Medical Residency Goes to School

The Highline School District, located roughly 10 miles south of Seattle, Washington, has begun to implement a residency model for professional learning. Like the medical model, current teachers often traveled from other schools to be "in residency" at a previously selected classroom for six half-day sessions during the 2005-06 school year. Some schools paired up to double their allotted six days into 12. In this arrangement, the host teacher's classroom served as a studio for her and other teachers' learning. What made these learning experiences so beneficial was that they involved real students and real problems of practice. External expertise is provided by an instructional consultant--contracted by Highline through the Center for Educational Leadership (CEL) at the University of Washington--who typically facilitates the studio residency work around a previously agreed-upon aspect of instructional practice. The authors (researchers from CEL) observed more than 23 days of studio residencies in Highline between 2005 and 2007. One in particular stands out as an example of expert-guided professional development that actively engaged educators at multiple levels of the district. In spring 2006, principals and teachers from three elementary schools, as well as instructional coaches, Highline central office leaders, and a CEL consultant, were thinking about how classroom book clubs might provoke authentic text-based conversations among 5th graders. For two days, these adults in residency were released from their jobs to focus on a schoolwide problem of practice. Most students had not yet mastered how to read texts and engage in productive, intellectual, text-based conversations with their peers. The initial outcomes from the studio residency model demonstrate the strength of job-embedded coaching. When skillfully applied in teachers' work contexts, the expertise of nationally known literacy consultants impressed school and district leaders.