Critical Friends Group

In the recent article titled Critical Friends Groups: The Possibilities and Limitations Embedded in Teacher Professional Communities Aimed at Instructional Improvement and School Reform by Marnie Willis Curry, researcher at UC Berkeley, Critical Friends Groups (CFG's) at an urban public high went under the microscope.

Willis Curry took time to look at the four Critical Friends Groups design choices that Revere High School intentionally made to determine to possibilities and limitations that such groups can have on instructional improvement and school reform. The four design choices included: diverse menu of activities, decentralized structure, interdisciplinary membership, and protocol reliance.

The six CFGs, which contain 8-10 members each, met off site once a month for 3 hours. Trained coaches, who are Revere teachers or administrators, facilitated these monthly meetings. CFG sessions start with a personalized check-in phase called "Connections." Next, members engage in one to three conversations about teaching, learning, and/or schooling. These discussions, referred to by members as "protocols," are formally structured by conversation tools which outline and, to some extent, script the oral inquiry process. Typical of CFG work, protocol-guided conversations seek to create focused opportunities for members to deliberately and critically explore issues of teaching and learning through the close examination of either published texts or artifacts of classroom practice. In addition to protocol-guided discussions, Revere's CFG meetings periodically include peer observation updates, action research progress checks, and reflective journaling.

On the positive side the CFG's accomplished the following :
. Attracted and held a diverse membership over 5 years.
. Linked instructional practice with school reform goals in tangible ways.
. Encouraged "constructive controversy".
. Strengthened schoolwide communication.
. Fostered shared professional commitments and collective resposibilty for student learning.
. Ensured substantive, focused conversation about teaching, learning and reform.

However, Marnie Willis Curry did find that because all design choices entail necessary constraints, CFGs and their members must thoughtfully and explicitly consider which constraints significantly impede their "bottom-line" goal of improving teacher practice to increase student achievement. Remedies to these limitations may not reside in the CFGs themselves. Solutions may have to come from elsewhere, perhaps in the form of multiple and complementary CFG-like professional development opportunities in subject matter departments and academies.

To read the article in full please go to
http://www.tcrecord.org/content.asp?contentid=14625
Subscribers may read the article free of charge and others may pay a fee to read it in full.