Anne Jolly

Project Director
SERVE Center at UNCG (retired)
P. O. Box 477
320 Baker Street
Warrior, AL 35180
PH   205-590-4909
FAX  205-590-2777

ajolly@bellsouth.net

During her 16 years as a middle school science teacher in Alabama, Anne Jolly always had the nagging feeling that there was something wrong with the way teachers were expected to do their work. Faced with dramatic changes in student demographics, academic requirements, and information technology, teachers were cocooned in their individual classrooms, where it was difficult to acquire new professional knowledge and all too easy to fall into familiar teaching routines. “I wondered what it would be like to work in an environment that encourages teacher collaboration, support, and personal growth,“ says Jolly, who was Alabama’s Teacher of the Year in 1994. “What would happen if teachers worked collectively to increase our expertise and change our teaching practices?”

That line of questioning led Jolly to undertake an extensive research project on the art of teacher-collaborative work and ultimately to write her book A Facilitator’s Guide to Professional Learning Teams, published by the SERVE Center at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Jolly defines professional learning teams as small, hyper-focused groups of educators working together to improve learning for both themselves and students in a particular academic area. She believes that these teams are schools’ best bet to break down the traditional cultural of isolation in teaching and to help teachers expand their intellectual horizons and improve their practice.

Jolly is now project director for professional learning teams at SERVE.