At Power of Place Learning Communities, we’ve proven that when we begin with adults as our entry point–by supporting them through their own deep learning and development–educator mindsets and practices shift, and students benefit.
Just as we respect all learning differences among students, we have equal respect for educators’ diverse learning journeys.
Our learning communities are adaptive and relational in nature. Thus, our impacts are adaptive and relational. Though we certainly evaluate measures of success through participant registration numbers and quantitative pre- and post-tests, we believe that the detailed description that emerges from qualitative research often sheds more nuanced light on the shifts occurring in individuals, classrooms, schools, and districts. In previous evaluations, both quantitative and qualitative research have revealed clear evidence of educator mindset shifts.
In the longer-term, we look for shifts in policies and practices that reflect new priorities in schools and districts, such as adjustments to the school schedule, changes in district-wide professional development, and the implementation of new student handbooks, discipline codes, and family engagement activities.
Research has proven again and again that learning within a community of peers can have ample benefits for educators. We encourage our member districts to dive into and actively participate in our range of offerings, and urge participants to build connections and maintain them in between. We consider our efforts to be successful when we see evidence that our learning community participants are:
Mindsets are the “basic assumptions, beliefs, core values, goals, and expectations shared by a group of people who are committed to a specific field, and what they use as rules to guide their attitudes and practice in that field.” Fang, Kang and Lui, (2004)
Belief is a major component of mindset, as what we believe the nature of situations “should be” determines or influences our expectations and goals. For example, educators’ beliefs (also ideally, but not always, learners’, families’ and communities’ beliefs) about what schools should achieve determines the face of school systems, such as the design of schools’ key characteristics and their major functions. Therefore, creating change in education means identifying, connecting and changing mindsets if/as needed.
We look for the following mindset indicators among learning community participants:
We look for the following practice indicators among learning community participants:
We look for the following practice indicators among learning community participants:
