Contextualized Practice in Practice: Planning Responsive Professional Learning

A look at what happens when growth work is shaped by the community it serves.

DR. JACQUI STOLZER
Senior Professional Development Coach

There are many reasons that I love my work as a coach. Among them: it never gets boring. Each project, partner school, and person is unique, and an opportunity for new connection, learning, and impact. At CPET, we honor this in our approach to supporting schools, as articulated in our six principles of practice, and through one in particular: Contextualized Practice. To us, contextualized practice means that we eschew one-size-fits-all teaching advice, curricula, or coaching programs; our work in schools is designed in response to the particular contexts and goals of our partners. 

This is trickier than perhaps it first seems. As coaches employed by an external organization, we are ultimately outsiders, not steeped in the context or culture of our partner schools on a day-to-day basis. Furthermore, as my colleague G. Faith Little has written, contextualized practice can often look “messy,” and it can sometimes be hard to describe or illustrate what contextualized practice looks like…in practice. Even the ways we customize and contextualize our support are, well…contextual. 

So, instead of trying to generalize, I thought I would illustrate how I lean into contextualized practice through my work at one of our partner schools, where I support the community with weekly professional development sessions, and have now for four years and counting. 

Here are four concrete ways that the principle of contextualized practice lives in my partnership with this community, and that I believe might be relevant to people with varying roles and goals. Even if you are an “insider” to the community you’re serving, we are all always seeking to understand the needs and experiences of those different from us. 

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We work collaboratively

​While it’s true that I’m the only CPET coach currently working in partnership with this particular school, you’ll notice that as I discuss the promising practices related to contextualized practice, I often use the pronoun “we.” That is because I have the pleasure and privilege of collaborating very closely with the school’s leadership team throughout the year as I engage in designing and facilitating professional learning. I join the school’s Instructional Leadership Team (ILT) — consisting of school administrators, teacher leaders, and district representatives — during their weekly meetings. Not only does this allow me to receive input and feedback on my plans from multiple stakeholders with an array of vantage points, but it allows me to remain privy to the issues and topics on community members’ hearts and minds, even when not directly related to my role. 

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We take stock before beginning

​A large part of contextualized practice is responding to needs and desires as they arise, which requires a willingness to change the plan. As someone who loves to plan (we’re educators — don’t we all?), I certainly relate to the discomfort this might create for some. While flexibility remains necessary, one way I mitigate this challenge is by collecting lots of data before we launch a school year or a particular PD cycle, so that in addition to responding to needs, I’m also anticipating them. 

Here’s an example. Each year, before the new school year begins, this school’s ILT holds a day-long retreat for some long-term planning. This past August, we took stock of community needs through an interactive likert scale activity, where each member of the team used dot stickers to assess how teachers were leveraging key instructional practices (inspired by the book, Learning that Lasts). We then spent time reviewing, discussing, and ordering the different topics to consider what should be prioritized and emphasized. 

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We review data on a very consistent basis

​Of course, the initial needs assessment is only the beginning of collecting and analyzing data. At the end of every professional learning session, we collect teacher reflections and feedback via a Google Form survey. The questions are simple yet illuminating:

• What did you find most helpful about the session?
  
• How will this impact your practice?
  
• What questions do you have?
  
• What would you like to see more of next time?
  

And every week, we review the responses as a leadership team, discussing what stands out, and how this translates into next steps. 

This is not a groundbreaking practice, but it is crucial in developing a contextualized practice that responds to feedback and experiences in real time. I will say that reviewing feedback in a way that is consistent, systematic, and collaborative has greatly strengthened my practice, shifting my internal inquiry from “did I do a good job? Did they like it?” to “how do we build on the work we’ve done? What are teachers ready for next?” While the former questions arise naturally when we work hard and aim to please, the latter better center the learning experiences of teachers, and I find this depersonalization much easier to achieve when in conversation with others. Furthermore, discussing the feedback with teachers and leaders helps me recognize patterns and understand responses in ways that I might have missed otherwise. 

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Models and examples are both "authentic" and "local"

It’s widely accepted that effective teaching — regardless of students’ age or stage of development — includes providing models and examples. However, because the work of teaching and learning is so contextual, providing an authentic exemplar is sometimes insufficient in helping learners connect to the content if it doesn’t reflect the reality of their particular teaching and learning context. I remember sitting in PD as a teacher and thinking, “this topic is just not relevant to my students’ lives,” or watching a teaching video and thinking, “I would love to try this strategy, but how would it work if my classroom space is half the size?” 

This is why, whenever possible, we try to use models and examples created by and for members of the school community — so that teachers can expend less of their precious mental energy imagining how something is relevant to them and their students. 

For example: when planning a professional learning cycle on formative assessment, we decided to lean on a teacher leader who often uses Plickers to design and facilitate meaningful checks for understanding in her Science classroom. She happily agreed to have a portion of an upcoming lesson filmed, and then we showed the clip during one of the PD sessions. Not only did the staff have an example of how the strategy worked in their very school building, but their colleague was there to provide additional context and answer questions — something you don’t get from a video clip on Youtube. 

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Teachers are invited to apply their learning and share what they discover 

​I’ve described several ways we’ve worked to ensure that the context of the school informs the design of professional development. But for contextualized practice to truly take root, the influence must go both ways: professional development should also shape the school context. That’s how we move toward our ultimate goal: meaningful shifts in teacher practice and student learning. 

This is why each PD cycle is structured with the LARS model, which means that after learning, discussing, and engaging with a new concept or strategy, teachers are given time and support to apply it to their own practice directly. Teachers pull up unit plans and lesson plans, slides and materials, and revise, tweak, and integrate. 

After teachers have the chance to implement, they reflect on what happened, and share with each other. This is another crucial step in contextualization; by learning how colleagues adapted and applied a concept or strategy to their own classrooms, they receive additional examples of contextualized learning. 

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In sharing a bit about this particular project, I’ve hoped to highlight the ways that contextualized practice works in practice. However, in doing so, I believe I’ve also highlighted the ways that so many of our principles of practice work interdependently. Our work becomes so much more contextualized when we have the opportunity to belong to and participate in a community of practice; when we use data to anticipate and respond to needs through cycles of inquiry; and when we cultivate the existing strengths of the community.