The Learning Team Questionnaire
'An organization learns through actions and interactions that take place between people who are typically situated within smaller groups or teams (Edmonson, 2002). Through these teams making appropriate changes in how they do their work, an organization maintains its effectiveness in a changing world.' Bresó, Gracia, Latorre, Peiró
To what extent is the team that you lead developing as a learning team? This is where the team leader and the team members are collectively and individually committed to developing their own learning about what they do and how they can do it better. If you are not a team leader, simply use the questions as a guide to understanding a key team of which you are a member.
The following items are some of the things that you might expect to see in a learning team. For each of the items below, give yourself a score from 1 to 5 on the following scale:
This rarely happens = 1-2-3-4-5 = This regularly happens
Depending on your remit, use the word 'team' to refer to the colleagues for whom you have responsibility, whether in one team or in groups across the school.
Statements
1. My colleagues and I reflect on how we can improve things.
2. My colleagues work together for learning in such things as team teaching, collaborative planning, learning groups and so on.
3. I model the importance of learning about learning by constantly demonstrating an interest in this and engaging in conversations with colleagues about this.
4. Members of our team engage in meaningful continuing professional development and share the learning from this with each other.
5. We are keen to try out new ideas and learn from the results.
6. When people come back from some training, I always meet them to check about their learning, next steps and implications for the team.
7. We discuss ideas and share suggestions that can lead to changes and improvements in teaching practice.
8. I encourage and support colleagues to extend and develop both expertise and experience by encouraging them to demonstrate initiative and take responsibility for projects and developments and so on.
9. Colleagues reflect carefully on research extracts and professional reading to both further individual and team learning.
10. We use coaching and mentoring approaches to further our understanding and expertise.