Network Logic - Index of

Network logic
managers to make the necessary adaptations to their contexts without
losing the core of what it means to be a NWP site. For example, at
UCLA, a 24-year-old site, two state-wide initiatives have greatly
affected teaching and learning in the Los Angeles district. Proposition
227 limits a bilingual student to one year of English immersion, and
high stakes standardised tests are used as the criteria for passing and
failing courses and graduating from high school. Summer offerings of
the UCLA site respond to such changing policy contexts for teachers.
The UCLA site, in response to Proposition 227 and high stakes
testing, organised summer workshops, such as ‘Writing from Day
One’, a week-long offering to help teachers with strategies that enable
bilingual students to improve their writing while they are learning
English. ‘Research to Reading’, a state-wide programme, became
another offering, this one designed to help teachers avoid narrowing
the literacy curriculum by demonstrating that serious incorporation
of language arts standards could ultimately lead to higher test scores
and to better writing.
At OSU, because the site encompasses such large distances, housing
arrangements are made for the five-week invitational. Whenever
possible, workshops are arranged to piggy-back on other occasions
and minimise the driving time for teachers. To provide a measure of
consistency the OSU site has created its own model of writing project
work, designed to reach out to teachers in remote towns and rural
areas and to bring new and experienced teachers the benefits of
teaching demonstrations, opportunities for teacher writing, writing
groups and teacher research.
These examples speak to ways that teachers can contribute to the
learning of colleagues while continuing their own learning. They also
speak to the flexibility and adaptability that a network-like way of
organising affords. The NWP’s network structure keeps it sensitive to
a dynamic and changing environment, while its social practices keep
its cultural identity intact and sustain its broader mission.
Besides responding to local needs, the NWP has further ways to
answer the professional development needs of teachers. The national
office, for instance, helps facilitate sub-networks that cut across sites.
72 Demos