“Educators engaged in implementing the PLC process need specific, practical strategies for overcoming the inherent challenges of substantive change. Ferriter, Graham, and Wight alert educators to the obstacles, but more importantly, present proven, practical strategies for addressing those challenges. Making Teamwork Meaningful is a gem. I highly recommend this book to those who are serious about transforming their schools into PLCs.” —Richard DuFour, Author and Education Consultant “Making Teamwork Meaningful is a must-read for any school administrator. It doesn’t matter if you’re a seasoned vet or a novice. The authors provide great advice, solid research, and amazing resources. They provide the keys to creating a progress-driven PLC in any school.”
Making Teamwork Meaningful: Leading Progress-Driven Collaboration in a PLC at Work™ shows school leaders how to successfully focus on the real work of professional learning communities—ensuring that every student experiences academic success—by empowering collaborative teams to overcome the difficulties that accompany collaboration. Authors William M. Ferriter, Parry Graham, and Matt Wight address the potential challenges that educators face in any collaborative effort and provide actions leaders can take to safeguard their schools against complacency and to make staffing decisions that will strengthen PLCs. They offer tips and strategies that every leader can adopt, and they highlight effective professional development techniques. Readers learn how to: • Develop hiring and support practices that can change staff turnover into an opportunity to strengthen their PLC • Create meaningful learning teams for all staff, even specialists and teachers in small schools
“This book is filled with practical and innovative solutions that meet the diverse needs of all types of schools. Leaders will find a multitude of ideas for scheduling, intervention, and collaboration that will lead to improved student learning, greater staff effectiveness, and PLC success.”
• Get the right people in the right places when staffing and creating teams
—John Wink, Principal, Gilmer Elementary School, Gilmer, Texas
• Help teachers work effectively in collaborative groups and design professional development experiences that withstand the changes brought about by progress
• Align the master schedule with PLC priorities • Build an effective intervention system • Improve collaborative capacity schoolwide
ISBN 978-1-936765-29-4 90000 >
solution-tree.com 9 781936 765294
Ferriter • Graham • Wight
—Brett Clark, eLearning Coach, Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation, Evansville, Indiana
Copyright © 2013 by Solution Tree Press Materials appearing here are copyrighted. With one exception, all rights are reserved. Readers may reproduce only those pages marked “Reproducible.” Otherwise, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission of the publisher. Visit go.solution-tree.com/plcbooks to download materials related to this book. 555 North Morton Street Bloomington, IN 47404 800.733.6786 (toll free) / 812.336.7700 FAX: 812.336.7790 email: info@solution-tree.com solution-tree.com Printed in the United States of America 16 15 14 13 12
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ferriter, William M. Making teamwork meaningful : leading progress-driven collaboration in a PLC at work / William M. Ferriter, Parry Graham, Matt Wight. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-936765-29-4 (perfect bound) 1. Professional learning communities. 2. School management and organization. I. Graham, Parry. II. Wight, Matt. III. Title. LB1731.F45 2012 370.71’1--dc23 2012040722 Solution Tree Jeffrey C. Jones, CEO Edmund M. Ackerman, President Solution Tree Press President: Douglas M. Rife Publisher: Robert D. Clouse Editorial Director: Lesley Bolton Managing Production Editor: Caroline Wise Senior Production Editor: Suzanne Kraszewski Proofreader: Rachel Rosolina Text and Cover Designer: Jenn Taylor
Table of Contents Reproducible pages are in italics.
About the Authors Introduction Chapter Overviews Conclusion
CHAPTER 1: Getting the Right People in the Right Places Seeing the Forest for the Trees Hiring the Right People Fitting the Personnel Pieces Together Avoiding Personnel Pitfalls Conclusion Defining Who We Currently Are Is This Candidate a Good PLC Fit? How Innovative Are You? How Healthy Is Your Learning Team? Teaching Assignment Druthers List
CHAPTER 2: Incorporating Singletons and Noninstructional Staff Coaching Matters Beyond the Tennis Court Imagining New Teaming Structures on Interdisciplinary Teams Creating Effective Electronic Teams Conclusion Building Interdisciplinary Teams: Who Would You Work With? What Do We Want Students to Know and Be Able to Do? Four Digital Resources for Electronic Learning Teams
CHAPTER 3: Aligning a Master Schedule With PLC Priorities Stock Analysts and the Importance of Structures Creating a Schedule That Facilitates Progress Scheduling in Smaller Schools Conclusion Structuring Successful Scheduling Teams What Are Our Scheduling Priorities? Scheduling Priority Rubric
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CHAPTER 4: Building an Intervention System Make Like an Obstetrician and Deliver Identifying Student Needs Implementing Effective Interventions Conclusion Assessment Practices We Believe In Intervention Practice Reflection Template
CHAPTER 5: Improving Collaborative Capacity Evolution and the Adjacent Possible The Evolutionary Continua of Professional Learning Teams Helping Teams Master Personal Dynamics Helping Teams Master Sophisticated Collaborative Tasks Supporting Mature Learning Teams Defining Effective Professional Development Conducting Peer Observation as Professional Development Conclusion Evolutionary Checklist for Professional Learning Teams The State of Our Learning Team Survey Professional Learning Team Meeting Agenda Practice-Centered Observation Protocol
Afterword Systematic Persistence in the Race for the Pole Learning as Much as You Can Setting Realistic Goals Pushing Back Against Unreasonable Expectations When the Going Gets Tough
References and Resources Index
61 62 63 68 73 75 77 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 89 92 96 99 101 101 103 103 104 105 107 113
About the Authors William M. Ferriter is a sixth-grade teacher in a professional learning community (PLC) near Raleigh, North Carolina. A National Board Certified Teacher, Bill has designed professional development courses for educators nationwide. His trainings include how to incorporate singletons into PLCs, how digital tools can make collaborative tasks easier, and how to best develop tangible structures to support the work of learning teams. He is a founding member and senior fellow of the Teacher Leaders Network and has served as teacher in residence at the Center for Teaching Quality. An advocate for PLCs, improved teacher working conditions, and teacher leadership, Bill has represented educators on Capitol Hill and presented at state and national conferences. He is among the first one hundred teachers in North Carolina and the first one thousand in the United States to earn certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. He has been a Regional Teacher of the Year in North Carolina, and his blog, the Tempered Radical, earned Best Teacher Blog of 2008 from Edublogs. Bill has had articles published in the Journal of Staff Development, Educational Leadership, and Threshold Magazine. A contributing author to two assessment anthologies, The Teacher as Assessment Leader and The Principal as Assessment Leader, he is also coauthor of Teaching the iGeneration, Essentials for Principals: Communicating and Connecting With Social Media, and Building a Professional Learning Community at Work™: A Guide to the First Year, Learning Forward’s (formerly National Staff Development Council) 2010 Professional Development Book of the Year. Bill earned a bachelor of science and master of science in elementary education from the State University of New York at Geneseo. To learn more about Bill’s work, visit http://williamferriter.com. Follow him on Twitter @plugusin. Parry Graham is the principal of Nashoba Regional High School in Bolton, Massachusetts. In his twenty years of experience in public education, he has worked in a variety of roles, including as a high school teacher, educational consultant, and clinical assistant professor in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His passion, however, is educational leadership, and Parry has worked as a school-based administrator at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. His first book, Building a Professional Learning Community at Work: A Guide to the First Year with coauthor Bill Ferriter, was Learning Forward’s 2010 Book of the Year, and was recognized as a
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2009 Book of the Year Bronze award winner by Foreword Magazine. Parry completed his doctorate at UNC-Chapel Hill, and has published articles in the Journal of Staff Development, Research in Middle Level Education Online, Connexions, and TechLearning. Matt Wight is the principal at Apex High School in Wake County, North Carolina. He has worked as a teacher, coach, assistant principal, middle school principal, and high school principal. A strong proponent of PLCs, Matt created a collaborative school culture when he opened Salem Middle School; Salem has become one of the top performing middle schools in North Carolina. Since 2007, he has worked to transform the culture of a large, comprehensive high school, Apex High. During that time, Apex student achievement has risen every year, culminating in 2009 with Apex being recognized as a School of Excellence for having over 90 percent of its students demonstrate proficiency. Matt was named as the Wake County and North Carolina Region 3 Principal of the Year in 2008. Trained in PLC development by Solution Tree, he consults with numerous schools and districts on establishing and developing PLCs. Follow Matt on Twitter @mattwight. To book Bill, Parry, or Matt for professional development, contact pd@solution-tree .com.
Introduction If you are the principal of a professional learning community (PLC) that is struggling to find its collaborative footing, we are willing to bet you have had the following experience: You break free from the emails, phone calls, and paperwork that typically chain you to your desk, finally making it out into the classrooms to check in on your teachers and students. You are energized because you know that the real work of PLCs—ensuring that every student experiences academic success—never happens in offices; it happens in classrooms and on professional learning teams (PLTs). Excited to see how teachers are progressing, you stop by a meeting to observe a team that should be engaging in a meaningful discussion about curricular priorities and intervention protocols. But when you walk into the meeting, you are met with the following: • Tension and tangible uneasiness about the format of common assessments • Little evidence of data being used to drive instructional decisions • No real talk of team efforts to craft intervention experiences for students • Groups of teachers broken into competitive factions that disagree about almost everything Or worse yet, you find the following: • Teachers planning field trips and honors assemblies, because talking about learning is just too difficult • A half-empty classroom, because a handful of team members are no-shows • A completely empty classroom, because the meeting disbanded after fifteen minutes of small talk and semiprofessional chatter On paper, the PLC model sounds nice and neat. In reality, however, collaboration can be messy, complicated, and difficult. While the professional organizations that represent educators (National Association of Elementary School Principals, 2008; National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, 1987; National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, 2003), and the individual experts who study educators (Buffum et al., 2008; DuFour & Marzano, 2011; Schmoker, 2004) have long been convinced that PLCs are the best strategy for helping schools improve, the simple truth is that meaningful collaboration around student learning is rarely pretty. In fact, at multiple points in any PLC’s development, there will be challenges that threaten to derail the entire process. Problematic combinations of personnel and traditional school structures can make collaborative learning seem inefficient, ineffective, or downright impossible. Staff turnover can strip away organizational knowledge and commitment. Increasingly diverse student populations make intervening on behalf of every student difficult. But the biggest barrier to PLC success can be summed up in one word: inertia.
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In the first year or two of implementation, PLCs typically experience a real sense of change: the master schedule is tweaked to make time for collaboration, teachers generate shared lists of essential outcomes and develop common assessments, and a few PLTs may even begin working on targeted interventions for students. Most importantly, pockets of tangible reform blossom, leaving everyone energized. Then everything seems to slow down. Teachers begin grumbling about independence and standardization. PLC cheerleaders become disenchanted as skeptical colleagues fall off the collaboration bandwagon. New directives come down from the central office, pulling away energy and resources. Teachers come on board who know little about the building’s core mission and vision or about the shift from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning that defines successful PLCs. Commitment to the process wanes and then, as is so often the case in school reform, the PLC model becomes just one more thing tried and left behind—another checked box on a discarded school improvement plan: “We did our PLCs. Check.” The underlying problem in PLCs struggling to maintain momentum is almost always one of mindset; collective doubt seeps in as teachers faced with new challenges begin to question just how doable collaborative work really is. As Harvard business researchers Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer demonstrate in The Progress Principle (2011), mindset is a problem organizations in almost every knowledge-driven profession face. When employees have to fight to believe that the work they are engaged in is at once meaningful and possible, their work suffers. They become less creative, less productive, less committed, and less likely to embrace collaborative behaviors. On the other hand, when employees are confident in their own abilities, the abilities of their coworkers, and the abilities of their organizations, their motivation and commitment levels soar. They are more likely to tackle problems and invest extraordinary amounts of time and energy into improving their practice. Perhaps most importantly, they are more likely to take in stride the inevitable hurdles that are a part of life in a complex, knowledge-driven workplace (Amabile & Kramer, 2011). “In other words,” write Amabile and Kramer, “the secret to amazing performance is empowering talented people to succeed at meaningful work” (p. 2). So how can you empower the talented people in your PLC to succeed at meaningful work? The key rests in creating the conditions that make real progress possible. As Amabile and Kramer (2011) explain: Real progress triggers positive emotions like satisfaction, gladness, even joy. It leads to a sense of accomplishment and self-worth as well as positive views of the work and, sometimes, the organization. Such thoughts and perceptions (along with those positive emotions) feed the motivation, the deep engagement, that is crucial for ongoing blockbuster performance. (p. 68)
Progress is heavily dependent on the choices organizational leaders make. Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler explain in Influencer: The Power to Change Anything (2008) that for organizations to make
Introduction
lasting changes, leaders must identify and target vital behaviors within the organization, and then figure out how to change those behaviors. In Great by Choice (2011), Jim Collins and Morten Hansen argue that the best leaders are less revolutionary than you may think. Instead, they carefully observe what works—and what doesn’t—in an attempt to build on the foundations of proven practice. In The Innovator’s DNA (2011), Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen, and Clayton Christensen prove that innovation within organizations depends on more than just imagination; it depends on leaders who excel at helping their teams deliver. Our goal in this book is to help you take tangible steps toward what we call “progressdriven leadership.” Progress-driven leaders accept that the work in schools is complex and challenging, but they nevertheless work to identify and focus on the pivotal organizational behaviors that will lead to improvements. Progress-driven leaders recognize that their teachers and staff need to feel the pull of positive, forward momentum, and that successful collaborative communities learn how to fight through inertia. Drawing from our own experiences as the leaders of PLCs that have succeeded, struggled, and at times completely stalled, we will show you the vital behaviors you should be targeting, the proven practices you should be polishing, and the collaborative skills your teams should be mastering. In the end, our hope is that you will walk away from Making Teamwork Meaningful knowing that making progress depends on something more than just hope and luck. Instead, making progress depends on the leadership you provide.
Chapter Overviews
Broken into five chapters, Making Teamwork Meaningful examines how highly effective school leaders manage the most common challenges in collaborative schools. We explore actions that can help school leaders safeguard their schools against complacency and study how staffing decisions can strengthen PLCs. We review the characteristics of instructional schedules and differentiation efforts that prioritize learning. Finally, we detail strategies for ensuring that every teacher—regardless of field—has meaningful collaborative opportunities, and we study the kinds of professional development that teachers depend on in order to work together effectively. There is no one right way to read this book. Each chapter is designed as a standalone primer on a key to achieving student success in a PLC. If you are new to a collaborative environment, an environment in which educational decisions are regularly made interdependently rather than independently, working your way through the entire book will help you gain a complete overview of what you can expect in the next few years. For those of you who are already leading learning communities, selecting individual chapters that offer timely and appropriate reminders or support may be a more productive use of your time. To help you decide on the right strategy for reading, an overview of each chapter follows.
Chapter 1: Getting the Right People in the Right Places Schools are people-driven organizations, and collaboration depends on who you have in your building, so hiring the wrong people—or having the right people in
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the wrong places—can cause collaborative organizations to stumble. This chapter focuses on how to best complete your school’s personnel jigsaw puzzle. We identify the kinds of hiring and support practices that can transform staff turnover into an opportunity to strengthen your PLC. We also explore the nuances and complexities of personnel assignments for instructional staff. The suggestions we present are designed to leave you better prepared to get the right people in the right places, an essential first step for making progress possible in collaborative communities.
Chapter 2: Incorporating Singletons and Teachers in Small Schools Organizing teachers into practice-centered groups is just plain easier for the principals of 1,000-student schools with five teachers working in the same content area and at the same grade level. How do the principals of small schools create productive collaborative learning opportunities for teachers who are often working in departments of one? Similarly, how do principals create meaningful learning teams for the more traditional singletons—art teachers, media specialists, and band directors, for example—in their buildings? Chapter 2 offers suggestions for tackling this all-toocommon source of PLC frustration.
Chapter 3: Aligning a Master Schedule With PLC Priorities Whether on a whiteboard in a conference room or in a spreadsheet on a hard drive, every principal has a working version of next year’s master schedule somewhere close at hand. A master schedule is the ultimate arbiter of any school improvement effort, and it can be one of the biggest barriers to—or one of the biggest facilitators of—PLC progress. It is a structure that school leaders must carefully design to support people and organizational priorities. This chapter introduces readers to a series of key questions that leaders should ask and answer when developing their master schedules, and then it provides simple recommendations for creating a schedule that makes collaborative time for teachers and structured interventions for students possible.
Chapter 4: Building an Intervention System To help all students succeed, schools must identify essential curricula, assess student needs, and provide differentiated instruction that meets all learners at their instructional levels—where they are in their knowledge and skills—which is often easier said than done. The sheer complexity of building a truly differentiated instructional program can be overwhelming, and this complexity is perhaps the most frustrating barrier for established PLCs. Remodeling a school to make it truly responsive to students is the ultimate progress challenge of a PLC. Chapter 4 identifies specific steps that administrators can take to make schoolwide interventions a standard part of doing business.
Chapter 5: Improving Collaborative Capacity At the end of the day, improvements in student learning depend on improvements in teaching quality. Teachers on high-functioning PLTs have the opportunity to learn
Introduction
and grow through collaboration, but true professional improvement requires more. Chapter 5 is centered on the notion that progress-driven leaders are committed to developing people—both as individuals and as members of collaborative groups. We begin by describing the evolution that most PLTs work through. We then outline the skills necessary for teachers to work effectively in collaborative groups and detail the characteristics of professional development experiences that sustain progress.
Conclusion
In Learning by Doing (2006), PLC experts Richard DuFour, Rebecca DuFour, Robert Eaker, and Thomas Many write: When people begin to act, people begin to hope. When people begin to gain hope, they begin to behave differently. When people behave differently, they experience success. When people experience success, their attitudes change. When a person’s attitude changes, it affects other people. This is the essence of reculturing schools into professional learning communities. (p. 6)
Making Teamwork Meaningful will give you the courage and the skills necessary to take action when facing five common PLC frustrations: (1) the complexity of the personnel jigsaw puzzle, (2) the placement of singleton teachers, (3) the development of a master schedule that prioritizes collaborative opportunities, (4) the implementation of a successful intervention system, and (5) the support of individual and group skill development. While the work won’t always be easy, progress is possible, no matter who you are or how far your school has traveled in your journey toward a more responsible and productive tomorrow. Positive change depends on nothing more than creating collaborative structures that make meaningful work possible.
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“Educators engaged in implementing the PLC process need specific, practical strategies for overcoming the inherent challenges of substantive change. Ferriter, Graham, and Wight alert educators to the obstacles, but more importantly, present proven, practical strategies for addressing those challenges. Making Teamwork Meaningful is a gem. I highly recommend this book to those who are serious about transforming their schools into PLCs.” —Richard DuFour, Author and Education Consultant “Making Teamwork Meaningful is a must-read for any school administrator. It doesn’t matter if you’re a seasoned vet or a novice. The authors provide great advice, solid research, and amazing resources. They provide the keys to creating a progress-driven PLC in any school.”
Making Teamwork Meaningful: Leading Progress-Driven Collaboration in a PLC at Work™ shows school leaders how to successfully focus on the real work of professional learning communities—ensuring that every student experiences academic success—by empowering collaborative teams to overcome the difficulties that accompany collaboration. Authors William M. Ferriter, Parry Graham, and Matt Wight address the potential challenges that educators face in any collaborative effort and provide actions leaders can take to safeguard their schools against complacency and to make staffing decisions that will strengthen PLCs. They offer tips and strategies that every leader can adopt, and they highlight effective professional development techniques. Readers learn how to: • Develop hiring and support practices that can change staff turnover into an opportunity to strengthen their PLC • Create meaningful learning teams for all staff, even specialists and teachers in small schools
“This book is filled with practical and innovative solutions that meet the diverse needs of all types of schools. Leaders will find a multitude of ideas for scheduling, intervention, and collaboration that will lead to improved student learning, greater staff effectiveness, and PLC success.”
• Get the right people in the right places when staffing and creating teams
—John Wink, Principal, Gilmer Elementary School, Gilmer, Texas
• Help teachers work effectively in collaborative groups and design professional development experiences that withstand the changes brought about by progress
• Align the master schedule with PLC priorities • Build an effective intervention system • Improve collaborative capacity schoolwide
ISBN 978-1-936765-29-4 90000 >
solution-tree.com 9 781936 765294
Ferriter • Graham • Wight
—Brett Clark, eLearning Coach, Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation, Evansville, Indiana