WHAT IS THE CURRENT STATUS OF YOUR SCHOOL’S CULTURE?

As you arrive… Individually fill out a survey at your table Honestly reflect and respond for your present school culture

When finished… Discuss with a colleague or two--What does school culture have to do with CSIP?

ASSESSING AND BUILDING A

COLLABORATIVE CULTURE

Reflection Retreat

April 2013

WHAT GUIDES OUR WORK WITHIN THE DISTRICT?

A SCHOOL’S CULTURE CAN WORK FOR OR AGAINST SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT.

Unless teachers and administrators act to change the culture of a school, all innovations, high standards, and high-stakes tests will have to fit in and around existing elements of the culture. They will remain superficial window dressing, incapable of making much of a difference.

--Roland S. Barth

ANTHONY MUHAMMAD

As you watch this 6 minute clip be prepared to discuss and chart…

What are the key characteristics of healthy and toxic cultures?

http://aasaonline.mediasite.com/mediasite/Play/fe2dda08626d41129519c2be5699f0c11d

Healthy Culture

Toxic Culture

Reflective Collective response Problem solvers Prescriptive Productive Strategic

Students success based on variables outside teacher control

Complainers Overly descriptive Deflective/blame Responsibility lies with

someone else

CULTURE BEHAVIORS ASSESSED

Professional Collaboration Do teachers meet and work together to

solve professional issues?Affiliative and Collegial Relationships

Do people enjoy working together, support one another, and feel valued and included?

Efficacy/Self-Determination Do people in the school work to improve

their skills as true professionals or do they simply see themselves as helpless victims of a large and uncaring bureaucracy?

BEGIN TRIAGE Using your survey results, which

category of school culture behavior is in need of critical and immediate attention?

What forms of leadership will support the building and sustaining of your school culture behavior attributes?

 What specific measures (artifacts/evidence) will be used to assess culture building and to inform next steps?

Is learning impossible in a toxic culture?

NO…

BUT typically a big list of prerequisites for learning • If you care• If you pay attention• If parents read to you

when you were little• If you do what I tell

you to do

Changing a toxic school culture into a healthy school culture that inspires lifelong learning among students and adults is the greatest challenge of instructional leadership.

--Roland S. Barth

“The challenges of schooling are too great for individuals to shut themselves away behind closed classroom doors and try to resolve them alone. A concerted collaborative effort is necessary when teachers and other colleagues work and learn collaboratively with a clear focus on the learning of students as well as themselves.”

-Stoll, Bolam, McMahon, Thomas, Wallace, Greenwood, & Hawkey, 2006

The difficult collaborative teamwork of collective inquiry, together with action orientation and experimentation, has a more direct impact on student learning than teacher working in isolation.

--John Hattie

TEACHER COLLABORATION VS

1. Read about the 3 Cs2. Discuss at table• Where do 3 Cs fall on 7 Stages

of Teacher Collaboration (Table 1.1 on page 12)?

• What do discussions sound like for 3 Cs at various stages?

Cooperation&

Coordination

3. Assess the stage you are at as a CSIP leadership team…arrive at consensus.

4. Brainstorm/Chart• What would it take to move your

team to the next stage?• What about other collaborative

teams you meet with regularly…if they differ, why?

VIDEO LOOK FOR EVIDENCE RELATED TO:

1. Healthy/Toxic culture characteristics2. Culture behaviors present 3. Collaboration, cooperation, or

coordination4. Stage of teacher collaborationhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7YX40bWrCs

http://www1.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=46928

To build a collaborative culture, members of the school community:

• Share the belief that working collaboratively is the best way to reach the school’s goals

Collaborative team: A group of people working interdependently to achieve a common goal for which members are mutually accountable.

CSIPThe over arching framework to conduct student data analysis leading to high quality instruction for every student.

Response to

Instruction

Collaborative Culture

of Improveme

nt

Family and Community Partnership

s

Highly differentiated and engaging instructional

strategies and environments

supporting increased learning for each student.

High-quality staff development that assures

effective instruction for each student.

Active involvement and

open communication

between and among families

and the community.

The most powerful forms of staff development occur in ongoing teams that meet on a regular basis, preferably several times a week, for the purposes of learning, joint lesson planning, and problem solving.

--National Staff Development Council

Addressing critical questions for which educators are held accountable:

• What do students need to know and be able to do?

• How will we know when they have learned this?

• How will we respond when they don’t learn?

• How will we respond when they already know it?

Links/Resources for Collaborative Inquiryaround collaboration

All Things PLC (blogs, tools, research)http://www.allthingsplc.info/ Solution Tree (reproducibles, informational websites, videos)http://www.solution-tree.com/

Great school website dedicated to PLChttps://sites.google.com/site/plcparkway/

Action Plan