Education Innovation

Essential Education: "Trust Agents" by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith

Putting Students First and Putting Teachers First: The Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community

Part 7 in a series of posts on Ambidextrous Professional Learning Communities

In a previous post “The Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community” I shared it is the ability to embrace a duality in their thinking that builds an Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community. To hold two opposing ideas in their minds and reach a creative solution creates an ambidextrous PLC, making them more flexible, innovative, and effective. It is ability and, more importantly, it is an attitude.

Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community's thinking can have...

Systematic and Magical
Internal and External Focus
Bias Towards Thinking and Bias Toward Action
Put Teachers First and Put Students First
Focus on Teaching and Focus on Learning
Focus on All Students and Focus on Individual Students
Kaizen and Tenakaizen
High Levels of Teamwork and High Levels of Personal Accountability
We Have the Answers and They Have the Answers
Data Driven and Skeptical of Data
Predictable and Change is Normal

Today I will focus on Putting Students First and Putting Teachers First

Effective Professional Learning Communities put the needs of their students first. These PLCs seek to strategically align their resources, their instructional practices, their time, and their energy on meeting the needs of their students. Student first Professional Learning Communities implement systems like Response to Intervention to meet the needs of all students. They seek focused professional development to train themselves in meeting the needs of students.

Further student focused Professional Learning Communities find ways to extend the learning day to meet the needs of struggling students. They reorganize schedules and staff to better meet the needs of the students. Student first PLCs find policies, practices, perceptions, and habits that create poor results and eliminate them.

In short, students first Professional Learning Communities do whatever is needed, change whatever is needed, use whoever is needed, and create whatever is needed to meet the needs of their students.

But Ambidextrous Professional Learning Communities also put teachers first.

Michael Fullan, author of The Six Secrets of Change: What the Best Leaders Do to Help Their Organizations Survive and Thrive, says that we should consider if putting children first should be the case in school and that valuing employees is what should come first. Loving employees (teachers) is the first of Fullan’s six secrets.

“…children-first stances are misleading and incomplete.”

“A new report from McKinsey and Company focusing on the top-performing school systems in the world provides the central reason why we must value employees (in this case teachers) as much as customers (children and parents): ‘the quality of the education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers.’”

Fullan recounts the experience of Memphis City School District superintendent Gerry House. “The superintendents theory of education was to commit the district’s schools to select among seven so-called whole school reform models that had been sponsored by a national agency.”  In other words, the Superintendent House intended to put kids first.

“By 1998, 75 of 161 schools were involved, with more being added. House was awarded the 1999 National Superintendent of the Year Award. Yet within a year she resigned. What went wrong? The answer is very much Secret One foretold in a 1998 report by an external research team: ‘teachers and principals express fatigue and feel unappreciated’

Putting teachers first is more than just thinking about teachers first, but getting results by creating conditions that show they are valued and important.

“Secret one, then, is not just about caring for employees. It is also about what works to get results. It is about sound strategies linked to impressive outcomes. One of the ways you love your employees it by creating the conditions for them to succeed.”

“It is helping all employees find meaning, increased skill development, and personal satisfaction in making contributions that simultaneously fulfill their own goals and the goals of the organization (the needs of the customers expressed in achievement terms). If the fulfillment is not simultaneously for employees and customers, Secret One is not in place.”

Ambidextrous Professional Learning Communities seek to help team members fulfill personal goals alongside student goals. These PLCs know that there are tremendous burdens placed on teachers to meet the demands of education. The demands of NCLB, Race To The Top, state goals, county goals, district goals, school goals, and grade level goals leave little room for the individual teacher to seek their own professional goals and fulfillment. These PLCs come together to help ease the burden on each other through mutual aide and provide valuable moral support. These PLCs look out for each other’s personal, physical, spiritual, and professional wellbeing. These PLCs put each other first.

In other word, Ambidextrous Professional Learning Communities should put kids first and put teachers first. It’s a “yes, and…” situation. Yes we put students first and we put teachers first too.

Ambidexterity.

Six Steps To Becoming A Professional Learning Community Coach

I have advised those concerned with the performance of Professional Learning Communities to gain fresh insight into how PLCs behave and information about how to drive improvement or fix problems is to play the role of the anthropologist.

The Anthropologist is one of the three learning personas from the Tom Kelley's The Ten Faces Of Innovation. See the full post here (The Anthropologist- Observing Your Professional Learning Communities)

According to Kelley, the Anthropologist practices 6 principles
1. Anthropologists practice the Zen principle of “beginner’s mind”
2. Anthropologists embrace human behavior with all its surprises
3. Anthropologists draw inferences by listening to their intuition
4. Anthropologists seek out epiphanies through a sense of “Vuja De”
5. Anthropologists keep “bug lists” or “idea wallets”
6. Anthropologists are willing to search for clues in the trash bin

Playing the persona of the Anthropologist is a powerful way to “see” and gather knowledge about the behaviors, effective or ineffective, that are occurring in your school’s Professional Learning Communities. But once you have knowledge to act on, it is time to become a coach.

Steve Roesler, Principal & Founder of The Steve Roesler Group, on his All Things Workplace blog offers great advice on what one can do to become a coach. I have excerpted the entire post because it is excellent advice for coaching Professional Learning Communities.

Do These And You'll Be Coaching

Six Steps to Coaching

1. Stop fixing everyone's stuff.

OK, the next time someone brings you a problem, stop. Do nothing. Then. . .

2. Ask them for more information using open-ended questions.

You already know how to ask questions. (And you may already know the answer to the question. But no one will learn much if they don't learn to think through issues on their own). The trick for "coaching managers" is to click a mental switch that triggers a question instead of an answer. An easy way to develop the questioning habit is to think of yourself as a journalist and start your responses with:

    * Who. . .?

    * What. . .?

    * When. . .?

    * Where. . .?

    * How. . .?

3. Use the bonus question that will automatically buy some time and gather more information: "Tell me more about that?"

4. Listen. (That means "Shut up, don't speak.")

You'll be surprised at how much you'll learn by listening. Once the other person stops talking, give them space to say more. Count silently to 10 if you have to. You'll discover that this block of information will reveal more than the first and often gives them the self-revealing "Aha!" needed. In which case, you'll be a hero.

5. Ask More.

OK, so they didn't get to the heart of the matter in #4. When your person's responses and energy start to fade, that's your cue to ask another open-ended question. Ask it about something they've just told you. Ask anything that will help continue the exploration of the issue. You can't really ask a "wrong" question.

Note. The reason you can't ask a wrong question is this: Your role is to alternate between helping them explore (questions) and being silent (just listen). The act of listening after a question is a gift that few people get. Listening shows respect. When it comes from "the boss" it's an indication of trust in one's ability to problem-solve.

6. Support giving "it" a try. You'll find that the Q&A process will have generated ideas and actions in your person's mind. This is where you help them stretch by suggesting, "Do you want to give that a try and let me know how it's going?"

The “Anthropologist” and the “Coach” are two effective personas and mindsets that can help you make your Professional Learning Communities more effective. David Kelley and Steve Roesler both provide great insight into how we can all make our Professional Learning Communities powerful sources of learning and increasing student achievement.

"Probably my best quality as a coach is that I ask a lot of challenging questions and let the person come up with the answer." Phil Dixon

Innovation Is Not Invention

Don't confuse innovation with invention- Innovation is not invention

Every test you've ever taken measured how well you understood the past not how well you create the future.

We Have The Answers and They Have The Answers: The Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community

Part 6 in a series of posts on Ambidextrous Professional Learning Communities

In a previous post “The Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community” I shared it is the ability to embrace a duality in their thinking that builds an Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community. To hold two opposing ideas in their minds and reach a creative solution creates an ambidextrous PLC, making them more flexible, innovative, and effective. It is ability and, more importantly, it is an attitude.

Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community's thinking can have...

Systematic and Magical
Internal and External Focus
Bias Towards Thinking and Bias Toward Action
Put Teachers First and Put Students First
Focus on Teaching and Focus on Learning
Focus on All Students and Focus on Individual Students
Kaizen and Tenakaizen
High Levels of Teamwork and High Levels of Personal Accountability
We Have the Answers and They Have the Answers
Data Driven and Skeptical of Data
Predictable and Change is Normal

Today I will focus on We Have The Answers and They Have The Answers

The Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community thinks that the answers they seek are within themselves. The Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community is aware of the individual abilities of each of its members and seeks to leverage these abilities to maximum effect to improve and increase student learning. They use the data available to them and the data they generate themselves to them to make instructional decisions.

They use proven strategies, methods, and models to respond appropriately and effectively to meet the needs of students. The Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community has the knowledge and the ability to respond. As a team they are constantly learning so they can better respond to the needs of their students. Members believe in the need to always be aware of learning from their work and from each other. Seeking out education opportunities to increase the group’s knowledge and cognitive diversity is something all Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community members are constantly aware of.

The Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community knows they have the knowledge and information they need to make decisions instructional decisions and respond to student needs.

But the Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community also knows that the answers they need lie outside of the team as well.

The Ambidextrous Professional Networked Learning Community believes that the answers to questions, necessary data, important information, or key knowledge may lie outside of the team members sitting at the table. The team understands that boundaries of grade level, school site, subject matter, job function, etc. that have previously isolated PLCs should not be allowed to prevent the necessary knowledge reaching PLC members. Team members, therefore understand, that anyone anywhere can be a valuable and or necessary resource to them.

Technology allows teams to connect to islands of expertise located in any geographic location. Technology allows teams to archive their learning and share with others. The sum result is that technology allows the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative to “Know What Others Know” (K.W.O.K.).  Knowing what others know and sharing what you have learned is what I refer to as Wisdom Stewardship. Technology makes it easy for educators and schools to be good stewards of available wisdom and to know what others know.

Microsoft research sociologist Marc A. Smith put it this way. “Whenever a communication medium lowers the cost of solving collective action dilemmas, it becomes possible for more people to pool resources. And ‘more people pooling resources in new ways’ is the history of civilization in seven words.”

This model, known as a Professional Networked Learning Collaborative, allows educators to solve education problems, increase student achievement, share strategies, and analyze data, etc., with members who are physically present “at the table” and with educators who are virtually present from anywhere on the globe. The PNLC allows teams to leverage not only their knowledge, but also the knowledge of other educators, specialists, consultants, etc., from anywhere else, virtually.

The Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community knows they have the knowledge and information they need to make decisions instructional decisions and respond to student needs, but they also know that the answers they need lie outside of the team as well and expands the boundaries of the team to include useful outsiders in person or virtually.

It’s Systematic and It’s Magic: The Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community

Part 5 in a series of posts on Ambidextrous Professional Learning Communities

In a previous post “The Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community” I shared it is the ability to embrace a duality in their thinking that builds an Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community. To hold two opposing ideas in their minds and reach a creative solution creates an ambidextrous PLC, making them more flexible, innovative, and effective. It is ability and, more importantly, it is an attitude.

Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community's thinking can have...
Internal and External Focus
Bias Towards Thinking and Bias Toward Action
Put Teachers First and Put Students First
Focus on Teaching and Focus on Learning
Focus on All Students and Focus on Individual Students
Kaizen and Tenakaizen
High Levels of Teamwork and High Levels of Personal Accountability
We Have the Answers and They Have the Answers
Data Driven and Skeptical of Data
Predictable and Change is Normal

Today I will focus on Systematic and Magical

The ambidextrous Professional Learning Community believes that results come from using a systematic approach to looking at essential learning, collecting and analyzing actionable data, using data to drive instruction, using Response to Intervention to meet the learning needs of all students, and using the best known research based instructional strategies. Ambidextrous Professional Learning Communities know that collaboration is central to their work. In other words, Ambidextrous Professional Learning Communities believe that results are simply a matter of using a systematic process.

But the Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community also believes that great results are something more

The Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community believes their work together is magical. They are a group of magicians, making the impossible real, bringing the just-out-of-reach right into the palms of their hands and into their students heads. The magic lies in the collection of hearts and minds of the team. The Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community knows they are more than just an assembled group of teachers, more than just functional job knowledge. They display “emergent properties”, those new attributes of the whole PLC that arise from interaction and interconnection of its members.

Just as the ingredients of a great chocolate chip cookie are more than just the average tastes of milk, flour, eggs, sugar, and chocolate chips, but rather the emergent property of mixing, blending, and baking all of these into something much greater than the parts; so too is the Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community. They know that there is magic to be found in their collaboration.  It’s a magic that is much greater than the sum of each individual member using a systematic approach, but of all the members working, thinking, creating, and collaborating together. The results would not be possible without the magic of the “emergent properties.”

The thinking of the Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community is that their work is both systematic and magical at the same time.

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Report Card 2.0-- 32 Traits of Creative People

Robert Alan Black Ph.D. lists 32 Traits of Creative People.
I wonder if these might not make an interesting framework for a report card. Call it the report of the future, or Report Card 2.0.

1. sensitive
2. not motivated by money
3. sense of destiny
4. adaptable
5. tolerant of ambiguity
6. observant
7. perceive world differently
8. see possibilities
9. question asker
10. can synthesize correctly often intuitively
11. able to fantasize
12. flexible
13. fluent
14. imaginative
15. intuitive
16. original
17. ingenious
18. energetic
19. sense of humor
20. self-actualizing
21. self-disciplined
22. self-knowledgeable
23. specific interests
24. divergent thinker
25. curious
26. open-ended
27. independent
28. severely critical
29. non-conforming
30. confident
31. risk taker
32. persistent

Imagine the curriculum that would have to be created to generate evidence of the student's proficiency of these 32 traits. Imagine the learning opportunities that students would need to be afforded to measure their proficiency in these traits.

It could completely change education in some very important and fundamental ways.

Social Networks Make You Smarter

Social Networks Make You Smarter

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