National Writing Project developes Teacher Learning Communities

Teacher professionalism includes ongoing teacher development and learning. School leadership coexists with teacher professional development and it should be encouraged to achieve common goals. In this context, teacher learning communities (TLCs) which fosters collaboration among school teachers, put impactful effort toward educational development of students and teachers themselves. In this post, the author gives an example of the educational project where teachers are involved to enhance their expertise in writing. National Writing Project (NWP) discovered and developed writing skills of teachers; thus, students were positively influenced by acquiring writing skills and techniques.

NWP as a networking project has started to operate since 1974, over USA (Lieberman & Wood, 2002). The researchers believed that this project is one of the best blueprint that developes TLC. In the way of motivating and creating new social and professional networks among teachers. NWP considers summer schools/trainings for teachers who are willing to develop professionally in general, and in writing skills in particular. As  Lieberman & Wood stated that the “core activities during the summer institutes include sharing best lessons or strategies, participating in small writing groups, and receiving peer feedback” (p.40). Sense of common goals as to raise professional competence in writing, teachers are able to share their best practices with each other. Consequently, Lieberman (2000) added that such activities improve teachers’ “efficacy” (p.224).

To sum up, out of school professional teacher networking creates new model of TLC. NWP serves as a benchmark for any other teacher development projects. Taking into consideration the number of teachers (more than two millions) who participated in the project, attractiveness and effectiveness of such projects are noteworthy (Peterson, 2003). Therefore, powerful communities of teachers could be effectively created and developed as it is seen from this example. “Out of school” TLCs, to some extent, create professionally friendly environment to avoid professional and psychological isolation and underestimation of their knowledge.

Question for you: Is there teacher professional networking in Kazakhstan? If so, could you give an example? 

References:

Lieberman, A. (2000). Networks as learning communities shaping the future of teacher development. Journal of teacher education, 51(3), 221-227.

Lieberman, A., & Wood, D. R. (2002). The national writing project. Educational Leadership, 59(6), 40-44.

Peterson, A. (2003). 30 Ideas for Teaching Writing. National Writing Project (NJ3).