Even a cursory review of the professional literature or sessions listed in AERA’s annual meeting program suggests a large variety of activities are categorized as exemplars of collaborative teams or communities (e.g., DuFour, 2004; Hord, 1997; Newmann and Associates, 1996; Vescio, et al., in press). Painting these varied activities with the same brush might obscure some important distinctions. For example, in one case, learning communities might discuss individual students they share, but because they teach different subjects, they do not focus on improving instruction. In another case, teachers within a grade level or subject area might collaborate to implement a common curriculum. These cases strike us as quite different in their likelihood to directly affect teaching and learning.

We define learning teams as small role-similar or job-alike groups of educators (n = 5 to 6) that meet two or more times a month to collaborate on improving classroom teaching and student learning.

Job-alike includes:

• groups of teachers who teach the same subject or grade level;


• learning team facilitators who meet monthly with a building administrator;


• building administrators who meet monthly to discuss implementation of teaching learning teams;district administrators meeting in teams to implement and support learning teams.

The key idea is this:

• Teachers cannot make classrooms stimulating for students unless schools are places of learning for teachers. Administrators cannot make schools stimulating unless continuous learning and improvement define the core work patterns of each educational setting and everyone focuses on assisting the learning of others at each successive level.



• Former high school teacher and legendary coach, John Wooden teaches: When you improve a little each day, a big gain is made. Don’t look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That's the only way it happens, and when it happens, it lasts.



• Continuous improvement.