Building the Collaborative Culture of a PLC

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Building the Collaborative Culture of a PLC

• Collaboration Session 1
• PLC Professional Development for Teams
• Learning Council, Elementary Leadership Teams,
  and Secondary Leadership Teams

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CRCSD Strategic Plan
LEARNING
COLLABORATION
RESULTS
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Why Collaboration?

• a collection of teachers does not truly become a
  team until they must rely on one another( and
  need one another) to accomplish a goal that none
  could achieve individually
• co-laboring to benefit students
• in a PLC the reason teachers are organized into
  teams, the reason they are provided with time to
  work together, the reason they are asked to focus
  on certain topics and complete specific tasks, is
  so that when they return to their classrooms they
  will possess and UTILIZE an expanded repertoire
  of skills, strategies, materials, and ideas IN
  ORDER to impact student achievement in a positive
  way.

DuFour, Richard, et. al. Learning by
Doing. Bloomington Solution Tree, 2006.
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Why Collaboration?

• Individuals on effective teams learn to
  acknowledge mistakes, weaknesses, failures, and
  the need for help. They also learn to recognize
  and value the strengths of other members of the
  team and are willing to learn from one another.

DuFour, Richard, et. al. Learning by
Doing. Bloomington Solution Tree, 2006.
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Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Lencioni, Patrick. Overcoming the Five
Dysfunctions of a Team A Field Guide for
Leaders, Managers, and Facilitators. San
Francisco Jossey-Bass.
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Team Norm Activity

• In your small group develop team norms by
• Completing Developing Norms from direction
  sheet, write your norms on the norms template
• write proposed norms for each of the 6 areas of
  consideration
• If your team has already written group norms
• Do your norms cover some of the common challenges
  that occur in teams?
• Do you need to add anything after looking at the
  norms template page?

DuFour, Richard, et. al. Learning by
Doing. Bloomington Solution Tree, 2006. (p.
210-211)
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Additional Tips for Creating Norms

• Each team creates its own norms
• Stated as commitments to act or behave in certain
  ways rather than as beliefs
• Reviewed at the beginning and end of each meeting
  for at least 6 months
• Teams formally evaluate effectiveness at least
  twice a year
• Teams focus on a few essential norms rather than
  extensive laundry list.
• Violations of team norms must be addressed

• DuFour, Richard, et. al. Learning by
  Doing. Bloomington Solution Tree, 2006. (p.106)

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Are you looking in the mirror or out the window?
Seven Norms of Collaboration

• Paying attention to self and others
• Presuming positive intentions
• Pursuing a balance between advocacy and inquiry

• Pausing
• Paraphrasing
• Probing for specificity
• Putting ideas on the table

DuFour, Richard, et. al. Learning by
Doing. Bloomington Solution Tree, 2006. (p. 104)
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Balance Between Advocacy and Inquiry

• Protocols for Effective Advocacy
• Protocols for Effective Inquiry

DuFour, Richard, et. al. Learning by
Doing. Bloomington Solution Tree, 2006. (p. 105)
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Seven Factors to Influencing Reluctant Staff
Providing people with incentives to embrace an
idea
Connecting to the persons intuition so that the
proposal feels right
Appealing to rational thinking and decision making
Presenting real world examples where the idea has
been applied successfully
Changing the way the information is presented
(e.g. using analogies)
Building shared knowledge of the research base
supporting a position
resistance must be identified and dealt with
rather than ignored

• Reason
• Research
• Resonance
• Representational
  Re-descriptions
• Resources and Reward
• Real-World Events
• The greatest opportunity for change comes from
  the first six factors.
• 7. Confrontation

Gardner, Howard. Changing Minds The Art and
Science of Changing Our Own and Other Peoples
Minds. Boston Harvard Business School, 2004.

DuFour, Richard, et. al. Learning by
Doing. Bloomington Solution Tree, 2006. (p. 173)
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Video clip

• Overcoming barriers to effective communication

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Building the Collaborative Culture of a PLC

• Collaboration Session 2
• PLC Professional Development for Teams
• Learning Council, Elementary Leadership Teams,
  and Secondary Leadership Teams

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Small Group Discussion
Isolation Collaboration

• Brainstorm What are the rewards / benefits of
• working in isolation? Collaboration? Write one
• idea per sticky note.

• Share Points-
• Share sticky notes, add to whole group chart

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Defining PLC Collaboration
Isolation
Collaboration
PLC Collaboration
The traditional school often functions as a
collection of independent contractors united by a
common parking lot. Eaker, Results Now, p 23

• Congeniality, focus on building groups
  camaraderie
• Consensus on operational procedures
• Committees to oversee different facets of school
  operation

• a systematic process in which teachers work
  together to analyze and improve their classroom
  practice.
• Teachers work in teams, engaging in an ongoing
  cycle of questions that promote deep team
  learning.
• leads to higher levels of student achievement.

What is a Professional Learning Community?
Educational Leadership, May 2004
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Partner Discussion

• Jigsaw Activity
• 5 Keys To a Successful Meeting highlight the
  big ideas for one of the following
• Behaviors and Relationships
• Focus
• Roles and Responsibilities
• Structure
• Process

• Share Points-
• Share the keys big ideas with the whole group

Erkens, Cassandra, et. al. The Collaborative
Teacher. Bloomington Solution Tree, 2008. (p.
33-54)
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Comparison

• With those sitting around you, discuss how your
  line compares with that of organizational change

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First and Second order change

• First order change
• Small changes with existing knowledge and skills
  of the staff
• Small steps within existing paradigm
• Second order change
• BIG changesa dramatic departure from the
  expected and familiar
• Perceived as a break from the past may require
  new knowledge, new skills

DuFour, Richard, et. al. Learning by
Doing. Bloomington Solution Tree, 2006. (p.
186, 215, 218)
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Dont Judge too Quickly
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PLC Professional Learning Communities4 Crucial
Questions
What do we want each studentto learn, know, or
be able to do?
Student Learning Expectations
What evidence do we have of the learning?
Formative Assessment
How will we respond when some students
dont learn?
Pyramid Of Intervention
How will we respond to those who have
already learned?