Take the Challenge and Lift the TEAM

Woods or Jordan?

      Rick DuFour has developed essential questions that form the basis to accelerate achievement.  Collective inquiry, action orientation and experimentation, commitment to continuous improvement, and results orientation are the four habits of highly effective teams.

• What are the essential outcomes that we expect students to learn? 
• What assessment will we use to determine if the students have learned? 
• How will we intervene when students do not learn or learn more than anticipated?

How will you lead your teams to accelerate achievement? 

    
      A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. Teams require individual and mutual accountability where groups do not.  It is helpful to identify the characteristics of teams and groups, noting which are common to both.  By understanding the differences between these two concepts we can begin to create an appropriate environment for each and determine the conditions in which each is effective.  Thomas Jefferson and Woodrow Wilson have established structures that create the conditions to put teachers together.  Will they be groups or teams?  You are the lever.

Accountability
     Team members hold themselves to be mutually accountable.  Likewise, both groups and teams have a sense of shared purpose.  The group’s purpose is essentially that of the organization while the team's purpose is jointly determined and planned with management.  This accountability is glued with a cohesive understanding of the School Improvement Plan.  The group is guided by the principal but is held together by it's interdependence.  The group is as strong as its weakest link; therefore support comes from all because success is shared by all.        
      A high performing team as one that is empowered, self-directed, and cross-functional to have complementary skills.  In addition, team members are committed to working together and achieving their agreed upon common goal.  To accomplish this, they work collaboratively by respecting team members.  Such high-powered teams result in on-going learning as team members collaboratively work on agreed upon problems.  Moreover, these teams exude creativity in reaching their goals and producing their joint outputs.  Teams performing at this level resemble communities of practice.  Imagine a community of practice where student achievement is at the center of the work.  Team polish student work and refine practice toward higher levels of rigor and engagement.

February 2009 | Volume 66 | Number 5
How Teachers Learn Pages 22-23

The Principal's Role in Supporting Learning Communities

Shirley M. Hord and Stephanie A. Hirsh

Emphasize to teachers that you know they can succeed—together. Particularly in schools with a history of low achievement where many interventions have been introduced to "fix" teachers, lay the groundwork for professional learning communities by telling teachers you believe they have the expertise to make student learning happen. Make clear you expect them to pool that expertise.

Guide communities toward self-governance. Effective learning communities are democratic and participatory. Although you may take the lead in arranging meetings at first, over time, urge community members to assume prominent roles. Share authority and decision making from the beginning and gradually prepare other members to take the lead. Self-governance will both help a professional learning community continue and boost teachers' feelings of professionalism.

Teach discussion and decision-making skills. Especially if collaboration is new in your school, help teachers develop skills in talking and making decisions together. Explain the different modes of dialogue and discussion. Dialogue—in which members share their knowledge, feelings, or biases—is preferable when the goal of conversation is to help participants understand one another. Such sharing often exposes the unacknowledged "elephant in the room" that can interfere with learning. Discussion is a good choice when the goal is to make a decision about a course of action. In this case, members clearly set out and support their points of view in hopes of persuading the group to adopt a particular action. Learning communities should know different strategies for finalizing decisions, including voting and consensus building.

Take time to build trust. These activities will be effective only if mutual trust exists between the faculty and the principal as well as among teachers. Teachers will never openly express themselves if they fear their colleagues. Giving teachers guided practice in conducting appropriate conversations, making decisions, and managing conflict will help strengthen trust; so will keeping the focus on building student and teacher learning.

Reflect and ask yourself which approach will you use to raise your team?