Putting HLTPs into Practice – Part 2

Today we come to the end of our extended examination of Enacting the Work of Language Instruction by Eileen W Glisan and Richard Donato (2017).

The specific topic is the cycle of enactment.

Remember that this is merely one model of implementation or enactment. You may have a different model of implementation; the important thing is to implement your own program of professional development in collaboration with another or other teachers.

The cycle (or spiral, as I prefer to see it) consists of the following steps
1. Deconstruction of the HLTP
2. Observation and analysis of the HLTP
3. Planning to enact the practice
4. Rehearsal and coaching
5. Enactment of practice in the (PK-16) classroom*
6. Assessments of enactment by one or more fo the collaborative partners, including self-assessment and reflection

I put (PK-16) in parentheses because this cycle of enactment is valuable in any instructional setting, not just the school setting from Pre-Kindergarten through senior in college. That designation was limiting, but the cycle is applicable more broadly.

Glisan and Donato illustrate the model with a set of concentric circles. (2017, p. 166)

In the center is “Community of Practice”

In a circle outside of that are the steps of the cycle:
Deconstruction –> Observation and Analysis –> Planning –> Rehearsal and Coaching –> Enactment –> Assessment ⌊New Cycle⌋

The outmost circle consists of Reflection and Collaboration // Feedback and Discussion.

Although the authors do not explicitly elucidate their diagram, it seems that it is intended to convey the idea that “within a context of Reflection, Collaboration, Feedback, and Discussion, teachers create by using iterative cycles of implementation of the HLTPs a Community of Practice.”

In a truly collaborative context, this model has the potential for helping teachers improve their instruction. It is, once again, not the only model. The potential misuse is in making it an instrument of coercion in a misguided attempt to force all teachers to teach alike.

Glisan and Donato also note that, contrary to the way it is portrayed in the diagram, the phases of the “Cyclical Model for Enacting HLTPs” “do not occur in a static linear manner but reflect back-and-forth movement as learning is mediated and leads to successful enactment of the HLTP.” (2017, p. 167)

The next question, of course, is “What happens in each phase of the cycle?”

Phase 1: Deconstructing the Practice

Teachers deconstruct – or take apart – the practice after learning about it, either through oral presentation or reading. They identify the “instructional moves” that comprise the practice.

This could be a quite ambitious undertaking. The person just starting out will probably want to limit the scope and number of the instructional moves, recognizing that HLTPs like “creating a discourse community” and “facilitating target language comprehensibility” are quite complex and can be approached in a number of different ways.

Remember, this is intended to be an ongoing journey (to use another metaphor).

Phase 2: Observing and Analyzing the Practice

Teachers then watch a more experienced teacher – either live or on video – enact the practice. The “students” focus on observing, analyzing, and recalling the specific instructional moves illustrated in the model lesson.

Glisan and Donato include some very good advice here.

If the object is to analyze a practice – or series of “instructional moves” – then participants should not be both learners and observers.

At conferences and workshops, especially those that emphasize strategies that maximize comprehension, participants are often asked to experience the strategies as students. Then the presenter will have a discussion and de-brief. This is a good idea for introducing people to a strategy and showing its power.

However, that is not what Glisan and Donato intend to happen in the Cyclical Model. They want teachers to be able to analyze the practice and its “instructional moves”. To do this, the observer cannot be both a student and an observer.

The authors offer several possibilities for working around this situation:
1. Have participants observe a teacher and real students. (This is, btw, something that iFLT introduced into its conferences several years ago.)
2. Have a small group of participants be the students while other participants observe.
3. Make a video of the teacher teaching the entire group of participants. Then watch the video for the purpose of observation and analysis.
4. Watch a video of a teacher with a class of real students

I have been in situations in which each of these possibilities was used. The best experience was watching a live teacher with real students. Having a small group of participants be students while others watch and watching a video of a teacher with a class of real students were roughly equally effective and in the middle. The strategy that worked least well was videotaping the participants and then watching that video.

Phases 3 and 4: Planning and Rehearsing the Practice

In this section, Glisan and Donato advocate for something that is not frequently done in teacher training programs and even less frequently once teachers are in the classroom. Nonetheless, planning and rehearsing can be highly beneficial.

First, the teacher plans a lesson / instructional activity that incorporates the target HLTP. This can be done in collaboration with one’s peers.

Then, the teacher practices with peers as students while the leader (or professor) coaches. This form of coaching involves stopping the lesson and asking the teacher to repeat, change, vary, revise a segment of the lesson.

A few years ago, I had the great good fortune to present a series of workshops with Jason Fritze, an internationally known teacher, presenter, and teaching coach. As part of the workshops, I demonstrated several practices in a series of lessons that Jason and I had prepared. In what was in many ways a “Master Class”, I presented to the workshop participants who played the role of students. Jason would have me stop and do something slightly differently or repeat what I had done, and then he would explain what the participants had experienced and invite discussion and questions.

I am certain that the participants benefitted from the workshops, and we certainly got positive feedback. However, I am convinced that I received the most from this experience. It had a profoundly positive impact on my own teaching, even though I was presenting as an experienced teacher.

From personal experience, then, I can attest to the value of these steps.

Phases 5 and 6: Enacting and Assessing the Practice

The last two phases are coupled together because of their close relationship to one another.

After deconstructing, observing, analyzing, preparing, and rehearsing the practice, the teacher enacts it in the classroom while a colleague or master teacher observes and assesses the enactment. The teacher also self-reflects on the enactment of the practice. This should lead to a collaborative dialogue between the observer and the teacher that results in increased understanding and facility with the High-Leverage Teaching Practice.

Challenges of Implementing the Enactment Cycle

Glisan and Donato identify two challenges to implementing the cycle, and these are mentioned primarily in relation to New Teachers (i.e. those in a teacher-training program or their first two years of in-service teaching). I believe there are other challenges.

One challenge is simply expectations and emotions. Most teachers do not expect to be stopped and interrupted while presenting and can have emotional reactions, even anger, when this happens.

My own experience with the workshop series I mentioned earlier makes me aware that the groundwork needs to be done well. Jason and I had already worked together for some time, but we sat down and discussed what would happen during the workshop. I had to be ready for Jason to stop me and ask me to do something over, do revise something to a lesser or greater extent, or even do something completely different.

I can tell you that it takes trust, humility, flexibility, and the proper mindset for this to work.

The second challenger that Glisan and Donato mention is the need to situate the practice in a relevant instructional activity (lesson). This is indeed a greater challenge for New Teachers than for in-service teachers, who know what is happening in the classroom.

One piece of advice in this section is highly relevant:

Increasing comprehensible target language use and interaction during instruction cannot be carried out if the learners are uninterested in what is being said or in what they are being asked to express.

Other challenges that I see but are not mentioned by Glisan and Donato include those I noted above, and these challenges can be insurmountable.

The first challenge is trust. If I do not have a relationship of trust with my peers, then I will not participate in the cycle of enactment. I have to trust them to have my best interests at heart, not simply try to make themselves look better than others, to know the HLTP well enough to be able to analyze and assess its enactment, and to have sufficient discretion not to discuss needs for improvement with others. Unfortunately, trust is often a rare commodity; people do not learn to trust one another simply because they work in the same school or building or department. We need to be deliberate in building trust.

A true Professional Learning Community does not come into existence merely because an administrator decrees that teachers must meet, collaborate, and work together.

The second challenge is humility. Many teachers have large egos and view their classrooms as their own little empires. They are unwilling to submit themselves to scrutiny and constructive criticism – and often because they consider themselves to be exemplars of their craft. Pride on the part of either the observer or the practitioner can shipwreck the process and make it impossible to proceed.

The third challenge is flexibility. Flexibility is related to the other challenges of humility and trust. The less trust I have in someone, the less flexible I will be when around them. The same goes for humility and the lack thereof. There can, of course, be other reasons for lack of flexibility, but for the cycle of enactment to work, teachers must be flexible enough to try something new, both in the practice and in the process of enactment.

The fourth challenge is mindset. I have, unfortunately, worked with teachers who saw no reason to do anything that would improve their teaching. They had completed their teacher training and were in the classroom. Unless they were being paid for “professional development” they saw no reason for it. Yes, they would go to district in-service workshops (at which they often spent most of the time on their computer or mobile phone), but they would never go to a conference or out-of-district workshop. They had a fixed mindset and may have felt threatened by presentations of new practices and challenges to allow others to observe and assess them. They failed to realize that no matter how good you are, you can always improve.

Any one of these challenges can block implementation of a potentially valuable tool for improving instruction. That would be unfortunate

Final Thoughts

Glisan and Donato end this chapter and the book with a brief review of what they have presented and the hope that it will serve as a catalyst  for discussion of HLTPs and teacher education in general.

I also hope that what I have written in response to this book contributes to the discussion.

Both as individuals and as a profession, we need to remember that what has brought us to where we are will not take us beyond that. If we are to get past the generations of students who have taken two t0 four years of a language but are unable to understand or speak it, we must change what we do.

I don’t have all the answers, but I want to be part of the conversation.

Let me know what you think.