STEM teachers in professional learning communities:from good teachers to great teaching

STEM teaching is more effective and student achievement increases when teachers join
forces to develop strong professional learning communities in their schools. This finding is
supported by a two‐year National Science Foundation funded study, STEM Teachers in
Professional Learning Communities: A Knowledge Synthesis (“Knowledge Synthesis”),
conducted by the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF) and
WestEd, based on an analysis of nearly two hundred STEM education research articles and
reports.
1 The finding further supports an earlier NCTAF report, released in 2010 with
Pearson Foundation funding, that synthesizes research papers and projects documenting
teacher learning team initiatives across all school subjects.

These two studies place a capstone on a decade of teacher effectiveness research. We now
have compelling evidence that when teachers team up with their colleagues they are able
to create a culture of success in schools, leading to teaching improvements and student
learning gains. The clear policy and practice implication is that great teaching is a team
sport. Performance appraisal, compensation, and incentive systems that focus on individual
teacher efforts at the expense of collaborative professional capacity building could
seriously undermine our ability to prepare today’s students for 21
st
century college and
career success. Every school needs good teachers—but a school does not become a great
place to learn until those teachers have the leadership and support to create a learning
culture that is more powerful than even the best of them can sustain on their own.

These findings have significant implications for America’s competitiveness in a global
innovation economy. Student mastery in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
(STEM) is essential to our economic growth. But America’s twenty‐year decline in
international science and mathematics standings tells us that we have serious challenges to
overcome. Countries that persistently rank at the top of international measures of science
and mathematics achievement do things differently. A growing number of reports indicates
that one of their biggest advantages is in the clear, consistent, and coherent support
systems they provide for teachers from preparation through induction to accomplished
practice.
 Learning is no longer preparation for the job; it is the job. Today’s students are preparing
for a future in which they will invent and reinvent their work, team up to solve problems,
develop new knowledge, and continuously acquire new skills. They need teachers who
know how to create schools that look like the learning organizations they will work in for
the rest of their lives.

To meet the needs of today’s learners, the tradition of artisan teaching in solo‐practice
classrooms will have to give way to a school culture in which teachers continuously
develop their content knowledge and pedagogical skills through collaborative practice that
is embedded in the daily fabric of their work. Teacher collaboration supports student
learning, and the good news is that teachers who work in strong learning communities are
more satisfied with their careers and are more likely to remain in teaching long enough to
become accomplished educators.
3 This report takes us one step further, summarizing the
impacts of learning teams, particularly in STEM content areas, on teacher practice.




http://www.nctaf.org/documents/NCTAFreportSTEMTeachersinPLCsFromGoodTeacherstoGreatTeaching.pdf