Judith Warren Little on the Relationship between Professional Community and Professional Development

Judith Warren Little’s essay “Professional Community and Professional Development in the Learning-Centered School” is a significant essay for its description and justification of professional community at an educational institution. Little's essay is directed at K-12 education, but I think her comments may apply to college campuses as well.

The essay gives abundant food-for-thought about the nature of professional development and how it meshes with professional development. My summary will be selective and I’ll report only the ideas that are most relevant to my project.

A significant change in educator professional learning is a shift from individual expertise and commitment to the institution’s expertise and commitment. In other words, previously most professional development aimed to improve educators’ teaching skills; whereas nowadays educators engage in professional learning mostly to serve a larger goal of institutional improvement (e.g., improving student success).

A shift from an individual educators’ development plan to the development of the whole educational institution as a whole occurs because the institution is the entity responsible for student success. A resulting implication is that professional learning should be a social endeavor rather than an individual and solitary activity.

Little argues that professional community is a necessary part of any successful school. In fact, as professional community becomes an integral component of student success, the very essence of professional development evolves into a broader and deeper sense of professional learning. Unfortunately, many of these beneficial changes are conceptual and theoretical rather than practical and actual.

At the same time, the concepts of cooperation and collaboration shouldn’t be confused with professional community. Accomplishing tasks together (i.e., cooperation and collaboration) does not mean the same thing as developing trust, respect, and a mutual responsibility for student learning (i.e., community).

Because professional community can be difficult to preserve, specific communication practices, and interactional resources and protocols can help educators create and maintain professional community. Furthermore, educators must embrace and enact values that support learning.

The relationship between professional development (i.e., techniques to enhance teaching) and professional community (i.e., cultivating trust and respect) is a reciprocal relationship. Successful professional learning is a combination of professional development and professional community.

And that leads to my own personal thesis: professional learning = professional development plus professional community. Or, put another way: PL = PD + PC.

citation: Judith Warren Little. “Professional Community and Professional Development in the Learning-Centered School.” Washington, DC: National Education Assn., Dec. 2006. http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/HE/mf_pdreport.pdf