Building collaboration

for professional learning

in School District 20, Kootenay-Columbia:

A report from the BCTF/School District Inquiry Group 2013–14

By Charlie Naylor, Senior Researcher, BCTF Research

May 2014

“People learn through their interaction and participation with another

in fluid relationships that are the result of shared interests and opportunity.”

Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown, in A New Culture of Learning.

Learning in the Collective. (2011)

2

1

Contents

Introduction: The Inquiry Group’s focus and participants, project overview

The sessions: Processes and protocols we have used

Context and culture: How do these impact collaboration?

Discussion with Andy Hargreaves

Accessing some of the literature on collaboration and Professional Learning

Communities

Our questions and progress so far

Where to next?

Appendices

1. Project participants

2. Example of an agenda

3. Creating group norms

4. List of readings accessed by the group

5. Protocols

6. Feedback form

7. Margaret Wheatley poem

2

Introduction

What have we learned so far about collaborative cultures and social capital? Two

basic lessons stand out. First, a lot of the work of building collaborative cultures is

informal. It’s about developing trust and relationships, and it takes time. But if all

this is left entirely to spontaneity and chance, a lot of collaborative effort will

dissipate and provide no benefit to anyone. Second, the strong collaboration of

joint work can benefit from deliberate arrangements of meetings, teams,

structures, and protocols, but if these are hurried, imposed, or forced, or if they

are used in the absence of commitments to building better relationships, they too

will be ineffective. (Hargreaves & Fullan, 2012)

This report is an effort to share some ideas and thinking about how to create, support and sustain

collaboration among educators in the Kootenay-Columbia School District. The ideas and

reflections are not intended to prescribe approaches to others, but rather to assist any of the

district’s educators to consider whether our experience might be of utility in supporting their

efforts to collaborate and create forms of learning communities appropriate to their needs.

What is the Inquiry Group and who’s in it?

The Inquiry Group is supported by the Kootenay-Columbia School District, the Kootenay-

Columbia Teachers Union (KCTU), and the BC Teachers’ Federation (BCTF). The initial

application for BCTF funds and facilitation was initiated by the KCTU. Matching funds were

provided by the school district. Facilitation is provided by a BCTF staff member and by a teacher

in the district who is one of 18 provincial Inquiry facilitators trained by the BCTF. For a full list

of participants, see Appendix 1.

What do we mean by collaboration?

The focus of this group is collaboration for professional learning. In some cases, such

collaborations involve teachers and Administrators, while in other situations there might be

groups solely of teachers or Administrators, or groups which include Educational Assistants.

Whatever the group composition, we are looking at how to create and sustain preferred forms of

professional learning communities (PLCs) in which educators meet as a form of professional

learning.

Overview of the project

At the start of this project we articulated an Overview for the project which is shown below:

We are hoping to explore the following themes:

Professional learning

Collaboration

Contexts and cultures in which both take place

3

There will be various ways of exploring these ideas, but we are initially suggesting:

Creating and building our own collaborative learning community to model and

experience collaboration

Identifying individual and collective questions to explore ideas and approaches to

collaboration and professional learning

Reading some articles from key authors who focus on building educators’ learning

through building community

Building-in reflective writing as a foundation for our wider sharing of learning

Engaging in professional conversations and developing strategies to make those

conversations useful and focused

Identifying some future collaborative learning directions.

We need what other people know. And this could be the person sitting next to us

in the summer institute, or the teacher down the hall... It’s about starting with

where everyone is and what they know about teaching and their field and

acknowledging that to learn, we need to find our own answers together. And part

of that is simply by listening. (Lieberman & Miller, 2008)

4

Agendas

For each session, having an explicit and posted agenda was the result of pre-planning by the

facilitators. For the first meeting, activities were designed to build community and cohesion in

the group. An example of one of our agendas is shown in Appendix 2.

Sometimes we did not stick to our agenda. When to do/not to do this?

We found that on some days a very rich discussion was happening that took longer than the

scheduled time. With facilitators checking in with the group (“We are over our time for this but

you seem pretty engaged and interested. Would you like another 15 minutes on this before we

move on?”), it was possible to gauge whether to move on or not.

On another occasion we had that rich discussion but simply had no time to complete two items,

so again, facilitators checked with the group and decided on a priority item for focus.

A key component on the agenda of the first meeting was creating ‘Norms of Behaviour’. This is

an exercise described in Appendix 3, but it’s essentially group brainstorming focusing on three

questions:

What do you need in order to learn?

What are you willing to contribute to others’ learning?

How do we want to be together as a group?

This exercise encourages dialogue on needs and preferred interactions that can offer one way to

build community. Asking the group to discuss and reach consensus on these three questions sets

a tone for the group where each person is aware of what she or he needs, while also being

sensitive to the needs of others. So the group starts being aware that others may value, for

instance, respectful listening and interactions, or perhaps avoiding dominating a discussion.

Participants discuss their responses to the three questions in small groups. Then as the whole

group reconvenes, each group reads one ‘norm’. If the other groups have the same norm, it’s

crossed off and they offer a different one. As the list is completed, the group takes a few

moments to read the full list and are asked if they agree with the norms. Once agreed on, a

‘clean’ copy is made which can be posted at future meetings.

I take schools, in common with virtually all other social organizations, to be

arenas of struggle; to be riven with actual or potential conflict between members;

to be poorly coordinated; to be ideologically diverse. I take it to be essential that if

we are to understand the nature of schools as organizations, we must achieve

some understanding of these conflicts. (Ball, 1987, quoted in Achinstein, 2002)

5

The sessions: Processes and protocols we have used

We believe that by utilizing these components within our Inquiry Group we are modeling

approaches to building collaboration. The approaches we use within our group can be ‘tried on

for size’ and used or adapted in other collaborative settings as required. Some explanation of

each is shared below:

Ice-Breakers

• 'Famous collaborative pairs' (Thelma/Louise, etc.)

• Find common factors among group

Check-In

• Metaphor exercise using images as stimulation

• Link to previous meeting and to developing Inquiry question and focus

Individual activities

• Silent read/write

Small group, whole group

• Group Resumé

• Norms of behaviour

• Whole group feedback and sharing

Accessing literature

• Collaborative concepts and applications

• Link to teachers' own practices

Protocols

• Ways to read and discuss articles

• Triad exercise for active listening/professional conversation

Closure

• Using templates for feedback from participants

6

Ice-breakers are most-often used to get people interacting, talking, and moving at the start of

a group’s getting together. One of the ice-breakers we used was introduced by Deborah Korn, a

teacher in SD20 and a BCTF facilitator. When people came into the first group session, she

pinned the names of a famous collaborative couple on each person’s back. They included:

Thelma and Louise

Victoria and Albert

Starsky and Hutch

Bonnie and Clyde

Each person then had to find out which couple were pinned to his or her back. The rules were

simple: ask two questions to another person, each requiring ‘Yes/No’ answers. Then move on to

another person and ask two further questions, and so on until you found the right answer. This

gets everyone talking, laughing, and moving. This interaction starts to build community, but it

also links to the key theme—collaboration—and encourages participants’ thinking of the focus

right away. Ice-breakers are usually not longer than 15 minutes.

Check-in is used at the start of each meeting. When people come to the collaborative meeting

place, they have all come from different places with different things going on in their

professional experiences. Some might be exciting, some troubling. Personal issues may be

impacting participants’ lives. What the Check-In does is shift the focus from the last experiences

to the current focus. It may take 5–15 minutes.

One example was the use of stem phrases to start participants thinking about collaboration, such

as:

Since the last time we met, this is what I’ve been thinking about collaboration....

I feel at the stage of my Inquiry that the next things I want to do are....

With these stems we might ask for a few minutes of silent writing, followed by a pair/share

discussion and some summary feedback to the whole group. By the time this is concluded,

participants are usually much more settled ‘in the space’ of the collaboration time and ready for

the focus of the session.

A collective is a collection of people, skills, and talent that produces a result

greater than the sum of its parts. (Thomas & Brown, 2011)

7

Individual activities. Collaborative time does not mean that every moment has to be spent in

small- or whole-group activities. Time to reflect and to process ideas is useful. Often this time is

silent, and usually is time for participants to write their ideas and reflections, or to plan data

collection. Sometimes the time may be used to read a section from a research article. Individual

time gives time for silence and for reflection. It changes the pace and rhythm of the meeting but

it’s worth including in most collaborative spaces.

Small-group and whole-group activities also allow for shifts in approach, space, and

discussion.

We used pairs, groups of three and four, as well as whole group. We often asked people to find

new groups (talk with different people) and to find new space—a set of couches was always a

favoured location. With exercises like the Group Norms, we might start with individual

reflection, then pairs or small group, then whole group. One exercise used early in the year was a

‘Group Resumé,’ where groups of four developed a collective resumé (total years teaching,

number of pets owned, etc.). An activity like the Group Resume gives people a chance to find

out more about each other in an informal, and hopefully fun, way. Using images to create

metaphors for collaboration was another example of small-group and whole-group activities. A

selection of photographs was available for participants to choose one which provided some

connection for them in terms of collaboration. Images might be of a sports team, a wheat field, a

flowing river, several people moving a heavy object. The images stimulate reflection and

connection. In pairs, people shared their metaphors, so that each person gained some sense of

how one other person ‘saw’ collaboration. The whole-group sharing allowed each person to hear

a wide range of perspectives, but also built a wider understanding of what collaboration might

mean within the whole group.

8

Reading the Margaret Wheatley poem (Appendix 7) also provided an opportunity to consider

how conversation collaboration might be articulated in a quite different way, through poetry.

Evoking collaboration, through images, poems, and other stimuli can engage a group in different

ways and often provokes interesting and stimulating discussions.

Accessing the literature about collaboration formed part of our work. There is a list of the

articles and book extracts we accessed in Appendix 4. Our goal was to read current, accessible,

and relevant literature and to connect some of the key ideas to our practices and thinking about

collaboration. These articles were carefully selected. Some were used directly in the sessions to

introduce ideas like the difference between congeniality and collegiality, or to consider the issue

of how a school’s culture might impact collaboration.

Protocols can be very useful, but should also be used carefully. A protocol is a specific

approach or exercise with stated steps or approaches, often with set times allocated within the

protocol. Examples:

‘Three levels of text’1 protocol. This is used to provide a group with one way to read and

discuss a research article, thereby saving time and giving some structure to the discussion

that brings everyone into the discussion.

‘Professional conversation’ protocol (See Appendix 5). Before using this protocol,

facilitators modeled the approach in a ‘fishbowl’. The fishbowl is where those modelling

the approach sit in the centre of a circle with participants observing the circle. In this

protocol, participants take turns to articulate the focus of their Inquiry, while the ‘listener’

utilizes active listening and a range of conversation techniques (probing, extending,

paraphrasing, etc.). The fishbowl exercise models an approach, and it also gives the

participants time to grasp more of what it’s about. So that rather than just introducing the

protocol, and asking participants to engage with it, they get to see an example. Once the

fishbowl is concluded, we engage in a reflection of the exercise, with prompts like:

o When I was listening, what did you notice about my body language?

o I took a few notes—Would you do the same?

o Did you notice any probing questions?

o I rephrased one thing that ‘Y’ said—Why would I do that?

o What might I have done better?

1 http://www.nsrfharmony.org/protocol/doc/3_levels_text.pdf

9

We almost always find that participants welcome the chance to try out or extend their skills by

engaging in exercises in the ‘safe space’ of the group, in order to consider whether the approach

can be used in other collaborations, or with their students. Thus, a constant theme is skill

extension and being explicit about what the skills are, and when to use them, so that participants

go away with some new ways to engage and offer process support for collaboration.

Closure

We try to leave time for some reflections, feedback, and closure at the end of each Inquiry Group

meeting. One of the best ways we have found is to use the Feedback form (Appendix 6), which

poses four questions:

What worked well for you today?

What could be improved?

What do you hope to do between now and the next meeting?

What do you need either before or at the next meeting?

Completing the feedback form is a time for silent reflection. It provides the facilitator/s with a

sense of ‘where the individual is at’ and what some of their steps might be before the next

meeting. It also provides valuable input to the facilitator by asking participants to state what went

well and what could be improved during the session they are just finishing. If, as an example, a

participant states that he needs an article linked to his collaboration focus, providing that article

indicates the facilitator’s willingness to support requests from the group. In the ‘Check-In’ time,

we often referred to the feedback form (“We noticed quite a few of you liked the small group

protocol and asked for more time to try that again, so we have built that in for today”).

10

So what is collaboration? How do we understand it? How might we develop it?

In all such schools in which we observed, the collaborative culture did not grow

from a controlled process of managed or forced collaboration, but emerged

naturally, as educators worked out meanings, purposes and practices with one

another, as they came to a sense of the ways in which their students benefited

from this work; and as they realized the ways in which they were personally and

professionally challenged and stretched in the process. (Mitchell & Sackney,

2009)

Our early discussions tried to identify some of the key issues about collaboration, which are

shown in the following graphic:

Concept: What is collaboration and why should we do it?

Context: How is it different in a large secondary, small elementary?

Logistics: How do we actually do it? Is there a role for facilitation?

Culture: What is it within a school culture that helps or hinders collaboration?

Processes: Check-Ins, protocols, small/whole group work used in collaboration

Conflict: How to recognize and address conflict as a part of collaboration?

Autonomy: Where might issues like Autonomy impact collaboration?

Collaboration Concept

Context

Logistics

Culture

Processes

Conflict

Autonomy

11

Two factors, then, significantly impacted our discussions and thinking about collaboration.

Collaboration takes place within certain contexts and cultures. We differentiated these as

follows:

Context: the physical and demographic factors in which collaboration takes place. It

could be in a small elementary school, a large secondary. The school may be uni- or

multi-lingual. Staff may be predominantly female, or gender-balanced, with some schools

having more experienced teachers than others. School communities may vary depending

on location.

For those wanting to look deeper into district contexts, see the district reports for Kootenay-

Columbia on the Ministry of Education’s “Reporting on K to 12” web pages, at:

http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/reporting/district.php?mode=District&report-school-

district=Kootenay-Columbia+SD%23020&district-index=26

• Culture is less-easily defined, but we explored it by accessing some of the literature, as

well as having our own discussions:

A school’s culture is characterized by deeply rooted traditions, values, and beliefs,

some of which are common across schools and some of which are unique and

embedded in a particular school’s history and location. Culture informs the ways

in which “things get done around here” and frames how change efforts are

perceived. Based in accumulated experiences, a school’s rules and regulations,

policies and procedures, whether written or informal, are lasting observable

artifacts of a school’s culture. Culture is created by group members in response to

each other and outside stimuli, and is transmitted to new members both formally

and informally. Culture is a powerful determinant of how people behave in

schools, but by paying attention to both internal and external people and forces

that act upon the school, leaders can harness the power of culture to support

change and improvement.

Kruse, Sharon D., and Seashore Louis, Karen. (2009). Building Strong School Cultures: A Guide

to Leading Change. http://www.mnase.org/files/40802669.pdf

According to Deal and Peterson (1999), the tacit expressions of culture lie in ‘the

way people act, how they dress, what they talk about and avoid talking about,

whether they seek out colleagues for help or don’t, and how teachers feel about

their work and their students’. These patterns represent the stable, underlying

social meanings that shape beliefs and behaviour over time.

Mitchell & Sackney. (2009). Sustainable Improvement: Building Learning Communities that

Endure. Sense Publishers. pp. 89–90.

The above quotes are an attempt to define what school culture might look like. It’s more about

the way things are done, whether there is a focus on student and teacher professional learning,

whether it’s harmonious or conflicted. It’s about what’s spoken-about openly and what may be

unspoken but understood. Or what’s never discussed at all.

We are trying to understand how to better build collaboration for teachers’ professional learning.

Collaboration takes place within a school, and the culture of a school may impact whether

collaboration occurs and what it looks like, so we think it’s worth exploring how different people

view the culture of the school in which they work.

12

So, several of the group decided to initiate discussions about school culture, and the following

questions were intended to open up conversations in their schools.

How do you view and describe the culture of this school?

Do you think it’s worth having a conversation with others in the school about school

culture, and if so, what would you focus on?

If you could choose a metaphor to describe your school, what might that be? (If people

are stuck on this, suggest some like ‘wheat field with the wheat all blowing the same

way’; a mud bath, an oasis, a battlefield; an exhilarating run, etc.)

Reflections of the researcher

What do the different comments tell me? Are there consensus views on school culture? Are there

sharp differences? Are there areas where, while there may be different views, there may also be

an interest in addressing them and improving the school culture? Is there a basis for addressing

culture and then finding collaborative approaches to fit within our current or preferred culture?

13

Discussion with Andy Hargreaves

Andy Hargreaves kindly offered to connect with the Inquiry group from Boston, where he

teaches at Brown College, via Skype. The discussion focused on several of his and co-author

Michael Fullan’s ideas in their book, Professional Capital, a chapter of which the group had read

prior to the session. These included:

The ‘push-pull difference’: Encouraging/supporting, versus forcing, the creation of learning communities and collaboration

Hargreaves and Fullan use a variety of ways to explore this idea of when authority and power

(push) may be used to create learning communities, versus when there is encouragement and

support (pull). Andy suggested that the term ‘pull’ implies there is already something positive

existing, but with encouragement it might go further. He argued that it was morally better to pull

rather than to push, yet there might be a time when a push is necessary. He also used the terms

‘nudge’ and ‘shove’, with nudges being either conceptual or practical/structural. An example of a

structural nudge might be a Principal offering to take all the students for an assembly so that

teachers can meet for collaboration time, or a district providing some funds for release time.

Leadership

Andy talked about the qualities of leadership that help to encourage positive collaboration,

suggesting that they need to encourage and enable collaboration to occur without controlling it.

He mentioned the ‘sweet spot’ between a leader just saying “You can do it if you want and good

luck with it”, and “You will collaborate and here’s how we’ll do it.” He considered neither of

these extremes to be useful, one abandoning any responsibility, and the other establishing

authoritarian control. The sweet spot is where leadership encourages, supports, and helps to

make collaboration possible.

The following extract from Professional Capital perhaps sums this up:

If someone doesn’t push PLCs, there is a worry that individually autonomous

teachers may not get around to purposeful interaction. This push might not come

from administrators if capacity in a school or a group of schools has been weak

and teachers have little prior experience with professional collaboration. It might

equally be teacher leaders who may have to push their administrators to give them

time to collaborate on learning agendas about which they are more knowledgeable

than their principals.

He also suggested that administrators build in feedback and reflection. Rather than

administrators asking “What did you do?” (an approach which may incur a negative reaction),

the question might be posed as “So, how are we doing?”, which allows for a more equitably-

focused discussion and collective reflection, rather than a push for accountability.

Trust and challenge

Andy argued that trust was a key component in building collaboration for professional learning.

Ideally, as collaboration occurs, trust should be building. Trust is highly correlated to success

and satisfaction in collaborative groups. By building trust, groups also build and improve group

or school cultures.

14

With trust, members of collaborative learning groups can also challenge each others’ ideas—not

to put down the proponent of an idea, but to state other options and to explore other possibilities.

Collaboration does not mean people all agree—it means people have a space with some safety

and some time to consider different perspectives and to offer challenges to others while being

able to accept challenges from them. Andy suggested it was good to separate the critique from

the critic—to focus on the ideas, not the personality. He also said that sometimes it’s good for

the cheerleader to become the critic and the critic to become the cheerleader, providing an

example of a teacher generally critical of innovations. He was asked if he’d ‘take a look’ at

‘Assessment for Learning’ ideas, and when he realized the concept was not being introduced as a

top-down initiative, he studied the concept and found he liked and championed it—a reversal of

his usual role in the school. This can redirect critical energy so that one usually-sceptical teacher

who champions an idea can offer a form of ‘cognitive dissonance’ as others reconsider the

unexpected change in roles.

15

Accessing some of the literature on collaboration and Professional Learning Communities

Accessing the literature gave us as a group the opportunity to explore a range of ideas about

collaboration by some of the leading authors in the academic literature. As an example, the

following quotes from Mitchell and Sackney’s book enabled us to start a conversation about the

role of school administrators in supporting collaboration:

But principals can also support collaboration in other ways. They can, for

example, facilitate open and responsive communication patterns, that enable

information and ideas to flow freely around the school. They can also open spaces

for teachers to begin talking to one another about matters of consequence to them.

Many of these meetings, especially in low-capacity schools, have been too

managed, controlled or directed by outside goals (or by administrators

themselves) to hold any authentic meaning for the teachers.

Mitchell, C., & Sackney, L. (2009). Sustainable Improvement: Building Learning Communities

that Endure. Sense Publishers.

Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan also discussed administrator and leadership roles:

Courageous leaders of PLCs are not bullying and self-congratulatory. They are

humble and self-reflective. When push comes to shove, they know and are alert to

when they have overstepped the mark and gone too far; they know when they

need to remain committed but not push too heavily and too hard. As a wise

principal we know once said to her principal colleagues, “don’t use your power

just because you can!”

Teachers are pulled into something they find energizing, that they are given time

for, and that respects their collective (not individual) professional autonomy and

discretion; yet they are also pushed to review or revise what has been more or less

effective for them, and to acquire practices from other colleagues who may be

doing some things better.

Hargreaves, A., and Fullan, M. (2012). Professional Capital. Transforming Teaching in Every

School.

Lieberman and Miller expanded on issues of congeniality versus collegiality, which gave us the

chance to think though those concepts and how they applied in our schools:

As teachers make commitments to their professional learning communities, they

simultaneously develop new ways of talking and thinking. They learn to move

from congenial to collegial conversation and to take part in honest talk.

Collegial cultures...develop bonds of trust among members that transcend

congeniality. They provide a forum for reflection and honest feedback, for

challenge and disagreement, and for accepting responsibility without assigning

blame. Collegial groups stand in marked contrast to traditional school cultures

that value individualism, isolation and privacy.

16

The capacity to engage in honest and disclosing talk cannot be underestimated in

professional learning communities.

Lieberman, A., and Miller, L. (2008). Teachers in Professional Communities: Improving Teaching

and Learning.

Betty Achinstein considers conflict a normal part of community, and suggests that those arguing

for creating learning communities should not ignore conflict, but consider how to deal with it:

An understanding of conflict within community is thus crucial to practitioners’

and reformers’, and researchers’ understanding of how such communities form,

cope and are sustained over time. It is a disservice to those engaged in fostering

teacher professional communities to ignore the complexities they will encounter.

These teachers need to move beyond the platitudes of “building community” and

“respecting differences” to address the reality of the conflicts they face.

What, then, is conflict? Conflict is both a situation and an ongoing process in

which views and behaviours diverge (or appear to diverge), or are perceived to be,

to some degree, incompatible.

Conflict is also a process whereby individuals or groups come to sense that there

is a difference, problem, or dilemma and thus begin to identify the nature of their

differences of belief or action.

Achinstein, B. (2002). Community, Diversity, and Conflict Among Schoolteachers.

These are just a few examples of how members of our Inquiry Group accessed articles that

connect to their practice.

Where to next?

Our collaboration Inquiry Group encouraged reflection, discussion, and action to build learning

communities in a variety of schools. We had no ‘cookie cutter’ model, and we have no exact

blueprint to share. As we start to understand more about collaboration, we hope to continue our

thinking and conversations with more educators in School District 20 in the 2014–15 school

year. This report is intended to share our thinking to date, and to ask whether others might like to

join future explorations to build more-collaborative learning cultures in the district’s schools. We

also hope that this report will stimulate some discussion about supporting collaboration for

professional learning among all educators—within the KCTU, in district management, and at the

Board of Trustees.

17

Appendix 1: Participants

Dave DeRosa Principal, Crowe Secondary

Fred Nock Teacher, Crowe Secondary

Phil Power Teacher, Kootenay-Columbia Learning Centre

Darlene Kilback Student Support Teacher, Twin Rivers Elementary

Keri Russell Teacher, Twin Rivers Elementary

Doug Hickey Principal, Twin Rivers Elementary

Kim McKinnon Teacher, Rossland Summit School

Carolyn Catalano Vice-principal, Rossland Summit School

Jane Jewitt Teacher, Glenmerry Elementary – withdrawn

Stephanie Mervyn Teacher, Stanley Humphries Secondary

Patrick Kinghorn Vice-principal, Stanley Humphries Secondary

Leanne McKenzie Principal, Robson Community School

Denise Flick District Learning Co-ordinator

Deborah Korn Teacher/facilitator, Fruitvale Elementary

Charlie Naylor BCTF Research facilitator

To contact the facilitators:

Charlie Naylor cnaylor@bctf.ca

Deborah Korn dkorn@sd20.bc.ca

18

Appendix 2: Agenda example

Kootenay-Columbia Teacher Inquiry Group

Session 3, Friday, February 21, 2014, 8:30 am–2:30 pm

8.30 Check-in. With a partner, discuss:

Since the last time we met, this is what I’ve been thinking about collaboration....

I feel at the stage with my Inquiry that the next things I want to do are....

Whole group report out

9.00 Preparation for the conversation with Andy Hargreaves

9.15 A chat with Andy Hargreaves by Skype

10.00 Refreshment break

10.15 School Culture and its impact on collaboration

What range of cultures are we seeing in our schools?—input from those who have

held conversations

How might we address the issue of culture?

11.00 Strategies for holding a professional conversation

Review the triad exercise from the last meeting—brainstorm and see what was

observed

Consider new resources that might be used in holding a professional conversation:

Communication Skills (yellow)

In different small groups (of 4), try out the Triad protocol (8 minutes per person

as the speaker, rotate roles (speaker, listener, observer)

Group reflection on the exercise

11.30 Sharing and celebration idea: a group report and presentation

11.45 Lunch

12.30 Data collection and analysis presentation and discussion

1.15 Planning and reflection time

Use this to: Draft reflections, plan any data collection and any actions between

now and our next meeting

Spend 20 minutes solo time and 25 in pairs/small group of your choice

2.00 Whole Group feedback and needs

2.30 Close

19

Appendix 3: Developing Group Norms

Group norms are developed at the first Inquiry session. In small groups, participants are asked to

discuss and make notes on the three following questions (10–15 minutes):

What do you need in order to learn?

What are you willing contribute to others’ learning?

How do we want to be together as a group?

Once each group has completed its discussion, bring the whole group together. Each group

contributes one norm, and as they do, if other groups gave the same norm, they cross it off their

list. Once all the norms are collected, the group is asked if they are OK with these norms.

Once final, we either key them in or have a large chart paper and bring it back each time we

meet. Group norms are a great help in pointing out problematic behaviour without putting people

on the spot—either the facilitator or members of the group can refer to the norms or use them as

a reminder during meetings.

The group developed the following norms:

Group norms

How do we want to be together as a group?

• hear all perspectives

• give everyone a chance to talk

• accept change in directions

• encourage flexible grouping

• share our successes

• be able to trust enough to recognize

failures

• our job is to ask questions and to

challenge ourselves and others

• ask each other reflective questions

• consider connections to external groups

and social media communications.

What can you contribute to others’ learning?

• technology

• will try not to get defensive or

positional. “My experience is….”

• will contribute our individual

perspectives to get a collective view

• will appreciate the diversity of the group

• enthusiasm!

• have an open mind

• understand that we can all contribute

• we all have a role (AO, President, New

Teacher, etc.) and have a responsibility

to contribute with that experience and

perspective in mind.

What do you need in order to learn?

• reflection time

• opportunities to listen to others

• food

• accept the passion (we care)

• trust and curiosity

• keep an open mindset

• autonomy and choice and the time to

explore this

• trust my use of technology (I am

engaged)

• have access to the web

• be aware that ideas are open to criticism,

not people.

20

Appendix 4: Collaboration and Professional Learning Reading List

Sustainable Improvement: Building Learning Communities that Endure

by Coral Mitchell and Larry Sackney (2009)

Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in Every School

by Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan (2012)

Learning in the Collective, from ‘A New Culture of Learning’

by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown (2011)

Collaborative Professional Development Research Review: Relationships, Leadership and

Ownership

by Leah Taylor, Laura Servage, Phil McRae, and Jim Parsons (2006)

School Perspectives on Collaborative Inquiry: Lessons Learned from New York City, 2009–10

by Marian A. Robinson (2010)

Teachers in Professional Communities: Improving Teaching and Learning

by Ann Lieberman and Lynne Miller (2008)

Leading Deep Conversations in Collaborative Inquiry Groups

by Tamara Holmlund Nelson, Angie Deuel, David Slavit, and Anne Kennedy (2010)

Talking Shop: Authentic Conversation and Teacher Learning

by Christopher M. Clark (2001)

Community, Diversity, and Conflict Among Schoolteachers

by Betty Achinstein (2002)

Ideas into Action for School and System Leaders. Promoting Collaborative Learning Cultures:

Putting the promise into practice

Ontario Ministry of Education (2010).

http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/policyfunding/leadership/ideasintoactionspring.pdf

21

Appendix 5: Protocols

National School Reform Faculty: Three Levels of Text Protocol

Adapted by the Southern Maine Partnership from Camilla Greene’s Rule of 3 Protocol,

11/20/03.

Purpose

To deepen understanding of a text and explore implications for participants’ work.

Facilitation

Stick to the time limits. Each round takes up to 5 minutes per person in a group. Emphasize the

need to watch air time during the brief “group response” segment. Do 1–3 rounds. Can be used

as a prelude to a Text-based Discussion or by itself.

Roles

Facilitator/timekeeper (who also participates); participants

Process

1. Sit in a circle and identify a facilitator/timekeeper

2. If participants have not done so ahead of time, have them read the text and identify passages

(and a couple of back-ups) that they feel may have important implications for their work.

3. A Round consists of:

One person using up to 3 minutes to:

LEVEL 1: Read aloud the passage she/he has selected

LEVEL 2: Say what she/he thinks about the passage (interpretation, connection to past

experiences, etc.)

LEVEL 3: Say what she/he sees as the implications for his/her work.

The group responding (for a TOTAL of up to 2 minutes) to what has been said.

4. After all rounds have been completed, debrief the process.

See this and many other protocols at:

http://www.nsrfharmony.org/protocol/doc/3_levels_text.pdf

22

Protocol: Extending and probing in a professional conversation

Fishbowl: Facilitator, with two others, models and demonstrates the approach so that the

group gets a sense of the different roles for each person and some of the skills involved.

Start with about 5 minutes for each person to use some silent writing time to make notes

on the topic of focus.

Groups of 3:

o Speaker: (4 minutes). The speaker explores his/her thinking about the chosen area

picked for Inquiry (e.g., How do I, as a Principal, support collaboration in my

school?)

o Listener: (4 minutes). The role of the listener is to actively listen (good body

language, nodding/encouragement, empathy, verbal/non-verbal cues) to the speaker,

with minimal interruptions unless for clarification purposes. She or he might take

some notes, but keeps these minimal and uses them as prompts. In speaking, the

listener might use: paraphrasing, summarising, reflecting, reframing, and extending

the ideas.

o Observer: (2 minutes) The observer keeps time, ensuring speaker and listener stick to

time. Watches both the participants, offers and additional suggestions—e.g., “I

thought you covered ‘X’ really well, but I wondered if ‘Y’ might be discussed some

more.”

The goal of this exercise is to show that conversations can be managed in ways that

generate more understanding and extend thinking. By thinking about and articulating

one’s ideas they tend to take some shape. As the listener sees the various threads they can

see where things may be clear or confused, and by reflecting back and extending the

thinking, it helps the speaker to move forward with the ideas and the Inquiry.

Each person takes all three roles.

Debrief the exercise as a whole group: What worked? What did we learn? How might I

build on this experience? How might I use it to build professional conversations and

collaboration?

23

Appendix 6: Group personal reflections and feedback to the facilitator

What worked well for you today? What could be improved?

What do you hope to do between now and the next

meeting?

What do you need either before or at the next

meeting?

24

Appendix 7: Margaret Wheatley Poem

There is no power greater than a community discovering what it cares about.

Ask: “What’s possible?”, not “What’s wrong?” Keep asking.

Notice what you care about.

Assume that many others share your dreams.

Be brave enough to start a conversation that matters.

Talk to people you know.

Talk to people you don’t know.

Talk to people you never talk to. Be intrigued by the differences you hear.

Expect to be surprised.

Treasure curiosity more than certainty.

Invite in everybody who cares to work on what’s possible.

Acknowledge that everyone is an expert about something.

Know that creative solutions come from new connections.

Remember, you don’t fear people whose story you know.

Real listening always brings people closer together.

Trust that meaningful conversations can change your world.

Rely on human goodness.

Stay together.

Reprinted with permission of the publisher. From Turning to One Another, copyright© 2002 by Margaret J.

Wheatley, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., San Francisco, CA. All rights reserved. www.bkconnection.com

2014-06-11

KCIG:af:tfeu