps’ as teachers are steered away from evidence towards ado- ing short term pragmatic or ideological solutions which suit the policy agendas of reformists from outside schools and, more often than not, fail to result in real changes in teaching and learning.

• Educational change
• Professional learning conversations
• School improvement
• Using evidence
• education
• education policy
• learning
• university
• learning and instruction

• Aporia Consulting Ltd., Toronto, Canada

  Lorna M. Earl

• University of Auckland, New Zealand

  Helen Timperley

Policies and ethics