What We Believe Matters...

The single greatest impact we have on our students is in our belief that all students can achieve and grow as learners. When our campus, as a family of educators, shares that belief along with a collective agreement in our strategies and practices the impact, as Hattie reports in his research, is the factor that ensures the most student growth (over a year in fact).

So the question is, how do we take the belief we all have that all students can achieve and grow and create the collective agreement in our strategies and practices?

We have a foundation in our PLCs which our collective ownership of learning, growing, and data dives have moved us toward this collective agreement. We have established norms, focused our conversations and begun the work of talking more deeply about our practice. It is in this collective agreement we must also have shared leadership. Team leads may bring to the table the action pieces and vision that is designed by our Leadership Team, but leadership isn't about one person and everyone else complies. Leadership is everyone's responsibility... leadership comes back to what we do together in our time and transfers into our roles as lead learners in the classroom. Each part of a PLC is every person's part. Each student is OUR student. Each success is OUR success. Each failure OUR failure. It is through collective efficacy- how we collaborate, why we believe what we believe and alignment in our strategies and practices- that creates the IMPACT.

Here is an article from an educational research driven blog, Corwin Connect, that speaks about how, through collective efficacy, we can make a difference.

Please read: http://corwin-connect.com/2016/04/collective-efficacy-together-we-can-make-a-difference/

How can you, your team and/or our campus FAMILY create the IMPACT that gains the results that mirror what we believe... that all students can achieve and grow as learners? How do we show that what we believe matters?

Next Steps...

During our last Professional Development we took a moment to reflect and assess our progress. We determined what we were doing with fidelity, things we were moving toward, and things yet to be done or to re-think. It was through that each team shared what they felt were the next steps to continue our growth and progress toward our problem of practice.

It was interesting to see the feedback. There were two areas that were most commonly addressed... student learning in the way of students taking ownership through challenging themselves and their peers, goal setting and peer to peer feedback. The other are was in collaborative planning... having critical conversation and examination of student work and the teacher model, and use of planning documents to help push forward intentional and purposeful planning of content-rich work.

In the book "Visible Learning for Literacy: Impact" by Fisher, Frey and Hattie it states that of all the instructional strategies that garner more than a year of growth in students was in the area of self-reported grades/student expectation (goal setting, student led discussions, peer to peer feedback) and collective teacher efficacy (highly effective teams that plan for the why, focusing on thoughtful literacy-rich work including questioning, student led discussion and data driven decisions).

I came across a brief article while doing more research on this matter of student self-reported grades/student expectation and collective teacher efficacy. It is a great article that mirrors our conversations about growth mindset and that the teacher matters...

The article entitled: "John Hattie's Eight Mind Frames for Teachers" was a great read. As we continue to fine tune, monitor our progress and grow together, this is an excellent read that aligns with our next steps.

Where do you find yourself as you read these eight mind frames? What in your thinking aligns with Hattie's work? What do you find yourself pondering or being challenged to think differently?

Please post your thoughts and ideas below!

Our Impact...

In everything we do, we know that the teacher matters. It is at the root of student success. Even greater is the impact that we have on kiddos when we have what Hattie calls "Collective Teacher Efficacy." This is the impact that a group of teachers have on student success. In a situation where there is a highly effective team, students can make up to 4 years worth of growth.

With that in mind it brings to the forefront the essential need for Professional Learning Communities. In PLCs where teachers come together it isn't so much that they come together and what they do, but the conversations on "how and why" and shared responsibility for all aspects... student, classroom, curriculum, planning (regardless of particular content/planning expertise), instruction and assessment.

As we think about our Problem of Practice and the area of planning and transparency it is not only logical, but holds us accountable to our own goals for continuous growth and improvement to evaluate how we are performing as grade level teams and as a campus. The following brief article helps define the stages of a team:

Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing

Understanding the Stages of Team Formation (1)

Where is your team as a whole? This graphic supports what was discussed in the above article:

Often teams begin as a working group and then slip into the "playing nice" or psuedo team. While it seems on the surface to be working, there is a lack of transparency and growth is non-existent. It is only with the establishment of norms (that can/should adjust as needed) and some appropriate storming that the team can move toward a potential team and eventually become a real team. When all team members take a role of leadership, owning the "how and why" together, that is when the team moves to a high performing team and we see a truly collaborative culture. It is in this place we have our greatest impact.

Take time over the next few weeks to reflect and determine, where are we as a team, what are your personal goals for your team, what roles can you share or take on to bring everyone to that place of being a high performing team that creates "Collective Teacher Efficacy."

(1) "Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing: Understanding the Stages of Team Formation." Mind Tools. Mind Tools Editorial Team, n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2016. <https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_86.htm>.