Here are three questions to ask when thinking about the effectiveness of the professional learning teams in your school or district:

• Are teachers focused upon thinking or doing? When collaboration enhances thinking, by prompting deeper reflection and more informed decision making, teams are more successful.
• Are teachers able to disagree? Learning occurs only when one considers views and ideas other than one’s own. If participants on a professional learning team are unable to consider alternative viewpoints, they will not grow together.
• Are teachers able to consider both their own experiences and others’ views as expressed through professional literature, research reports, and district directives? Some groups rely only on the experience of their participants; other groups feel bound to articles, standards, mandates, and other perspectives that come from outside the group. The most successful learning teams can consider both and have skills to consider contradictions that may arise when members’ current perspectives conflict with others’ perspectives. These groups recognize that neither personal experience nor others’ generalizations should take priority but that both must be honored and considered.