Welcome

The Burrow is being developed as a virtual home for Oregon Episcopal School's Lower School Critical Friends Group.  Specific details about our CFG will be decided in collaboration with interested teachers over the next few months, but the purpose of this site is to provide one place for resources and inspiration related to reflective teaching. Our CFG format is inspired by the structure and protocols developed through the Annenberg Institute for School Reform and the National School Reform Faculty (NSRF), as well as reflective practices used by educators in the Courage to Teach Program. The following descriptions of a CFG are from NSRF:

What is a CFG?
A CFG is a professional learning community consisting of approximately 8-12 educators who come together voluntarily at least once a month for about 2 hours. Group members are committed to improving their practice through collaborative learning.

What are the purposes of a Critical Friends Group?
Critical Friends Groups are designed to:

• Create a professional learning community
• Make teaching practice explicit and public by "talking about teaching"
• Help people involved in schools to work collaboratively in democratic, reflective communities (Bambino)
• Establish a foundation for sustained professional development based on a spirit of inquiry (Silva)
• Provide a context to understand our work with students, our relationships with peers, and our thoughts, assumptions, and beliefs about teaching and learning
• Help educators help each other turn theories into practice and standards into actual student learning
• Improve teaching and learning

What are the characteristics of a professional learning community?
Professional learning communities are strong when teachers demonstrate:

• Shared norms and values
• Collaboration
• Reflective dialogue
• Deprivatization of practice
• Collective focus on student learning
• Spirit of shared responsibility for the learning of all students

Professional learning communities can develop when there is:

• Time to meet and talk
• Physical proximity
• Interdependent teaching roles
• Active communication structures
• Teacher empowerment and autonomy

A professional learning community is enhanced when there is:

• Openness to improvement
• Trust and respect
• A foundation in the knowledge and skills of teaching
• Supportive leadership
• Socialization or school structures that encourage the sharing of the school's vision and mission (Kruse, et al)

For more information on Critical Friends Groups, see the National School Reform Faculty FAQ Page.

Interested in being a part of the CFG? Submit your email in the "follow by email" box in the right sidebar to receive brief readings and journal prompts this summer, and to receive more information in the fall. 

The growth of any craft depends on shared practice and honest dialogue among the people who do it. We grow by private trial and error, to be sure -- but our willingness to try, and fail, as individuals is severely limited when we are not supported by a community that encourages such risks.     -Parker Palmer-