TURNing point! ~ Guiding Teacher Collaboration

YESterday, it happened!  It was one of those moments coaches dream of and plan for; the pivotal and defining place where harsh reality meets with the hope of ideal. At this juncture a shift began.  It was unceremonious and quiet, but secretly inside I was bursting with excitement. 

Our attempts to provide collaborative time 2 years ago was a bust. Teams turned in weak evidence mostly about how they planned field trips and took care of a variety of important but short-term tasks.  That's not exactly what we had in mind. But, how would they have known  any differently? 

This year I mapped out a goal to move us closer to a real professional learning community.  I needed to craft and share the vision for what PLC looks like. I needed to support their learning. I needed to learn and teach the processes for how to work together, and ...and? That's as far as I got.  Being stuck forced me to ask the questions I always ask teachers:

1. What do you want  for your learner? 

2. What will your students be able to know and do?

3. How will you know they've reached the goal?

4. How will you involve them in knowing the targets?

5. What will you do along the way to refine the learning/teaching process?

Being stuck helped me to pull back. After all, the realization and fleshing-out of the vision was not mine to do.  If I had scripted out the details it would've negated the very thing I wanted for them.

What did I want?

1. Teachers who initiate their own learning.
2. Teachers who have respectful, structured and purposeful, safe dialogue about the job of teaching.
3. Teachers who strive to become leaders; leaders who plan for and facilitate meetings; leaders who set the standard for deeper professional growth.
4. Teachers who look at their own data, work with their team to analyze and decide - objectively - what instructional changes are necessary.
5. Teachers who create, contribute, receive, and encourage growth for themselves and their team.
6. Teachers who study and research what matters most to them.
7. Teachers who are empowered, invigorated, and enCOURAGEd to continue working in a sometimes restrictive and challenging profession!
8. Teachers who are solution-oriented.

So, how did yesterday prove to be a turning point?
This was meeeting # 3 for this particular grade-level. The climate at first? Overwhelmed, frustrated, weary teachers just showing up out of obligation! Only one teacher brought student work, the others didn't have time to collect anything. It was a 3 sentence response from a student on one of the weekly reading tests.  The plan was to follow-up on the learning from a previous meeting and conduct the "Tuning Protocol."  (Secretly, I saw the work sample and was disappointed. What a paltry offering! How were we ever going to get anything out of this?)

Stay tuned...come back soon to see what happened!!

HOT COMPOSTING... or Growing our Professional Learning Network

Reflect... personal learning network has changed... Discuss your plans for how you plan to continue to grow your learning network...hope to contribute... professional learning of your administrative colleagues.

I'm a gardener and one of my newest fascinations is composting. Those two things - growing and ungrowing - seem contradictory but actually they're complementary, necessary phases the life cycle.  To my surprise, it takes more finesse and concentrated effort to create a "hot" compost pile, than it does to grow tomato plants! ("Hot" refers to the just-right conditions where temperatures reach nearly 120-160 degress and  chunky pieces break down to  become very small bits of nutrient-rich soil.) 

Thinking about how my own PLN has changed and how I plan to contribute to the growth of colleagues, I can't help but draw parallels to garden wisdom. For me, it wasn't a stretch to envision a larger community where like-minded professionals invigorate growth through Web 2.0 tools. But brand new roots sunk deep when I heard the phrase "moral imperative" when referring to our place in a PLN.  My decomposing began! It's not just about my growth!  Suddenly, I knew I had to give back and share my own learning. It's time to scatter the seeds of my growth to the entire garden! In the breadth of such a large network, there are many teachers and leaders in every possible phase of development. Grafting old and new knowledge and experience together creates new (and improved) plants. Too many teachers have struggled in isolation to reach toward an ill-defined goal. There's just no excuse anymore.  If we're not growing...well, maybe it's time for the compost pile!

To contribute to professional growth of my colleagues, a little decomposing might be needed. Into the pile I toss weeds of doubt, brambles of skeptic weariness, and dried leaves of yesterday's habits. The formula for growth is similar to coaching: explicit instruction, supported side-by-side practice, with lots of job embedded follow-up and dialogue.  To follow the garden analogy, the gardener prepares the soil, provides the food, then watches the growth with a ready hand to assist if weeds or any impediment begin to threaten the path to maturity.

I've already created a NING forum for our teachers, but I have very few jumping in! You can put the nutrient rich compost right outside the garden gate, but unless it's worked a little bit under the soil, it won't benefit the plant at all. Here's some plans I have to break down old, dried up and withering plants, and begin a fresh new crop:

• MODEL the excitement and create anticipation by having a "contest" for contribution and participation in the NING site I've already created.
• Record snippets of feedback sessions with teachers or between teachers, and post this as a podcast on the district site, and on NING. 
• Build a team of key teacher-technology-leaders who will work together to generate group projects where teachers learn, practice, then demonstrate and share their learning with each other.
• Suggest to our Central Office that they tape record or video the upcoming grade level district-wide meetings. One teacher from each school will attend these meetings. Podcasts or video clips of those meetings would serve as a record of discussions, and also allow involvement for those who can't attend but want to be involved.  
• Provide samples of blogs, podcasts, RSS feeds, and twitter discussions that all demonstrate the expansive possibilities for growth.  New skills are needed.  The hard ground needs to be broken up before new seeds are planted.  Motivation and vision are the tools that will prepare the soil. Growing the teachers results in student growth and once teachers see the possibilities...

all that's needed is a little sunshine, water, and good soil to support the growth!

Have to start somewhere!

This has been a long time coming! Blogging hasn't been top priority but with the nudging of my EDlearning course, I'm jumping right in!
It's not that I don't have lots to say!  I just haven't quite seen the benefit of it. At the core, it's more than that. Deep down I've thought (like many people) that my ideas are just too ho-hum, common, and they just aren't worth spouting.  It just doesn't count.
Chalk it up to being in education over 22 years.  But that's the thing...the very thing that's changing in my mind, and maybe it's the very thing that I'm trying to preach to teachers. YOUR voice matters! I'm trying to convince teachers of this. So many have hushed their opinions, questions, ideas, reflections, and even debates.  They've grown complacent and we say "tsk, tsk, shame on you." 

But wait!  As a teacher in the classroom for many years, I remember vividly how this can happen to the most passionate and dedicated teacher.  Is anyone even listening?  Does my little voice and opinion ever really make a difference in the larger web of power?  We all know how powerless a teacher can feel.

This has become my mantra for the teachers I serve. Your voice matters! What you think, your experiences, your ideas, your opinions, passions, strengths, and needs, it all matters very much! 
So, I'm beginning to believe - and practice - what I preach.  I'm venturing out with the assumption that our voices together create the spark that not only defines who we are, but challenges and morphs us into a better whole.  Here's to the adventure of growing together!