Tímarit um menntarannsóknir - 01.01.2011, Page 56

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Svava Björg Mörk og Rúnar Sigþórsson
Context
In the school improvement literature there
seems to be a unanimous emphasis that
schools need to improve from within and
the improvement efforts have to reach be-
yond mere structural reform and be aimed
at teaching and the learning experiences of
children. In recent years the notion of pro-
fessional learning communities has also
become a common theme in the school im-
provement discourse, as a way of building
schools’ internal capacity to implement
and sustain change. The idea of profes-
sional learning communities is rooted in
the idea that teachers need to reflect, re-
search and create knowledge about their
own practice, while at the heart of the con-
cept is the notion of community, relation-
ships, interdependent responsibility and
shared values and vision.
This article reports action research on
the building of a professional learning
community in Bjarmi, a new infant pre-
school that builds on the philosophy of
Reggio Emilia. As a framework for the
school’s development work the school im-
provement model of “school intelligences”,
introduced by MacGilchrist et al. (2004)
was chosen. The framework describes pro-
fessional learning communities as consist-
ing of nine intelligences. The intelligences
refer both to values, knowledge and ways
of working that are characteristic for a
learning school community. The intelli-
gences can be divided into three subsets:
First, ethical and spiritual intelligences that
represent the values and vision of the
school community; second, systemic intel-
ligence that ensures the interrelationships
and connections between the various parts
of the organisation; and finally: contextual,
operational, emotional, collegial, reflec-
tive and pedagogical intelligences that all
relate to how the values and vision of the
school are reflected in the ways of work-
ing within the school. This framework
caught the attention of the researchers for
several reasons: For being unconnected to
school levels and therefore well suited as a
development framework for a pre-school;
for not having preset fixed definitions of
the intelligences, and thereby allowing the
school to put its own touch on them; and
finally for introducing what the research-
ers saw as a viable roadmap to fulfil the
aims of the school to build a professional
learning community that honoured the
principles of Reggio Emilia.
Method
The research took place during the school
year 2008–2009, the first year of the school’s
operation, and the principal researcher
was the head teacher of the school. Data
was collected from briefing sheets, inter-
views with teachers and parents, record-
ings of staff meetings, research diaries and
results of staff development activities. Fi-
nally, a group of three critical friends, two
of whom were from outside the school,
Abstract
A community of equals: The building of a
professional learning community in a pre-school