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10 Characters You'll Meet at an Employee Meeting

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10 Characters You'll Meet at an Employee Meeting

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The financial analysis section of a business plan should contain the data for financing your business for the present, what will be needed for future growth, and an estimation of your operating expenses.

The financial analysis section of your business plan may be the most challenging for you to complete on your own, but it also could be the deal-maker or deal-breaker when you are searching for funding.

Because of the structured, in-depth financial data required for this section, you should consult your accountant or other trusted and qualified financial professional before writing this section.

The financial analysis section should be based on estimates for new businesses or recent data for established businesses. It should include these elements:

Completing a financial analysis section for a business that hasn't been started yet requires some assumptions. However, these aren't guesses. What you expect from the business needs to be based on detailed research and data.

Go back to the other sections of your business plan and write down any financial assumptions you made while drafting those sections. You then can use those assumptions in your financial analysis section. The most important factor is ensuring that the data in the financial analysis section is consistent with the assumptions made in other sections of your business plan.

There may be no section of your business plan where you need help as much as you do with your financial analysis section. The assumptions, forecasting, and specific numbers can be complicated and generally difficult to wrap your head around, especially if you don't have a financial background. This financial information, though, is exactly the data your audience will be looking for.

You can avoid the stress and uncertainty by getting help from a qualified financial professional early in the process.

When it comes to the financial analysis of your business plan, have a basic idea of what each element should include, where the data comes from, and what the numbers mean. This stands even if you have help developing the financial analysis section because you will be the one left to explain and expand on the financial data in face-to-face situations.

Use graphs and charts in the financial analysis section to illustrate the financial data, just as you should in other sections of your business plan that include extensive data, numbers, statistics, and trends. Put the most important visuals in the financial analysis, with the supporting graphics included in the Appendix.

A quick way to lose the attention of a potential investor is by having flawed calculations or numbers that are not backed up. Double and triple check all of your calculations and figures, and have a third-party do the same to ensure everything adds up.

You also should avoid including any figures that are not explained, backed up and otherwise researched extensively, especially when it comes to assumptions you've made. Use data from current and past markets and financial situations to substantiate your numbers.

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How to Write the Financial Analysis Section of a Business Plan

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The financial analysis section of a business plan should contain the data for financing your business for the present, what will be needed for future growth, and an estimation of your operating expenses.

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How to Manage a Dominating Personality on Your Team

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How to Manage a Dominating Personality on Your Team

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Workplace teams are somewhat like a family. And any time a group of people with wildly different personalities are forced to coexist together - whether it's at the Thanksgiving table or the conference table - things don't always go smoothly. While some teams are blessed with personality types that balance each other well, many have one or two dominant personalities who throw the dynamic off-kilter.

Having team members who speak up often is not inherently a bad thing. But when one person dominates conversations and meetings in a workplace, it often stifles engagement from other colleagues. It can make the office feel like an unsafe place to contribute, offer constructive criticism, and bring a diverse set of opinions, which ultimately harms morale. Sometimes this happens because the dominating person simply lacks self-awareness, or they're just very extroverted and excited to participate. Other times, it's because the person has an "Enforcer" conflict style: an attitude that what's most important is that they "win" and get their own needs met, even if it damages the relationship.

It takes courage to confront this problem, but it's vital if you want to restore harmony within your team. Whether you're a manager of a domineering employee, a colleague wanting to rein in a teammate's behavior, or a professional trying to curb your own tendency to take over, here's how to effectively tackle this common issue.

Chiming in during meetings comes naturally to talkative, extroverted people, but employees with this personality type may not realize their frequent contributions can cause quieter colleagues to hold back. If you're quick to speak up in meetings, it's helpful to work on self-awareness skills to make sure you're not holding the floor for too long or keeping others from engaging. If you have a lot to say, ask yourself, "Am I pausing to see if anyone else wants to chime in?" and "Do I recognize when I've been speaking more than a few minutes?"

In the bigger picture, being more aware of your personality and behaviors as they relate to a variety of qualities and contexts can be revelatory. Tools like the DISC personality assessment - a measure of behavioral style based on the qualities of dominance, influence, steadiness and conscientiousness - are among those that workplaces rely on to help employees deepen that valuable self-understanding. Take some time to check out DISC and other widely available assessments to discover more about your own priorities and preferences, many of which may be unconscious.

If you're facilitating a meeting where someone is hogging the floor, call on other employees by name to ask for their thoughts. This will help those employees feel valued and remind the dominant colleagues that their teammates' opinions matter just as much as theirs do. This also takes internal pressure off any colleagues who have a peacemaker personality type and have the desire to make sure everyone is heard.

If the dominating person often interrupts while others are speaking, set some boundaries to indicate this behavior needs to stop. It could be raising a finger to signal it's not their turn yet. Or you could say you know they want to chime in, but there's not time, or that you need a chance to get some input from everyone else.

If the dominant person is going off on a tangent, or speaking for so long that the body language of your colleagues indicates they're getting antsy, find a way to cut the speaker off politely. One technique is to use something they've said as a jumping off point and spin it positively. For example, cut in and say, "Matt, I like what you said about [fill in the blank]. What does everyone else think?"

If these tactics haven't worked, it's time to take the more direct approach of having the dominant employee's manager pull them aside. If that's you, communicate that it's not that you don't want to hear from them - you just want to make sure you and your colleagues get to hear from others, too. Explain that you want to create a space where everyone feels welcome to participate, which is hard to do when one person always jumps in first. If they tend to interrupt, politely point out that while you love their enthusiasm, they need to let other colleagues finish their point before chiming in so everyone feels heard.

It's frustrating if you're often getting cut off by a dominant personality and the manager isn't doing anything about it. If you feel comfortable doing so, when you're interrupted say, "Sorry, I wasn't done, I'd like to finish my thought" or "Excuse me [name], I was almost finished" rather than letting the interrupter continue.

If these strategies don't work and someone's behavior is becoming truly harmful to a team, it may be wise to talk to someone in human resources to see if anyone can intervene. If not, or if that's not effective, it could be time to consider if this is really the right work environment for you. When coworkers are repeatedly inconsiderate and you don't feel respected, there's nothing wrong with seeking a workplace with a more harmonious team dynamic.

There's no question that confronting the issue of a dominant employee can feel uncomfortable. But it's crucial in order to restore harmony on your team. It's a common issue that many of the companies we work with at RallyBright face. Addressing it benefits your work culture and creates a safer environment for others to contribute.

Keep in mind that most dominating employees likely have good intentions. Tackling this issue head-on will not only benefit their teammates, but will also help that employee strengthen their listening and team-building skills and in doing so, meet with greater professional success themselves.
Do you understand how the personalities on your team affect your business results? Discover what your team is doing well and where it struggles, and get actionable insights and resources to help it achieve higher performance. for a free demo of RallyBright's research-based team dynamics software.
This story is published in The Startup, Medium's largest entrepreneurship publication followed by +368,675 people.

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How to Manage a Dominating Personality on Your Team

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Workplace teams are somewhat like a family. And any time a group of people with wildly different personalities are forced to coexist together - whether it's at the Thanksgiving table or the conference table - things don't always go smoothly.

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Coaching v mentoring: what works best for teachers? | Teacher Network | The Guardian

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Coaching v mentoring: what works best for teachers? | Teacher Network | The Guardian

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Coaching v mentoring: what works best for teachers?

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Teacher Andrew Jones explains the difference between coaching and mentoring, and how they suit different professional development needs

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4 Signs an Executive Isn’t Ready for Coaching

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4 Signs an Executive Isn’t Ready for Coaching

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Executive Summary

How do those who control the coaching purse strings - HR, talent managers, and other buyers - avoid throwing money away on uncoachable executives? Considering that a year's engagement with a top executive coach can cost more than $100,000, it's an important question. There are four red flags to watch out for. First, an executive who consistently blames external factors for their problems may be too oblivious to benefit from coaching, which requires a modicum of self-awareness and introspection. Second, if you struggle to get appointments with a coach on the executive's calendar, it may be a sign that they won't prioritize self-development enough to benefit from coaching. Third, watch out for a leader who over-focuses on quick solutions, tips, and tactics; the best candidates for coaching are more willing to challenge assumptions and beliefs, which is a longer process. And fourth, beware of managers who continually delay the start of coaching to "do more research" or "find the right person." It may be a sign they're just not ready to confront their issues.

HBR Staff/Image Source/Getty Images

The stigma of asking for or being assigned an executive coach is vanishing quickly. The growth of the industry tells us so. In the U.S. alone, $1 billion was spent on business, personal and relationship coaches last year, according to IbisWorld, up about 20% from five years earlier. And the number of business coaches worldwide has zoomed more than 60% since 2007, according to one coaching association. But while executive coaches have improved the performance of many already-good managers and sanded the rough edges off many less effective ones, they aren't a miracle cure. In fact, we have seen many companies waste considerable sums by assigning coaches to managers who just aren't ready to be coached, no matter how effective the coaches may be.

So how do those who control the coaching purse strings - HR, talent managers, and other buyers - avoid throwing money away on uncoachable executives? Considering that a year's engagement with a top executive coach can cost more than $100,000, it's an important question.

From nearly 35 years of coaching hundreds of executives, our firm has noticed a pattern of red flags that indicate when a coaching investment will be wasted. Here are four things to watch out for:
1. They blame external factors for their problems.
When things go wrong, does this person always have an excuse? Maybe they point a finger at the quality of their team, a lack of resources, or even their boss.

When leaders argue about the validity of your reasons for offering coaching, or offer excuses or defenses for poor results, it can be a sign that they lack self-awareness. Before any coaching can be effective, they need to wake up to the ways their actions affect others.

One CEO we worked with was known for his smart turnarounds of a large media company. But he was struggling to get along with his executive team. Finally, several board directors suggested he should seek out a coach. After multiple sessions, he had shared little information about himself, and we were no closer to figuring out the root of the problem. Stymied, we suggested that we observe the next executive team meeting.

Suddenly, all was clear. We were shocked by how he controlled the conversation in the room. He simply spoke over other people with a volume of words that was unfathomable. When he left the room to take a call, his team members erupted with frustration. It was obvious that this CEO was completely out of touch - something that became even more apparent later on, when he asked us to tell the board how positively he was responding to coaching.

Leaders like this often ignore criticism if it doesn't jibe with their view of themselves - and such feedback is easy to ignore if it's buried in a performance review or mentioned briefly in a larger conversation. Conducting a non-judgmental, just-the-facts 360-degree review could help them see the reality of their situation. Until they can see what others see and why it matters, they won't examine their behavior, and coaching will be useless.
2. You can't get on their calendar.
Some leaders claim to be receptive to coaching but just can't find the time. They may cancel sessions at the last minute, constantly reschedule, or, when they do show up, be visibly distracted. They lack space for coaching both in their calendar, and in their mind.

Unlike the oblivious leader, the too-busy leader is often quite likable. They will apologize for being hard to pin down, and be very direct about how busy they are. Don't be surprised if they're flattered to be offered coaching. But coaching can't be crammed into the schedule of a leader who wears their busy-ness as a badge of honor. Their inability to prioritize is a sign they need coaching, but their unwillingness to make room for it suggests they won't be a good coaching investment.

A brilliant engineer we know had been promoted three times in four years, and by the time he was nearly 30 he was a group president at a U.S. manufacturing company. Diligent, humble, and smart, he could hold a room spellbound with only a marker and a whiteboard as he worked out solutions to highly technical problems. However, as adept as he was at the technical aspects of his job, he now had 20 people reporting to him whom he had no idea how to manage.

After three months of coaching, his superiors could see it was going nowhere. The executive often rescheduled his sessions, telling his coach he didn't have the time. He believed he couldn't set aside the time to improve himself. That made him uncoachable.

HR managers should do some reality testing to ensure the too-busy leader is willing to make room for coaching. To benefit from coaching, too-busy leaders must make the space to be fully present, both during the coaching sessions and after, doing the difficult work of developing new mindsets, skills, and habits. Ask this person what tasks or responsibilities they'd be willing to give up or delegate, even temporarily, to make time for coaching. If they struggle to think of any, give them a gentle but firm ultimatum as part of a career planning conversation: that they have plateaued at the company and won't go to the next level until they make time for self-development.
3. They focus too much on tips and tactics.
Some leaders eagerly agree to coaching, but then avoid the deeper inquiries required for meaningful transformation. They're willing to modify behaviors, but not beliefs. They view coaching as medicine that, if taken regularly, will help them get ahead.

The quick-fix leader becomes frustrated when their coach asks questions that require self-reflection. They want answers, not questions. "You're the expert, you tell me," they'll say in response to questions from the coach, or "What if I did this?" Everything comes back to tactics. (A related warning sign is if a leader asks how quickly the coaching can be finished - especially if they demand that the cycle be compressed.)

Although coaches sometimes offer suggestions, their real job is to help executives uncover the assumptions driving their behavior. Only then can a coach help them challenge self-limiting beliefs that block their development. However, the quick-fix leader has little interest in this process.

One CEO we worked with was leading a family business that had recently been sold to a large company. He was told by a leader in the new parent company (who himself had benefitted from coaching) that coaching would help him make the transition. The CEO gladly accepted, wanting to be seen as a peer.

However, it wasn't long into the first coaching session that he showed his entire focus was on "doing whatever other successful people did." The coach worked tirelessly to shift the conversation to the CEO's purpose and goals. Each time, however, he shifted the discussion back to the "secrets of success" of other organizational leaders he wanted to emulate. Ultimately, he was passed over for a permanent role on the parent company's leadership team, and left the organization.

To prompt this kind of leader to be open to self-reflection, remind them of all the other times they vowed to change but were unsuccessful. They then might realize they need to work on more than just changing their game plan. Or, introduce them into a preliminary mentoring conversation with one of the leaders they admire. Tell the mentor to share their experience of struggling to develop.
4. They delay getting started with a coach to "do more research" or "find the right person."
To be sure, it's important to have a good fit between a leader and his coach. But a continual rejection of qualified coaches should give you pause. A related red flag is if the person is acting confused, and asking repeatedly why coaching has been suggested. Assuming you've clearly explained why coaching is necessary, this could be a defense mechanism and a signal that the person is not ready to confront their shortcomings. It usually stems from insecurity.

Being coached can be daunting, and not everyone is ready to take it on. We remember a physician leader who was hired to turn around a business unit of a large medical center. When his staff challenged him, he became emotional. Told by his boss that he needed a coach to help him control his emotions, he was hurt and angrily asked "Why?" - failing again to control his emotions. He was too full of hidden fears for the coaching to be useful. His boss eventually reassigned him, and ultimately he left the organization.

Reframe coaching as an investment the organization is making in their development rather than a personal fix. Tell them your firm provides this resource for high-potential, top performers to accelerate their success. If this leader can view coaching as something positive to help them achieve their goals, they may warm up to the process.
When Going Coach-Less Is Not Viable
After hearing us say that a certain leader is not a good candidate for coaching, an executive who brought us in will often say a variant of this: "Well, he must be coached. We can't let him continue to manage others the way he has, but we can't fire him easily either because we need his skills badly." But imposing coaching on someone who just can't handle it at the moment isn't going to help anyone. Companies are better off directing their people development investments elsewhere - skills training or academic programs are often better options.

Invest your coaching budget in people who have shown the willingness and the capacity to change, and you'll get a much better return on your investment.

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4 Signs an Executive Isn't Ready for Coaching

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Executive Summary How do those who control the coaching purse strings - HR, talent managers, and other buyers - avoid throwing money away on uncoachable executives? Considering that a year's engagement with a top executive coach can cost more than $100,000, it's an important question. There are four red flags to watch out for.

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The ABC’s of Literacy Coaching: Reminders for the Start of a Great Year | TWO WRITING TEACHERS

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The ABC’s of Literacy Coaching: Reminders for the Start of a Great Year | TWO WRITING TEACHERS

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The ABC's of Literacy Coaching: Reminders for the Start of a Great Year

I have a vivid memory of a coaching conversation from many years ago. I was the one being coached; one of my mentors had observed me and was giving me some no-holds-barred feedback.

"Nobody likes a know-it-all," my mentor said flatly. "You're talking too much. The one doing all the talking is the one doing all the thinking."

Whew! In that moment, it was some tough medicine to swallow. But it moved me forward. In the next several days of my own literacy coaching I focused on talking less and listening more. I worked on asking questions instead of launching into advice-giving mode. I never forgot those words.

For a long time after that conversation I also attempted to coach others the way I had been coached: honest, matter-of-fact, efficient. I tried my best to be tough, like my mentor. There was only one problem: I'm not really a tough person. It just wasn't me.

Then, months-or maybe years-later, I had another coaching conversation, this time with a different mentor.

"How do you think that went?" she asked, literally handing me a piece of chocolate as she said it. As I reflected on my work, she said things like, "Oh, that happens to me all the time!" or "I have that same problem sometimes!" "I notice that you ask great questions," she said. "What do you think is your next step?"

She didn't have to tell me. I already knew. While I was getting better at asking questions, I still needed to talk less, listen more. I needed to give people a chance to problem-solve for themselves. Also, maybe I should start handing out chocolate-it seemed to help a lot with effective feedback-giving!

This coaching conversation also moved me forward. She helped me feel confident in what I was doing, but her conversation prompted me to reflect and find areas I could improve on.

The moral of the story, for me, was that there are different ways to be a GREAT literacy leader. All of my mentors have had different styles, different ways of moving me forward. Some, I felt, were styles I could emulate. Others, I admired, learned from, but knew I could never be.

Over time, through years of reading, study groups, and more varieties of coaching experience than most people could imagine (seriously!) I've held on to a few basic principles that seem to hold true and stand the test of time. For now, I'll call them the "ABC's of Literacy Coaching."

A is for APPROXIMATION

As teachers, most of us understand that approximation is critical to student learning. We would never expect students to come up with a perfect solution or plan right away. Yet, as literacy coaches, we often forget that the adults we teach (teachers!) also need to approximate when they are trying something new or problem-solving. It's tempting to swoop in and offer up tried and true solutions and advice, to fix things for people, to do things for people-and to get it done quickly.

Instead of automatically swooping in, I try to take every opportunity to prompt people to reflect and problem-solve. In their book Coaching Converations, Cheliotes & Reilly remind us to use open-ended questions that focus on solutions rather than problems (p. 59). Questions like:

What strategies could you use?

What barriers do you anticipate?

What resources could help you?

What have you done that worked in similar situations?

You might note that I've adapted the wording of these questions slightly to suit my personality and relationships with teachers. You would do the same, of course.

Obviously, reflection and problem-solving are central to effective coaching. However, each scenario is unique. Yes, there are times when I think the best thing to do is to just answer the dang question. Teachers can end up feeling like I'm withholding information from them if I make them brainstorm and problem-solve every little tiny thing every time they ask me a simple question. But I do try to check myself first, by asking, "Should I really answer this right now?"

B is for BE KIND

It isn't always easy to imagine yourself in the other person's shoes, but that really is our job as literacy coaches. Being kind in all of our interactions with teachers, students, and yes, even administrators is a necessary and important part of doing the work well.

I think back on that coaching conversation, the one where I was told I talk too much. The conversation was effective, I think. I definitely changed my ways as a result. It was memorable feedback. But that conversation has also lingered in my memory for another reason. In all the coaching I've given and received, it was one of the few exchanges that felt unkind.

"Nobody likes a know-it-all."

Ouch.

I'd like to say that I'd never say something like that to someone I work with. But then I think of all the ways that words and actions can be interpreted in different ways. Earlier I mentioned there was a period of time when I emulated the coach who had said these unkind things. In trying to be tough and no-nonsense, I'm sure I probably came off as unfriendly to some. Sometimes something meant to be funny can land as unkind.

Personally, I couldn't sustain being the sharp-as-a-tack, whip-smart coach doling out tough love left and right that I was trying to be. I just wasn't me, and fortunately, I was lucky enough to have many other literacy role-models to turn to.

The best that I can do is to try to be kind in all of my interactions. These are few steps I take toward kindness in my work:

1. I routinely celebrate the work teachers are doing. I take photographs, I share publicly, I send notes full of positive feedback and compliments.

2. I never deliver hard or difficult feedback through an email. Always in person, or if that's not possible, at least a phone call.

3. I ask teachers how they would like their feedback. "Would you like me to sugar coat it, or give it to you straight?" is a question I use often.

4. I try to infuse humor into our work whenever I can. Laughter can go a loooong way.

C is for COACHING

Finally, C is for COACHING, obviously. Each year, I renew my commitment to spend as much time as possible in classrooms side-by-side with teachers. There's important work to do outside the classroom (this year I've got a new report card to work on, a new middle school assessment plan, and a curriculum website to work on, for example), but it is the work IN CLASSROOMS that will move a school. You can't coach well if you aren't, well, coaching!

When I'm in classrooms, I think back to my experience as a ski coach. As a ski coach, you spend just a small amount of time demonstrating, or showing your athletes something new, but then most of time you are on the sidelines, shouting reminders and encouragement.

"Do the thing we talked about!"

"Do it again!"

"Keep going!"

"You got this!"

As I head into the new school year I'll be reminding myself constantly of these basic principles of coaching and more: D is for DON'T TAKE YOURSELF TOO SERIOUSLY, E is for EVERYONE NEEDS COACHING, and F is for FEEDBACK. I won't be trying to emulate any tough cookies any time soon, but you will probably see me handing out chocolate now and then.

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The ABC's of Literacy Coaching: Reminders for the Start of a Great Year

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I have a vivid memory of a coaching conversation from many years ago. I was the one being coached; one of my mentors had observed me and was giving me some no-holds-barred feedback. "Nobody likes a know-it-all," my mentor said flatly. "You're talking too much. The one doing all the talking is the one doing...

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Bad PD is Sometimes Your Own Fault – Dean Shareski – Medium

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Bad PD is Sometimes Your Own Fault – Dean Shareski – Medium

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Pro tip: If you want to make a group of teachers laugh, show them this image:

You can even change "staff meeting" to "PD session" and get the same results. Professional Development/Learning is to teachers what school is for many students. Ask a random group of students what they think of school and you're sure to get answers related to boring or worse. it's almost cliche. It's also kinda cool to say school sucks.

While it may be cool to suggest that PD sucks and yes, it sometimes does, I think the difference between how students experience school and how teachers experience PD is different at least in 2 ways. First, as teachers, we chose our profession. Secondly, it is our job to model and be good learners.

Maryellen Weimer offers 7 characteristics of what makes someone a good learner. Along with being curious, and open-minded, I'd add they are willing to embrace some dissonance. The best learners can learn something from almost any experience. That's partly what makes them a good learner.

There has certainly been an awakening in teaching that suggests teachers ought to be master learners, learners first and other statements which shifts education from being focused on teaching to focusing on learning and what it means to learn.

Along with this shift, student agency has become a recent pursuit: getting students to own their learning. This is a challenge given that school is still very much prescribed. The reality is adults still have most of the controls and variables around learning. While this might be concerning, it's also a response to the nature of childhood. Younger students require more guidance and direction and in theory, a gradual release of responsibility and ownership should occur as students move towards adulthood.

We presume adults should be able to manage and control their own learning. Yet of course, in education, theory and practice don't always match. I've been speaking and writing about autonomy and trust for a while. When it comes to Professional Development/Professional Learning we still have a ways to go.

And yet.

I try my best to avoid absolutes in statements, thus the word "sometimes" is intentionally used in the title of this post. It's obvious that some PD experiences and events are better than others. Katie Martin suggests it's also important to re-define PD. People complain about boring speakers, lack of engagement and irrelevance as primary factors that make PD bad. These certainly exist but I also think that speakers, presenters or experiences need not always take the blame. Sometimes our expectations are misplaced. Here are some factors that often contribute to poor experiences:

Time: I often struggle when I'm asked to do an hour presentation. The reality is, an hour isn't usually going to be life-changing and I fear that both presenters and sometimes participants expect that it might. Conferences and PD events typically use these small chunks of time and meaningful learning is really difficult. I've been guilty of complaining about the lack of depth by some presenters. I need to be more gracious in understanding their limits and the limits of time.

Community: A very common complaint of PD sessions is that they are "sit and git" and do not reflect what good teaching ought to look like. Valid point. However including "hands-on" activities should at least consider who the learners are. A good teacher designs learning to meet her students' needs. When you're presenting at a conference or even in a district, many times you have no idea who the people in the room are. In addition, your lack of relationship means you can't dive into many things that typically require building relationships and trust. Yes, there are some things you can do but you also have a lot of limitations. Participants need to understand this.

Context: Related to community, it's difficult to know the context of your audience. People sharing their experience in a rural, elementary context might not seem relevant to a high school teaching in an urban setting. Often when these differences are revealed, participants tend to shut down and begin to dismiss ideas. Presenters also have a difficult time making their ideas broad and relevant to every person.

I suppose the one big idea I'm nattering on about here is that each of us needs to take some responsibility for our learning. It's easy to blame others but good learners can find truths, ideas and wisdom in almost any circumstance. That's why we read books about business, go to movies, have conversations with people who aren't in education and take those ideas and learn to apply them to our situations. The best learners can find truths and ideas in all situations.

What examples do you have of being able to turn a bad or perhaps seemingly irrelevant PD session and finding value for yourself? Conversely, if you offer PD, how do you tackle some of the issues I've shared?

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Bad PD is Sometimes Your Own Fault - Dean Shareski - Medium

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Pro tip: If you want to make a group of teachers laugh, show them this image: You can even change "staff meeting" to "PD session" and get the same results. Professional Development/Learning is to teachers what school is for many students.

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Literacy Leadership Brief: Democratizing Professional Growth With Teachers

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Literacy Leadership Brief: Democratizing Professional Growth With Teachers

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Google Spent Years Studying Effective Teams. This Single Quality Contributed Most to Their Success | Inc.com

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Google Spent Years Studying Effective Teams. This Single Quality Contributed Most to Their Success | Inc.com

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Cutting Through the Complexity: A Roadmap for Effective Collaboration | Stanford Social Innovation Review

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Cutting Through the Complexity: A Roadmap for Effective Collaboration | Stanford Social Innovation Review

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Collaboration is appealing in concept but challenging in practice. While extensive resources-including ones from the Community Tool Box, The Intersector Project, and NewNetworkLeader.org -exist online to support collaborative efforts, the fact remains that we human beings are simply not very good at making "we" work. And yet, most changemakers today acknowledge that to address the complex social and environmental challenges we face we must learn how to collaborate-across organizations, sectors, networks, and differences. Effective collaboration must become a reality, not just an aspiration.

Most of us are familiar with the challenges of collaboration. Personality conflicts get in the way. Participants avoid difficult conversations. People are too formal and polite. We don't take time to deliberately build trust. We don't understand leadership in a collaborative context. And we fail to devote resources to essential coordination functions so that collaborations can truly flourish.

Building on the work of many others, we have developed a roadmap that cuts through the complexity. We have tested and refined this framework over years and across domains, and we tend to apply it in the spirit of statistician George Box, who famously said, "All models are wrong. Some models are useful." We have found it to be useful and hope others will too.

The Five Cs: a roadmap for effective collaboration

While the why (the focus) and the what (the activities) of collaborations differ widely, the how (the process) is remarkably consistent. Launching and sustaining effective collaborations and networks requires that we pay constant attention to five activities:

Clarifying purpose

Convening the right people

Cultivating trust

Coordinating existing activities

Collaborating for systems impact

These activities help us navigate the personal, political, cultural, and organizational dynamics inherent in collaborative efforts. They are never fully complete, and they are not strictly linear. They inevitably loop back and forth on each other, and require revisiting throughout any collaborative effort.

While it's impossible to know exactly what's going to happen until people actually get in a room together, the purpose of the roadmap is to outline the "deliberate" aspect of the collaborative process-the aspect that, to a meaningful degree, can be planned and facilitated. Here, we outline why each of these activities is important, what tactics can be applied to address each one, and how to put the framework into practice.
1. Clarifying purpose
Though a collaboration's purpose-its reason for being-can evolve over time, an initial high-level purpose statement is essential to get people in the room. As leadership expert Simon Sinek said in his well-known TED talk, "Start with why."

The purpose should be ambitious enough to inspire, clear enough to identify the right participants, and specific enough to focus the work of the collaboration. Collaborations can be bounded around an issue, geography, population, outcome, or combination of the above. For example, the RE-AMP network's high-level purpose is to "reduce global warming pollution 80 percent by 2050 across eight Midwestern states." The high-level purpose of the California Summer Matters Network is to "increase and improve the summer learning opportunities for all children and youth across the state."

Clarifying purpose also entails making meaningful sense of the issue at hand. Albert Einstein famously said that if he had an hour to save the world, he would spend the first 55 minutes understanding the problem, and the last 5 minutes solving it. This process is what the design community calls "sensemaking."

Sensemaking involves surfacing diverse perspectives, developing a shared understanding of the actors and organizations involved, and making sense of external trends and forces. It also involves understanding the local context, decoding the history of the place or system, identifying political and power dynamics, and unveiling hardwired assumptions.

Through this exploration of the system, participants begin to acknowledge their differences, while also recognizing the perspectives they share and the values they hold in common. This becomes a foundation on which participants can begin to act and eventually tackle the more-difficult conversations about issues they don't agree on.

"The scarcest resource is not oil, metals, clean air, capital, labor, or technology," systems theorist Donella Meadows once said. "It is our willingness to listen to each other and learn from each other and to seek the truth rather than seek to be right."

The Santa Cruz Mountains Stewardship Network (SCMSN) is a region-wide, cross-sector collaboration of 19 organizations that are working together to improve land stewardship in the 500,000-acre region of California between San Francisco to the Monterey Bay. Participating organizations include federal agencies, state and county parks departments, land trusts, nonprofit organizations, the region's largest timber company, research institutes, special districts, and the area's largest Native American tribal band.

The network initially formed in late 2014 when a number of large public and private land owners and managers realized that although their organizations were all committed to caring for the region's natural resources, they weren't working together on a scale that would be necessary for both the natural and human systems to thrive in the area. They knew they needed a collaborative approach, but they also knew that social fragmentation (the area had a history of tensions and mistrust) would limit progress.

Before the collaboration's first meeting, we held in-person conversations with more 20 potential participants. Because these conversations were confidential, participants shared their honest thoughts, fears, concerns, and hopes for the collaboration. As expected, we heard concerns about hidden agendas and learned that participants had very different priorities in their day-to-day work. However, despite significant differences of opinion, there was also a meaningful amount of common ground. Participants generally agreed that effective stewardship required a "mosaic approach" that would accommodate a variety of land uses. They recognized the value of sustainable timber harvesting, and were aware of threats from real estate development and climate change. Importantly, everyone agreed that the region, as well as the work of each organization, would benefit from stronger connections and more collaborative relationships.

At the first convening, we anonymously reflected back what we learned to the whole group, acknowledging differences while highlighting areas of agreement. As a result, participants were able to begin crafting a high-level purpose statement just a few hours into their first gathering, thereby clarifying the collaboration's reason for existing and charting a collaborative path forward.

Over the course of their first two convenings, participants also completed a historical analysis of the region, examined external trends and forces, considered future scenarios, and identified shared values. This sensemaking process helped the network evolve its high-level purpose statement into a memorandum of understanding, which all 19 members ratified at the end of their third convening. (For more details on the first two years of the network's formation, see the case study here.)
2. Convening the right people
Convening the "right" people means bringing together whoever is needed to tackle the challenge at hand. Although there is no single correct answer to who to include, we agree with Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff, creators of the "Future Search" planning process, who write: "The more far-reaching your objective, the greater your need for a broad selection of diverse players." According to Weisbord and Janoff, this includes people with:

Authority to act, such as decision-making responsibility in an organization or community

Resources, such as contacts, time, or money

Expertise in the issues under consideration

Information about the topic that no others have

A stake in the outcome and an ability to speak to the consequences

We would add two more. First, the "right people" include those who can listen deeply and consider diverse perspectives. As author Margaret Wheatley wrote, "Real listening always brings people closer together."

Second, the "right people" are simply those who stay engaged. Over the course of any collaborative effort, it is normal-even expected-that some people will leave the initiative, and others will join as the collaboration evolves. In effective collaborations, the right people show up, stick around, and follow through.

Getting the right people in the room doesn't necessarily mean issuing an open call to everyone who may have a stake in the effort. Open invitations are often motivated as much by the fear of appearing exclusive as they are by convening a broad selection of participants who need to be involved. Researchers at the University of Colorado Denver's Center on Network Science have found that collaborations that begin and grow through "thoughtful inclusion" tend to exhibit greater long-term sustainability and effectiveness. Rather than engaging with all possible participants, thoughtful inclusion begins by recruiting a core group of committed individuals and organizations, even one by one, to clarify an initial purpose and plan of approach. As the initial group develops deep trust and cohesion, it invites additional participants to add necessary capacities and resources, and to increase the collaboration's reach.
3. Cultivating trust
In our view, trust is the single most important ingredient of effective collaboration. Enduring relationships are not a "nice to have"; they are a "need to have." The web of relationships that develops between participants is the invisible structure that makes collaborations work. Trust, however, has become something of a buzzword. Everyone says it's important, but failing to cultivate trusting relationships is where most collaborative efforts fall short.

Google recently spent millions of dollars and thousands of hours to figure out why some teams stumble while others soar-an initiative called Project Aristotle. It reviewed a half-century of academic studies and studied hundreds of teams, struggling to find evidence for the common assumption that the composition of a team makes a difference. ''We looked at 180 teams from all over the company,'' said Abeer Dubey, a project leader, in a New York Times Magazine article about the initiative. ''We had lots of data, but there was nothing showing that a mix of specific personality types or skills or backgrounds made any difference. The 'who' part of the equation didn't seem to matter.''

Google ultimately found that high-performing teams have high levels of "psychological safety," as measured by an equality of turn-taking in team discussions, as well as high degrees of social sensitivity, or group members' ability to read each other's social signals. Psychological safety, as defined by Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson, is a ''shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking,'' and ''a sense of confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject, or punish someone for speaking up ... It describes a team climate characterized by interpersonal trust and mutual respect in which people are comfortable being themselves.''

In other words, people work together most effectively when relationships are strong and authentic. When they listen deeply to others and feel free to speak their minds. When they value diversity of thought and experience, and can tap into the unique gifts that each person brings. When there is a high degree of mutual respect and, in a word, trust.

Trust is not the same thing as "liking" or "agreement." To work together, people don't need to like each other. And they shouldn't agree with each other on every issue. When we talk about trust, we mean trust for action-what we call "trust for impact." The type of trusting relationships that can hold the tension through difficult conversations, engage in generative conflict, find a slice of common ground, and make collaboration a reality, not just an aspiration. We've also found it's possible to build trust more quickly than most people think, as long as you go about it deliberately.

For the Santa Cruz Mountains Stewardship Network, we conducted a social network analysis just before the network's first convening in March 2015, and every six months thereafter, to track and support the growth of these relationships. This data helped us to strategically "weave" connections across the network to maximize its potential for collaboration.

The network maps below illustrate this work. Each circle, or "node," is a leader in the network. The colors indicate the organization type they represent, and each of the lines connecting the nodes signifies a personal or professional relationship between them. The network was initially fragmented, as seen in the first map, particularly in terms of the connections between different types of organizations.

In the second map, you can see that after only two convenings-during which we deliberately took time to establish a foundational level of trust between previously disconnected participants-the system became much more interconnected. Even if the network had never met again after September 2015, the region was now much more resilient than it was before the network formed. There were new and deeper relationships, stronger flows of information, and greater recognition of the opportunities for collaboration between organizations.
4. Coordinating existing activities
When people have identified a shared purpose and built trust, they are far more likely to seek out and follow through on opportunities to support each other's work. This requires that participants share the work they are already doing that relates to the collaboration's purpose. In the process, participants find opportunities to partner together, find quick wins, and avoid duplication of efforts.

Working together, even in small ways, allows participants to strengthen their relationships with one another, creating a virtuous cycle of trust and action. Analysis of the Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network, a collaboration of 60 communities throughout the United States working to create more resilience to wildfires, shows a strong statistical correlation between the depth of relationship between two participants and their perception of collaborative opportunities between them. In other words, as relationships develop, participants notice more opportunities to collaborate, which in turn strengthens their relationships.

However, the altruistic commitment of participants isn't enough to sustain collaboration. On the contrary, collaboration must also serve the personal and organizational objectives of individual participants. Otherwise, they won't be able to justify the time it requires to participate fully. This overlap between individual priorities and the collaboration's shared priorities is what we refer to as the intersection of self-interest and shared interest, and finding a proper balance between the two is essential.

To this end, participants should have an opportunity early on in a collaboration's formation to publicly identify their gives and gets-what they can give to the collaboration to support other participants and what they need to get out of the collaboration to make their participation worthwhile. The more specific the gives and gets, the better participants will understand one another's conditions of engagement. Examples of gives include connections to funding sources or influencers, access to a volunteer base or a fleet of trucks, or time and energy to contribute to the work of other partners. Examples of gets include a professional grant writer, capacity or expertise to support a project, a conference room to host a meeting, or tangible outcomes from the effort.

Participants should also express legitimate constraints on their ability to contribute. Left unstated, others may perceive these limitations as a lack of commitment or a failure to follow through. Constraints may include issues such as the time participants can commit to the collaboration, the expectations of their board or senior leadership, and legal restrictions on their ability to participate in advocacy and policy change.
5. Collaborating for systems impact
For true systems change to occur, collaborative efforts must seek to address the root causes of problems, rather than just mitigating the symptoms. Actions to reduce immediate suffering, such as filling a cavity, are essential. But we will never produce lasting change without also addressing the root causes of the issue at hand, such as providing young children with quality oral care from the outset.

Getting at root causes necessarily requires acknowledging and addressing systemic and structural issues, such as racism, sexism, and income inequality. As Junious Williams and Sarah Marxer write in their article " Bringing an Equity Lens to Collective Impact": "Without rigorous attention to persistent inequities, our initiatives risk ineffectiveness, irrelevance, and improvements that cannot be sustained." And according to the authors of " Collaborating for Equity and Justice," this requires that collaborations "embrace the principles of equity and justice and reexamine their membership, distribution of power and resources, social change agendas, and current commitments to an equity and justice work plan."

One way to address root causes is by identifying and taking action on a set of "leverage points" that address the collaboration's central purpose. Leverage points are places in a system where "a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything," as Meadows has said. In a collaboration, leverage points also represent opportunities where participants can have greater impact by working together than they can by working alone.

100Kin10, a collaboration of more than 200 partners working to support STEM educators and train 100,000 excellent new STEM teachers by 2021, engaged hundreds of teachers to identify 100-plus challenges standing in the way of quality STEM learning for all students and to assess the relationships between these challenges. Through this process, 100Kin10 identified six primary leverage points to achieve its goal: 1) Raise state standards, 2) improve the quality of the curriculum, 3) expand financial support for STEM college majors, 4) develop accountability systems that promote teacher creativity, 5) increase the time available for professional development, and 6) increase the time available for teacher collaboration.

In addition to the comprehensive systems-mapping approach that 100Kin10 took, collaborations can identify leverage points through an in-the-room systems mapping exercise or through a design thinking approach that can help them move quickly from ideation to prototyping. Collaborations must then provide participants with structures to act, such as project teams focused on specific objectives. Participants typically engage when they feel they can have an effect, and where their organizational priorities align with the work of the team.

Putting it all together

In addition to the Five C's roadmap, effective collaborations also require a degree of governance, structure, coordination, and funding to accomplish their goals.

Governance: As collaborations and networks move towards shared action, formal governance procedures can help participants make timely decisions, invite new members, design and facilitate convenings, and integrate a suite of online collaborative tools. The purpose of good governance "is not to tell members what to do, but to enable them to do what they want to do," write Madeleine Taylor, Peter Plastrik, and John Cleveland in their article " Connecting to Change the World."

Structures: From our perspective, a network is the structure that operationalizes collaboration. The right network structure enables a collaboration to effectively channel the creative impulses of its participants. But too much structure risks stifling individual initiative, and engaging with too many rules and procedures. According to Frances Butterfoss, author of Coalitions and Partnerships in Community Health, "One should adopt the simplest structure that will accomplish the collaboration's goals."

Some examples of basic network structures that can support collaborations include:

Coordination: Collaborations can't achieve ambitious goals through self-organization alone. Some form of coordination is needed to mobilize a constellation of people and resources to address complex challenges. Those who perform these roles have been called systems leaders, systems entrepreneurs, network leaders, network entrepreneurs, strategic conveners, and accompagnateurs. Whatever they are called, their primary role is to coordinate.

The role of a coordinator, or team of coordinators, is to constantly sense and respond to the emerging needs of the collaboration as it evolves. They work to help participants clarify the purpose and the values they hold in common, identify who else needs to be involved, cultivate trust, find opportunities for mutual benefit, and catalyze collaborative action toward shared goals. Coordinators do not seek the spotlight. Instead, they are typically motivated by the collaboration's purpose and their ability to help others achieve their potential for impact.

We have found it useful to think of coordination as a set of responsibilities that can be organized in three major areas:

Front of the house: external communications, public relations and outreach, and resourcing

Middle of the house: weaving, process design, meeting facilitation, conflict management, and member on-boarding

Back of the house: logistical preparation for convenings, project tracking, evaluation, financial planning, and tech support

Funding: Collaboration is under-resourced. As the authors of the recent Harvard Business Review article " Audacious Philanthropy " write: "Collaboration of any type can be difficult and costly, so few philanthropists meaningfully support or engage in it, even though most are frustrated with the inefficient proliferation of siloed change efforts." Yet foundations and philanthropists have a critical, unique role to play in supporting collaborations and networks.

The primary challenge for funders is to support collaboration without restricting or controlling its path. Funders must be willing to let the participants define a collaboration's purpose and direction, or they run the risk of stifling the very energy that gives collaboration its potential for impact.

The S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation has found that it can effectively support collaborations and networks to pursue emergent solutions by:

1. Allowing for flexibility in the collaboration's objectives and deliverables

2. Viewing the development of trust as a valid collaborative outcome

3. "Making room" for other funders to support collaborative projects by investing in a network's operational capacity

4. Supporting specific collaborative functions, such as convenings, facilitation, and coordination

5. Approaching collaborations and networks as a learning opportunity

6. Being prepared to adapt their support as collaborations evolve over time

A decisive moment

Social philosopher Tom Atlee has written something that struck us as a good summary of what's happening on the planet right now: "Things are getting better and better, and worse and worse, faster and faster, simultaneously." If he is right-and we think he is-then we urgently need to consider two questions: How can we amplify the things that are getting better and better? And how can we minimize the damage from things that are getting worse and worse?

We believe the answer to both questions lies in cultivating effective collaboration-that is, meaningful attempts to work together on behalf of a shared purpose-across and between silos, organizations, sectors, and networks. From our perspective, it's not an overstatement to say that our ability to work together effectively across all kinds of differences is the last great hope for humankind.

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Cutting Through the Complexity: A Roadmap for Effective Collaboration (SSIR)

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Collaboration is appealing in concept but challenging in practice. While extensive resources-including ones from the Community Tool Box, The Intersector Project, and NewNetworkLeader.org -exist online to support collaborative efforts, the fact remains that we human beings are simply not very good at making "we" work.

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The Knowledge Standing Beside You – Without Windows

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The Knowledge Standing Beside You – Without Windows

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To me, working in the Reggio Way is all about a sense of community. Students learning in a Reggio-inspired classroom need to feel like they belong there, almost like the environment is a second home for them. They need to feel respected, free to express themselves, and safe to take risks and make mistakes. But students aren't the only members of a learning community; teachers need to feel a sense of belonging for the place they work, because school is as relevant and essential to their lives as to those of their students.

As Reggio educators, we tend to focus very heavily on relationships to understand the course of learning. Our observations and documentation are often centered on how students interact with their environment, how students interact with each other, and how they interact with their teachers. When we turn inward, we reflect on teacher-student and teacher-environment relationships, and how they can be honed to better facilitate learning in the classroom.

But in my experience, teacher-teacher relationships somehow have a tendency to fall by the wayside. For a while, I just assumed our school never talked about them because they were the last line-item on the in-service agenda and we always ran out of time. I think some teachers just assume that interactions with their coworker automatically improve with the passage of time, so they aren't worth discussing. The most likely reason is that teachers just forget sometimes that students aren't the only ones who need to be shown respect and affection.

Over time, it has become apparent to me that teacher-teacher relationships are the start and the end of the cycle of learning. They are the bond upon which students can start to form classroom expectations, and the glue that holds schools and childcare facilities together in difficult times. The relationships teachers have with one another form the foundation upon which the ECE profession can grow and improve, but also the framework by which we can grow to love our profession more with each passing day.

My co-teachers and director contain an incredible wealth of information about teaching practices, educational theory, business expertise, and practical life experience that is at my disposal every day. And while that is useful to me, they have something that is far more important to me in my growth as an educator. They have lived experience, and they have an intimate knowledge of the context in which I am an educator.

When they make a suggestion, whether I agree with them or not, I can be confident that they are making that suggestion with the specific framework and inner workings of our classroom in mind. They know our students, they know our schedule, and they know the expectations established by our community of learners. My teaching partners have an intimate understanding of me as a teacher, including my strengths and weaknesses. In many ways, my coworkers don't make suggestions to me; they make suggestions for me. This intimacy and implicit understanding of a learning community is the backbone of Reggio-inspired practices like progettazione. It is so complex that in some schools, they have a pedagogista/o whose entire job is to observe and advise teachers to help them and their students continue to grow. Face-to-face discussions with my coworkers are how I metabolize pie-in-the-sky ideas into real, grounded solutions that fit our program and our students. My co-teachers inspire and comfort me, and sometimes crush my enthusiasm when my ideas are impractical or ridiculous. In many ways, they create a constant ebb and flow of innovation, implementation, and reflection that is organic and profoundly personal.

Additionally, my coworkers have the insight to advise me in not just my teaching practice, but also my life as it relates to being a teacher. They can shed light on the difficulties of being a new parent and an educator. They can share their experiences with burnout, and offer up advice for potential next steps in the field for me and my family. My teaching partner has been working in the field for so long, and has operated in such a variety of positions in diverse facilities, that her word is gospel to me when she chooses to voice concerns for the way I do things or reflect on the trajectory of the field of ECE. I can be confident that, when she has an idea or suggests a course of action, she is never shooting from the hip; she is grounding her assessment in immense practical experience and specific, contextualized knowledge of the learning community she is an integral part of.

But beneath the professional boons my coworkers provide to me, there is an social-emotional relevance that cannot be understated. Especially for those working with younger students, it is vitally important for teachers to establish care routines that help students adequately adjust to their learning environments. Co-teachers, sometimes unintentionally, do the same for one another. My teaching partner and I have care routines for each other that are sometime subtle and sometimes not. A mug of coffee in the morning, an offer to change what promises to be the most raucous diaper of the day, or even something as simple as a chipper "Good morning" can be enough to make a coworker feel nurtured. The benefits of happy teachers are multiplied in the classroom as well. Children are observant and many understand adult relationships better than we may realize. Visibly stressful interactions between teachers can have a negative impact on students, but the opposite is also true. When teachers are friendly (sometimes even goofy with one another) it can cultivate a classroom atmosphere that is productive, but also jovial, fun-loving, and familial.

As teachers, we are given a choice. We can explain the importance and impact of positive peer interactions to children until we are blue in the face, or we can channel our energy to providing a powerful example of positive peer interaction: two teachers who are friends. Cooperation, healthy disagreement, and compromise can all be demonstrated on a daily basis when teachers commit to working together in front of the students they teach. In many Reggio-inspired classrooms, there is an underlying understanding among young learners that the greatest asset in their learning journeys is often the person standing next to them, but that understanding is not specific to young learners.

The truth is that teachers are and always will be another teacher's greatest resource.

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To me, working in the Reggio Way is all about a sense of community. Students learning in a Reggio-inspired classroom need to feel like they belong there, almost like the environment is a second home for them. They need to feel respected, free to express themselves, and safe to take risks and make mistakes.

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Shifting Mental Models in Educators | Edutopia

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Shifting Mental Models in Educators | Edutopia

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In my observations, I had noticed a trend in the teacher's interactions with them -- she didn't push them as she did the others, she let them off the hook easily, and she gave them simple tasks. All of these young men were African American, and this group comprised almost the entire group of African American males in her classes. I gently and carefully probed into the teacher's decision making, asking nonjudgmental questions about her assumptions about these boys, and then one day, she said this: "I think they're just lazy. I don't think they'll follow through. So I give them tasks they can manage."

I felt a mix of fear (would I know how to coach her through this?) and relief (she'd named it, not me) as I recognized the mental model that this teacher held about her African American boys -- a mental model that did not serve them as learners.

What Is a Mental Model?

Mental models are our values, beliefs, and a series of assumptions about how the world works. Unconsciously, we create a story about other people, institutions, and the world which drives our behavior. While everyone has them (in fact, we need them to make sense of the complex world in which we live), all mental models are flawed to some extent and usually invisible to us.

Instructional coaches often work with teachers around their practices in the classroom -- their lesson planning, assessment strategies, management approaches, and so on. This is the area in which I've worked for many years, and what I've seen is that when instructional coaches focus only on these behaviors, the outcomes are limited both in terms of the impact on children and the change in the teacher's practice.

But when an instructional coach also addresses and explores a teacher's mental models about a range of topics including students with learning disabilities, children in poverty, immigrants, English learners, and so on, then there's a greater likelihood of transformational change and equity for students.

A skilled transformational coach attempts to bring mental models to the surface, explore them, and see the impact of the mental model on the teacher's life as well as on students. Furthermore, a skilled coach facilitates the creation of new mental models that serve all of us, teachers and students, better.

Strategies for Shifting Mental Models

When we recognize a mental model surfacing, either in ourselves or in another, that doesn't seem to be of service (meaning, it could be having a detrimental impact on us or others), here are some approaches for shifting it:

First, greet the mental model with curiosity. Some mental models can feel scary when they've crystalized (such as "the African American boys are lazy") and can raise all kinds of feelings. But if we put a great deal of energy into the emotions and managing them, we'll get distracted from the learning opportunity. Acknowledge the feelings and get curious about the mental model.

Then ask: Where might this mental model have come from? What might be all the elements that contributed to its creation? And with genuine open curiosity, investigate those.

Third, ask: What's the impact of holding this mental model? What can and can't I do if I hold it? What's possible for others if I'm attached to it? How has it served me to hold it, and what might be possible if it shifted?

Fourth: Look for any and all evidence that the model might not be "true." Are there any exceptions to this rule? Create instability for the mental model, make it feel weak and send fractures through its construction. If the mindset is in someone else, remember that you can't make anyone change their beliefs, but you can make those beliefs unstable.

Fifth: Commit to trying something new to test the mental model. When I got to this point with the new English teacher I coached, I nudged her into giving the boys that she thought were lazy big roles in an upcoming production. We created a plan for the students so that they'd be successful -- which they were.

Sixth: Name the shift in mental model using the words belief, mindset, and mental model. This was what I said to the teacher in June, "Earlier this year, you expressed a belief that your African American boys were lazy. How would you say that mental model has changed based on what you did and saw this spring?" Acknowledge the learning and the new possibilities for the teacher and the students.

A Path Toward Equity

If we're intent on transforming classrooms and schools, if we are truly committed to seeing equitable outcomes for children, we'll need to take a long and hard look at our mental models. This is hard and scary work, because we need to poke around in the beliefs that we hold about education and children and their ability to learn.

There are strategies that we can learn so that these conversations can be easier and productive and so that they result in positive changes in the classroom.

How do you identify and challenge your mental models?

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Shifting Mental Models in Educators | Edutopia

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In my observations, I had noticed a trend in the teacher's interactions with them -- she didn't push them as she did the others, she let them off the hook easily, and she gave them simple tasks. All of these young men were African American, and this group comprised almost the entire group of African American males in her classes.

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Stress spreads from teachers to pupils 'like a contagion'

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Stress spreads from teachers to pupils 'like a contagion'

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Pupils taught by teachers who are close to burnout display high levels of stress themselves, a research study has revealed.

Academics from the University of British Columbia, in Canada, examined the levels of cortisol - known as the stress hormone - in 406 primary-aged pupils.

They found that those children whose teachers reported feeling close to burnout had much higher levels of cortisol than those whose teachers were not stressed.

The academics said: "This is the first study to show that teachers' occupational stress is linked to students' physiological stress regulation."

Stressed teachers 'take frustration out on students'

Gail Kinman, professor of occupational health psychology at the University of Bedfordshire, believes that this demonstrates that teacher stress is a bigger problem than previously thought.

"Stress passes from person to person," she said. "It moves around the classroom like a contagion, which is very difficult to manage."

Studies have also shown that stress does not just lead to teacher burnout: it can turn teachers into autocratic, punitive workaholics.

Lisa Matthewman, an organisational psychologist and principal lecturer at Westminster Business School, lists a range of symptoms she has seen in teachers.

"They're using work as an escape - as an addiction in itself," she said. "They become a workaholic, leading to emotional burnout.

"Perhaps they'll be less engaged with students than they once were. They may be acting out in the classroom: taking out their frustrations on the students to some extent. They might be more prone to being autocratic and punitive in their approach."

Teacher stress 'leads to bullying'

An ongoing study, conducted by Jonathan Glazzard, professor of education at the Carnegie Centre of Excellence for Mental Health in Schools, at Leeds Beckett University, has also shown that teachers' poor mental health affects their classroom performance, limiting pupils' academic achievement and leading to low grades.

Poor teacher mental health also influences pupils' behaviour towards one another, according to Chris Kyriacou, professor of educational psychology at the University of York.

Professor Kyriacou has studied the kinds of school environments that are conducive to bullying. He found that, when pupils are feeling stressed and frustrated, they are more likely to resort to bullying their classmates.

"If schools feel under pressure, then teachers feel under pressure. And then pupils feel under pressure, and more of them are engaged in bullying," he said.

"Then they're more likely to end up truanting from school, and more of them will end up being excluded from school. If you start to scrape beneath the surface, there are all those links going on."
This is an edited article from the 9 March edition of Tes. Subscribers can read the full article here. To subscribe, click here. This week's Tes magazine is available in all good newsagents. To download the digital edition, Android users can click here and iOS users can click here Want to keep up with the latest education news and opinion? Follow Tes on Twitter and like Tes on Facebook

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Exclusive: How stress passes from teachers to pupils 'like a contagion'

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Pupils taught by teachers who are close to burnout display high levels of stress themselves, a research study has revealed. Academics from the University of British Columbia, in Canada, examined the levels of cortisol - known as the stress hormone - in 406 primary-aged pupils.

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What It's Like to Be an Instructional Coach | Cult of Pedagogy

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What It's Like to Be an Instructional Coach | Cult of Pedagogy

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It was only a few years ago that I first heard the term instructional coach. When I was in the K-12 setting, we had no such thing, at least as far as I knew. But it seems lately I hear more and more people describing themselves that way, so clearly this is a role that's growing in many schools. I thought it was time for me to take a closer look at the work instructional coaches do.

The Pennsylvania Institute for Instructional Coaching defines an instructional coach as "someone whose chief professional responsibility is to bring evidence-based practices into classrooms by working with teachers and other school leaders." Coaches are usually experienced teachers who have moved away from full-time teaching to work directly with other teachers and help them improve their practice.

Within that broad definition, roles vary from district to district and coach to coach: Some coaches refer to themselves by specific content areas-titles I hear most often are literacy coach or math coach -and other coaches focus on general instruction. Some coaches work exclusively one-on-one with teachers who have identified needs, while others may demonstrate strategies for large groups before going into the classrooms to coach individual teachers.

The path to hiring a coach can also take many forms. Coaches may be directly employed by a school or district, like Eric Sandberg, who is one of three coaches employed full-time by a single school. Other coaches, like Gretchen Schultek, work for nonprofit organizations that contract out their coaches to schools as needed. And there are other coaches who work entirely on their own, marketing their services online and building relationships with schools in their local area or even at great distances, serving clients by traveling directly to them or through online coaching.

Interviews with Two Instructional Coaches

To learn more about what coaching is like from the inside, I interviewed two instructional coaches for my podcast.

Interview #1: Gretchen Schultek Bridgers

Gretchen Schultek worked as an elementary teacher for eight years before venturing into coaching. As a coach for The New Teacher Project, she works in a variety of schools whose administrators have requested coaching services for new teachers. She also offers advice and encouragement to teachers through her blog, Always a Lesson, and her podcast of the same name.

What advice does Gretchen have for other coaches? "It's all about how you relate to one another," Gretchen explained. "You could be sharing the best piece of advice. It could be gold, but if you don't have a relationship they're not going to hear it from you and they're not going to apply it. So it's just wasted time and energy. So focus on those relationships. Also, listen more than you speak. You're going to find out a lot about someone just by listening to them. So instead of coming into a meeting ready to get right to it and share everything you planned to share, give them a minute to just share whatever it is that's on their mind because that could really be integral to their improvement."
Listen to our interview: Get Transcript
Interview #2: Eric Sandberg

Eric Sandberg is an instructional coach employed by a district in Erie, Pennsylvania. His blog, Your Instructional Coach, offers tips for coaches and tackles some interesting dynamics related to coaching.

When discussing how he approaches coaching, Eric used a toolbox metaphor. "The tools in your toolbox as a coach help teachers come to that next step, but not just always in an enforcement mode of, you know, I'm the hammer. I'm going to smash if you don't fix. So it's to be more sophisticated with your methods as a coach. Because just like in the classroom, telling is not teaching. If I just tell you, 'Oh you should really do this...' that's not teaching you in the classroom if you were the student. And it's really not very good coaching either."

Listen to our interview:

Get Transcript
What I have learned from my brief study of instructional coaching is that there's plenty more to learn. As a relatively new field, coaching has lots of room to grow, offering educators a more refined menu of coaching services from which to choose, and giving experienced teachers the opportunity to apply their skills and expertise in new roles. ♦

Learn More about Coaching

When I looked for more information on coaching, two names came up repeatedly: Elena Aguilar and Jim Knight. If you're interested in learning more about coaching, their resources would be a great place to start.

This section contains Amazon Affiliate links. When you make a purchase through these links, Cult of Pedagogy gets a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you.

Elena Aguilar's blog on Education Week, The Art of Coaching Teachers, contains several years' worth of in-depth advice and information on instructional coaching. She also has a fantastic collection of coaching resources on her own website, and her book, The Art of Coaching: Effective Strategies for School Transformation, is a best seller on Amazon.

Jim Knight is the director of the Kansas Coaching Project, whose mission is "to study factors related to professional learning and how to improve academic outcomes for students through supports provided by instructional coaches." The site offers resources and forms for coaches, videos, and research on coaching best practices. Check out his latest book, Better Conversations: Coaching Ourselves and Each Other to Be More Credible, Caring, and Connected.

Keep in touch.
I would love to have you come back for more.Join my mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration-in quick, bite-sized packages-all geared toward making your teaching more effective and joyful. To welcome you, I'll be sending a free copy of my new e-booklet, 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half. I look forward to having you join me.

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What It's Like to Be an Instructional Coach

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It was only a few years ago that I first heard the term instructional coach. When I was in the K-12 setting, we had no such thing, at least as far as I knew. But it seems lately I hear more and more people describing themselves that way, so clearly this is a role that's growing in many schools.

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Asset-Based Coaching: Focusing on Strengths - The Art of Coaching Teachers - Education Week Teacher

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Asset-Based Coaching: Focusing on Strengths - The Art of Coaching Teachers - Education Week Teacher

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Education Week - The Art of Coaching Teachers

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When I became an instructional coach, I focused almost exclusively on closing the big gaps in a teacher's practices. I thought we needed to start with the areas of greatest need. In addition, deficits command a lot of attention--when I walked into a classroom, it felt like the teacher's deficits were jumping out at me in neon. For many reasons, this approach didn't work.

I now primarily coach strengths and look for the places where we can use those strengths as a foundation to explore an area of growth. For example, if a teacher is struggling to build productive relationships with parents, I will first coach him to strengthen relationships with his colleagues--which might already be solid and positive. I'll work with him to identify the moves he makes to develop relationships with peers and then slowly we'll transfer those skills to working with parents. I'll use the positive emotions about the relationships he's developed with colleagues to build confidence about his areas for growth, as well as the concrete skills and actions.

When we focus on strengths, and when our clients trust us, they cast their own gaze onto their areas for growth. They move towards closing their gaps--we don't have to push or nudge. Asset-based coaching isn't about ignoring the areas of greatest need--it's about solidifying other areas first and helping someone feel so confident in their strengths that they feel almost invincible when it comes to tackling areas for growth.
What Is Asset-Based Coaching?
Asset-based coaching is a deceptively simple, but powerful approach to working with adult learners. Essentially, there are two predominant ways that we can think about making behavioral change: we can focus on what we're doing wrong and try to do less of it or we can focus on what we're doing right and try to do more of it. Researchers in many fields have found that by focusing on strengths, talents, competencies, and things we're doing right we are far more likely to make long lasting change. Taking an asset-based or strengths perspective is an undervalued and underused approach for working with learners of all ages and has the potential for yielding the results that many of us hope to see in schools.

When we focus on strengths, we look for what someone is doing well, at the possibilities they see, at their visions for themselves and their teaching, and at who they recognize as supporters on this journey of growth. Assets can be found within themselves as well as in their environment. We're looking for possibility and potential everywhere.
Why Asset-Based Coaching Works
It's useful to understand why an asset-based approach works--and it comes back to the way our brains are wired. When we're focusing on what we're not good at, at our deficiencies and areas of struggle, negative neural pathways in our brain are reinforced--the pathways that produce self-defeating statements like, "I'm such a failure, this won't work, I know I'm not good at X and I've been trying to get better for many years. What's wrong with me? Why am I so bad at this?"

Take a moment to think about something you've tried improving in (perhaps eating healthier or getting more exercise) and notice how that internal dialogue amplifies. The majority of us are well aware of our areas of weakness and casting more light on them creates distress. This decreases our ability to take action, learn, and see possibilities. It's not that we can't learn when we focus on areas for growth, but there's more struggle. We're at odds with our brain.

When we focus on our strengths, we can access the positive emotions that inspire action and open us to learning. Asset-based coaching strives to magnify strengths and what we focus on grows. In partnership with our client, we seek out what they're doing that's effective, we highlight their practices that are working, and bring to light their hidden skills. As coaches, we want to be careful that we're not doing too much pointing because the client needs to acknowledge and embrace his strengths in order to really benefit. If a coach is always the one saying, "You did that so well!," then the client hasn't internalized the recognition of his strengths.
When It's Hard to Find Assets
The idea behind asset-based coaching isn't to delude us into thinking there are no problems. But if all we think about, day after day, is someone's faults, we build a wall of alienation between us. If we can find just one good thing about someone and reflect on it, our view of that person broadens. We still see all the problems, but we also feel a different quality of connection to the person we are thinking about. We may also see some entry points that we'd previously missed that might allow us to start coaching towards change.

It can be hard to find a strength in someone in whom we see many deficits. Imagine you are on a treasure hunt and start small, look for the little things--keep looking and you'll find something. Also make sure you're asking your client to name the things they feel they're doing well, or the motivation that's driving them, or the possibilities they see. Assets can be found in their attitude, their will, and their vision for themselves and their students. They aren't just about what we are doing well at this moment but rather about strengths and potential within them as well as in their environment.
First Steps
Asset-based coaching requires a mindset shift--from focusing on deficits to seeing potential. There's no better place to start than within yourself. Spend some time reflecting on your own strengths as a coach or leader, and on identifying your own potential and possibilities. This will help you get primed to then look at the strengths and assets in others.

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Asset-Based Coaching: Focusing on Strengths

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When I became an instructional coach, I focused almost exclusively on closing the big gaps in a teacher's practices. I thought we needed to start with the areas of greatest need. In addition, deficits command a lot of attention--when I walked into a classroom, it felt like the teacher's deficits were jumping out at me in neon.

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The Magic of Validation | Cult of Pedagogy

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The Magic of Validation | Cult of Pedagogy

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Listen to this post as a podcast:
Sponsored by Kiddom and mysimpleshow
I have a multiple-choice question for you.
Suppose you're standing at your classroom door, greeting students as they arrive. One of them-let's call him Gabe-comes through and sees that on the daily agenda, you've written "Choose topics for speeches." Right away, his shoulders slump.

"Oh man," he says to no one in particular, "I hate speeches!"

What do you say?

A. What? Speeches are awesome.

B. You talk all the time! You're gonna love it.

C. Shocker! Gabe has another complaint.

D. Gabe, we enter the room silently, please.

E. What do you hate about speeches, Gabe?

With options A through D, you're arguing with Gabe, dismissing his feelings, attacking him personally, or ignoring what he said altogether.

But with option E, you're reacting with curiosity. You're trying to learn more. With option E, you're already on your way to validating Gabe's point of view.

Validation is the act of recognizing and affirming the feelings or perspective of another person. It's acknowledging that these thoughts and feelings are true for that person. It's a very simple, astoundingly fast way to make progress in a conversation: It eases tension, builds trust, and gets you and the other person to a solution more quickly.

The only problem with validation is that at first, it's really hard to do. We're so used to defending our own position, to staying sort of clenched in our own stance, that shifting to a place where we try to see things from another point of view can feel unnatural, almost painful at first. But once you've given it a real try, you're going to see some of your most difficult conversations get a whole lot better.

Why Validation Works

People want to be understood. They want to feel heard.

When a person doesn't feel heard, she just clings more tightly to her own position. It really is that simple, and it's one of the reasons so many conflicts last so long and often escalate to ridiculous proportions. People on both sides of any conflict try and try to explain and defend themselves, to make the other person see something the way they see it.

And unfortunately, our typical responses usually make the situation worse:

Arguing with the other person's viewpoint, like saying that speeches are awesome in response to Gabe's statement, is a natural reaction, but it probably won't impact his opinion. He'll most likely want to come back with an argument about why speeches do suck, and you'll just go back and forth. Until he feels heard, Gabe will have a hard time considering your point of view.

Dismissing the other person's feelings, like pointing out to Gabe that he talks all the time and therefore couldn't possibly dislike speeches, will not only not change his mind, it will also make him feel misunderstood. His original negative emotion tied to speeches has now been joined by a feeling of frustration that you just don't get him. And depending on how serious the underlying problem is, your flippant dismissal could really hurt.

Ignoring the person's concern by focusing on something else, like we did when we merely addressed a rule about being quiet, can make a person feel like they just don't matter. Reminding Gabe to enter the room quietly doesn't actually change his mind about the speeches. It hasn't taken any of the negative feelings away. And by completely ignoring his concern, we are telling him that his feelings just aren't important.

Ad hominem attacks, like the snide comment about Gabe complaining all the time, are another way of dismissing and delegitimizing the other person's viewpoint. When our students voice a concern and we accuse them of being insubordinate, asking "silly questions," or trying to stall or waste time, we are attacking them personally while avoiding the content of what they're saying. This response can be the most destructive: Not only does the person still feel the way they felt before, but now they have added a layer of resentment toward you.

In all of these cases, the other person has not learned anything new, you have not come to any new understandings or solved any problems, and you have very likely created new negative feelings. Keep repeating this cycle and you have the makings of a problem relationship.

In schools, where our business requires constant interaction with other people, conflicts and misunderstandings are always available to us. And they cause all kinds of problems: They disrupt instructional time, interfere with student understanding, escalate into major power struggles that lead to serious disciplinary action, and that's just the students. Among the adults in the building, unresolved disagreements create all kinds of inter-staff drama, lead to poor job satisfaction, and can ultimately end in teachers leaving their jobs.

Things go differently with validation. When people practice validating each other's feelings and opinions at the first sign of trouble, conflicts rarely escalate. Instead, they become conversations. They become opportunities to learn from each other.

How to Validate in Three Steps

Step 1: Reflect the Content

The most important thing to do is simply paraphrase the main thing the person is saying to you to make sure you understand. Doing this lets them know you're listening, and if you remove all sarcasm and "attitude" from your voice, you'll sound interested and curious, not judgmental.

In some cases, like with Gabe, you might have to start with a question like "What do you hate about speeches?"

Assuming he gives you some kind of an answer, like "I don't like being in front of all those people," then you'd just restate that. You might say, "So it's all the people watching that you don't like."

If the person's explanation is longer or more complicated, you might use phrases like these:

What I hear you saying is ________. Is that right?

Let me see if I'm understanding you right...

In other words, _____

Step 2: Acknowledge the Emotion

The other person will really feel heard if you can label the emotion they are describing, or ask a question to clarify the emotion. Here are some examples:

That sounds frustrating.

It sounds like you're feeling worried.

So you felt confused?

How did you feel about that?

With Gabe, you could simply say, "Speaking in front of people makes you uncomfortable." This reflects both the content and the emotion in one fell swoop.

Step 3: Communicate Acceptance

An important part of validation is letting the person know that you accept their feelings as they are. You may not feel the same way, and their feelings might create problems for you, but they are what they are. Try some of these phrases:

I can see why you'd feel that way.

A lot of people feel that way.

That's understandable.

It can be (upsetting, frustrating, nerve-racking, scary) when that happens.

Now if you strongly disagree with something a person is saying and you just can't bring yourself to accept it, try looking for the part you DO agree with, the part you can relate to. When arguing about a proposed new academic policy in school, for example, you might really dislike the idea itself, but you can start by saying that you also care very much about student success and you agree that the current system needs fixing.

In some cases, you might even need to think back to a time when you felt or believed the same thing as the person you're talking to. Even if you feel differently now, you can affirm that this feeling or belief is understandable from a certain perspective.

And Then?

Once you've done these three things-reflected the content, acknowledged the emotion, and communicated acceptance-what comes next? Sometimes, nothing at all. You might just end the conversation there, with the other person returning to their thoughts, finally released from defending their point of view and ready to move on to a place of deeper contemplation.

Or the person might keep talking about this thing that's bothering them-probably in a much calmer, more productive way-and all you have to do is listen quietly. They may arrive at their own solution without much need for your help.

At other times, you might need to continue to ask open-ended questions like, "Can you tell me more about that?" so the person can keep talking, and you might get to a new place of understanding on the issue.

Another thing that's likely to happen is that the person will start to acknowledge your position without you even having to ask for it. This isn't something you should expect, and you might have to introduce it on your own by saying something like, "Can I tell you how I see it?" But in a lot of cases, you're going to be surprised by how quickly the validated person wants to return the favor.

The Pushback: Why We Resist Validating

Despite the incredible effectiveness of reflective listening and validation, you might still not want to do it. Here are some likely objections:

I don't agree with the person, so I can't validate their opinion.

This is tough, because you're probably still trying to get your own point across. How on earth can you shift over to acknowledging their feelings? Validating another person's point of view is not the same as agreeing with them. You're just letting the person know you hear them.

Of course, it's important to make sure your words reflect that: If a student says, "I suck at math," you don't say, "Yeah you do." Instead, you could just restate their words as a question: "You don't think you're good at math?" This will prompt them to tell you more.

But their position ISN'T VALID. Why would I want to encourage it?

Remember that you're not agreeing, just restating and clarifying their position. And keep in mind that by acknowledging the part of it that is true and by letting the person know you clearly understand their position, you will actually help them cling less tightly to it. In other words, they may be more likely to see your point of view because they feel like they're dealing with a rational person who has taken the time to understand theirs.

This is all touchy-feely B.S. It's not me.

Okay, validation doesn't have to look and sound like you're in a therapist's office. You can develop your own style. It can sound tough, it can be quick, and it doesn't have to come with hugs and cupcakes if that's not who you are.

One of my CrossFit coaches, Donna, validates us all the time, and believe me, no one wants to mess with her. One time I was doing this really difficult stretch called a facing wall stretch, and she came over to basically tell me I was doing it wrong, that I needed to go lower, and so naturally I was whining about it. And she let me whine for a few seconds, then nodded at me and shouted, "CrossFit's hard, Jennifer!"

That was basically validation. It cracked me up and it renewed my resolve to try harder.

I have more important things to do. Why do I have to waste time with this stuff?

Here's the thing: If you make reflective listening and validation a regular part of your way of dealing with people, you will ultimately save yourself a TON of time.

Picture each conversation as a fork in a road. One path is the one where you argue, dismiss, or mock the other person's position. It's a loooonng road, full of continued back-and-forths, anger, and problems that build up over time, turning into much bigger and thornier issues. The other path is surprisingly short: It starts with a few minutes of reflective listening and validation, the other person feels heard, emotions stay at a reasonable pitch, and life goes on.

The problem is, people think the first path is shorter: You can quickly shut a person down with a withering comeback or silence them completely by just being loud and aggressive. But that person's opinion hasn't changed one bit. You haven't had nearly the influence you think you've had; they just feel what they're feeling even more strongly, and on top of it, now they think you're a jerk, too. You've just made the problem worse.

The thing to remember is that validation is not necessary in all interactions, but if you find yourself in frequent conflict with other people, it's definitely worth a try.

Sample Scenarios

A Student Behavior Problem

It's Thursday morning and my students are supposed to be reading silently for 10 minutes. I notice that Kendra has her book face down and is doodling on the cover of her notebook instead.

Now what I could do is give her some kind of behavior mark, or scold her, or just tell her to get back to reading. Or I could go over, squat down by her desk, and just say, in a completely neutral voice, "You're not reading. What's going on?"

Kendra might say, "It's confusing."

From there, I can reflect the content back to her, acknowledge her feelings, and communicate acceptance. I might say, "You're confused, and that makes it hard to read. I've definitely had that experience."

Then I can start helping Kendra solve the problem by saying, "Can you show me a place that confuses you?" From there, we can figure out how to get her unstuck, or maybe choose a different book.

If Kendra's problem was not actually the book at all, but a more significant problem like something going on at home, me taking a few minutes to talk to her could be incredibly valuable in helping her deal with that. Either way, we have avoided a negative interaction that could have spiraled into a much larger behavior issue if Kendra or I were in the wrong kind of mood.

A Colleague Issue

Tracy, who teaches in the classroom next door to mine, makes this comment to a group at lunch one day: "Well I just couldn't get my students to settle down this morning with all the noise coming from other rooms."

I'm pretty sure the "other room" she's referring to is mine, because my students were doing a really active group project that morning.

Now this is one of those situations that could easily turn into a bigger issue: I could pretend not to hear Tracy, since she wasn't directly addressing me, and just resent her for being passive aggressive. Quite possibly, I would shut myself into another teacher's room later and talk about Tracy behind her back.

Or I could get defensive and confront Tracy right there at the table, saying I didn't think my class was that noisy and maybe if she quit forcing her kids to sit still for 45 minutes, she'd have an easier time settling them down.

Okay I definitely wouldn't say that. I'm too much of a wimp. But I would think it.

A healthier, more productive approach would be to validate Tracy's concern.

Like I said, this isn't easy, but man, it could really make some significant changes in my relationship with Tracy. And the thing is, the main reason it isn't easy is because I'm preoccupied with defending myself, with being right. But if I can step back for just a moment and put myself in Tracy's shoes, to acknowledge that she really was frustrated, that I would probably have been frustrated, too, and that even though I didn't do it intentionally, I was partly to blame for this frustration, I can accept that and do something to repair it.

I could start by clarifying the situation, "Was the noise coming from my room?"

Assuming she says yes, I could say, "I'm so sorry. It's frustrating to try to get your kids focused when there are distractions."

That's all I'd really need to do. Tracy might not respond, or she might back off a little and add more information, maybe letting me know that the work she had students doing that day was admittedly kind of boring, or something along those lines. Regardless of what happens next, I've taken a step toward a better relationship with her, and a better understanding of how my actions impact others.

The Strength in Softening

Conflict with the people in our lives is inevitable. We want different things, we've had different life experiences. We just aren't going to see things the same way. Unfortunately, our natural instinct is to respond to these differences with rigidity, by pushing harder, protecting our own egos, digging in our heels. Some part of our brain tells us that this is the strong response.

But there can be a real strength in softening, in loosening our grip for a few minutes to take in some new information, to look at someone else's truth squarely in the eye and just let it into the room. It takes a lot more courage and self-control and self-confidence to do that. And almost every time, it softens the other person, too, opening them up to understanding you better.

That's when the real progress can begin. ♦

Come back for more.
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Listen to this post as a podcast: Sponsored by Kiddom and mysimpleshow I have a multiple-choice question for you. Suppose you're standing at your classroom door, greeting students as they arrive. One of them-let's call him Gabe-comes through and sees that on the daily agenda, you've written "Choose topics for speeches."

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OMG Becky. PD is Getting So Much Better!! | Cult of Pedagogy

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OMG Becky. PD is Getting So Much Better!! | Cult of Pedagogy

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Listen to this post as a podcast:
Sponsored by Pear Deck and Peergrade

I literally can't even wrap my head around all this stuff. Just a few days ago, I popped onto Twitter and asked people to share their ideas for alternative PD structures.

Holy cow.

As I put this together, the responses are still trickling in. I started down this path thinking that lots of districts were still stuck in a one-size-fits-all, sit-and-get, whole-school PD model, where the entire staff is herded into one room to listen to one expert talk. I've been the person on that stage, and even in the best of circumstances, I still get that uncomfortable feeling when I look out over the crowd and see the folded arms, the faces turned down to screens, the bouncing, bored feet. It sucks to be the presenter in those situations.

But evidently, that model is disappearing. Because person after person told me about all the innovative ways their schools and districts are reinventing professional learning for teachers. I've done my best to curate a good list of those ideas here, but honestly, it was like trying to drink from a fire hose. After a while, I just told myself I was going to have to stop collecting and just get the big ideas out there. If you really want to do a deep dive on any one of these, go to that Twitter thread and follow up with some of the people who shared their practices. (And if you haven't joined Twitter yet, read this.)

What I have for you is a list of 9 alternative models for teacher professional learning. All of these are being tried in different schools, some informally, and some are really well-developed at this point. Many schools are using a combination of them. It's just incredible. A feast, really. I'm so excited and encouraged to see so many schools willing to personalize learning for their teachers. Lately it has seemed that this is a really sucky time to be a teacher, but I'll tell you, if there's one thing that is actually getting better about teaching, I'm pleasantly surprised to say that thing is professional development.

1. Unconferences

How They Work

You might know these as EdCamps or TeachMeets, but the principle is the same: An unconference is a grassroots conference where the content is provided by the attendees themselves-not outside experts. It used to be that these were organized primarily as separate events from "official" school PD, but now administrators are bringing the model in-house to BE the actual PD.

Although there are variations, unconferences basically work this way:

1. A time and day are chosen, along with a venue (probably your school), where available rooms for sessions are identified.

2. Using a spreadsheet (a Google Sheet is ideal), the day is divided into short blocks of time. Sometimes these are just 20 minutes long, other times they may be up to an hour.

3. People volunteer to run sessions based on their areas of expertise or things they have learned: teaching methods, tech tools, etc.

Example

Klein Cain High School in Klein, Texas, hosted a PD Carnival that combined the structure of an unconference with a Halloween costume contest and carnival-style games at lunch. The day's organizers didn't have to add on these two things; they could have just had a regular unconference and the staff probably would have been happy just to have a different format. But the costume contest and games at lunch made memories for the staff and gave them a different opportunity to bond. These things matter: Giving staff and students opportunities to bond makes a huge difference in school culture; a lack of effort in this area can create the kind of school people want to leave.

English teacher Will Melvin shared the Genius Bar approach used by Central Bucks High School South in Warrington, PA: "Once a month teachers present mini-lessons to other teachers on different best practices. Each teacher rotates through 2-3 sessions and can engage with the teacher presenter to learn." Teachers sign up to present through a central OneNote notebook, then other teachers choose their sessions from that menu. Take a look at one schedule of sessions on formative assessment.

2. Intentional PLCs

How They Work

The concept of the professional learning community (PLC) has had wide interpretations, but in many places it has defaulted to a grade-level or content-based team. In some schools, however, teachers join PLCs with more deliberate intentions. When PLCs are chosen by teachers based on a shared interest or a mutual commitment to growth they get much better results.

Example

Pennsylvania's Gettysburg Area High School switched to themed PLCs this school year. The PLC focus areas were determined ahead of time by the principal-topics like formative assessment and hybrid teaching models-then teachers sign up for the one they want. PLCs then set their own goals and timelines for meeting them. Christina Godard, a reading specialist and special educator at the school, prefers this over the former one-size-fits-all model. "I enjoy having choice in professional development and the opportunity to develop it into what we need and will benefit us at the time."

Masterminds are small, intimate groups of educators that regularly meet in person or online to set goals, talk through problems, do book studies, and hold each other accountable for growth. Middle school principal Danny Bauer runs a number of masterminds online. Learn more about how educator masterminds work in my podcast interview with him.

3. Choice Boards

How They Work

Teachers are given a menu of PD options to choose from. Depending on their district, they may be required to complete a certain number of options within a certain period of time.

Examples

At Big Spring High School in Newville, PA, teachers choose one option from a Best Practice Group Choice Board-created this school year by instructional coach Niki Donato-and that one choice serves as their PD for the school year. Each option requires a twice a month time commitment of some sort, but there's lots of variety in how they spend that time. Principal Bill August says the staff has responded well so far "because it is timely and tied to their immediate planning and teaching. Also, it is an overhaul of what we were doing, which was far more whole group, one size fits all." As a coach, Donato sees a big difference this year. She used to meet with teachers in groups based on planning periods. "I felt as though I wasn't coming close to meeting their individual needs," she says. With this new model, she sees a whole new level of enthusiasm. "Many teachers talk about their instruction with me more than what is required."

At Westfield Middle School in Bloomingdale, IL, assistant principal Nicole Gabany and Instructional Technology Coach Nanci Greene introduced a DIY PD Bingo Board to their staff this year. The board contains lots of different choices for short learning activities. "I think a lot of our staff were doing some of these on their own," Gabany says, "but it was nice for them to recognize what they do independently and for us to see since they wouldn't always share those things." They created a whole-staff board where teachers would place dots on activities they'd completed, so they could see where they were as a school.

4. Personal Action Plans

How they Work

In this model, individual teachers set their own personal learning goals, along with a specific plan for reaching them. Often, there is also a plan for making their results public with colleagues.

Examples

Cohort 21 is a year-long professional development opportunity hosted by an association of independent schools in Ontario, Canada. In the program, teachers meet four times from October through April to design and implement personal action plans.

Many schools, like Noble Crossing Elementary in Noblesville, Indiana, have implemented their own teacher Genius Hour. Teachers are given regular time to pursue specific, teaching-related interests. "Topics are selected at the beginning of the year," says instructional coach Lauren Smith. "Then during our district early release days, in lieu of typical PD, teachers and staff have time to work toward their learning plan either independently or with a learning team. Throughout the process there is time to reflect and adjust learning plans or even topics. Some teachers and staff will either switch topics, or start a new topic if they feel their current project has run its course."

5. Voluntary Piloting

How it Works

Rather than requiring a whole school to adopt some new initiative, a small group of committed, interested teachers volunteers to take on the task of trying out the new approach.

Example

Krista Taylor and her colleagues at James N. Gamble Montessori High School in Cincinnati, OH, launched a voluntary piloting program to get better at differentiation strategies. In this post, she explains how the process worked and how much everyone involved benefitted from it: "Those of us in that original pilot group have achieved our original vision of classrooms where differentiation has become a norm," Taylor writes. "Meanwhile, other members of our faculty have followed our lead, and differentiation strategies are being implemented at different levels throughout our building."

6. Peer Observation

How it Works

Teachers take advantage of the best source of free professional development available: each other. By watching their own colleagues teach during classroom visits, teachers learn things they can immediately apply in their own work. If they have follow-up questions, the experts are right down the hall.

Examples

Using the Learning Walks model, small groups of teachers visit several classrooms in succession, observing with a particular lens. For example, they might be looking at student engagement or ratios of teacher talk to student talk. After each visit, the group debriefs about what they learned. Watch a learning walk in action in this Teaching Channel video.

Hundreds of schools have started using Pineapple Charts to learn and grow together. These central calendars advertise what's happening in classrooms all over the building, so teachers can pick and choose the ones that are most interesting to them, then just drop in for a visit. Learn more about Pineapple Charts in this post or search the #pineapplechart hashtag on Twitter.

In the U.K., Paul Garvey has developed the Talk for Teaching protocol, where teachers observe one another and debrief afterwards with the support of an instructional coach. This approach is explained in Garvey's book, Talk for Teaching: Rethinking Professional Development in Schools.

7. Microcredentials

How They Work

Teachers earn "badges" or microcredentials for completing challenges or learning pathways that have been created ahead of time, usually online.

Example

Lucas Gillispie, Director of Academic and Digital Learning for Surry County Schools in North Carolina created Epic Academy, a "game-inspired professional development program in digital learning." On the platform, teachers choose quests based on their interests. Within each quest, teachers complete tasks and unlock the next level of a quest until they reach mastery.

Teachers in Liberal USD 480 in Liberal, Kansas, can get their PD through a medal system on their district's Innovation Factory. This system of leveled challenges, where teachers all study the same topic but choose which level of difficulty to tackle, was created by instructional coach Virginia Duncan and technology integration coach Kate Piland. Check out this 4-level challenge on shifting student mindsets, which includes a combination of online and in-person learning, plus different choices for sharing your learning.

8. Blended Learning

How It Works

Taking advantage of all the great learning management systems available, some schools are offering some of their PD online. Teachers can do the required modules on their own time, then submit some sort of evidence of completion to get credit for the work. Staff may meet in person to debrief or they may be excused entirely from face-to-face meetings, depending on the requirements.

Example

Lynn Cashell, a teacher in Garnet Valley, PA, describes how her school uses a blended model using Schoology: "There are two courses posted in Schoology. As teachers complete the courses, we upload lessons or other required elements. Admin reviews (and grades) the work." If teachers choose not to do the course on their own time, they can also take it in person on the scheduled inservice day. This flexibility allows teachers to choose what works for them. "This allows us to come in late or leave early on District Inservice days as long as we have met the requirements," Cashell explains.

9. Lab Classrooms

How They Work

A host teacher demonstrates a strategy in his or her own classroom, with students, while visiting teachers observe. The process typically includes some pre-observation work, co-teaching with an instructional coach, and a debriefing after the observation. This article from ASCD's Educational Leadership explains how it works in more detail.

Example

Noble Crossing Elementary School in Noblesville, Indiana, has seen great results with lab classrooms. Instructional coach Lauren Smith says they offer two types: "mini" labs that are a half day and focus on a single skill, such as conferring in reading workshop, and day-long "mega" labs that focus on larger protocols, like a whole reading workshop. "Every teacher will have either experienced a mini or mega lab by the end of the school year," Smith says. "This form of PD has been well received from my colleagues and they have expressed seeing and doing an instructional strategy alongside their colleagues and actual students is one of the best forms of collaboration."

Carrie Alday, Director of Elementary Curriculum at Westfield Washington Schools in Westfield, Indiana, shared her school's Build-a-Labs model on Twitter. "You go in a classroom and someone can model a teaching strategy like a reading conference," she explains. "After the short model, the other teachers then grab a student and try out a reading conference right there. This can be used for lots of different purposes."

A Final Thought: Start Somewhere

If you are in a district that is stuck in a PD rut and you feel like there's no chance they'd ever be willing to try something new, I want to encourage you to have hope. Pass this along to the people in charge. And let them know that a complete overhaul is not necessary: Even trying one or two of these ideas on a small scale would be a great start.

If no one bites, try something yourself. Yes, you'll still have to sit through PD that feels irrelevant, but no one's stopping you from getting your own PD on top of what you're required to do. Find a small group of enthusiastic colleagues, pick an option, and just try it. If you get good results, share them with your staff. Sometimes all it takes is one brave person to stand up and say, Look everyone, I tried this, and it was good.

You can be that person. Go try something. ♦

Come back for more.
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OMG Becky. PD is Getting So Much Better!!

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Listen to this post as a podcast: Sponsored by Pear Deck and Peergrade I literally can't even wrap my head around all this stuff. Just a few days ago, I popped onto Twitter and asked people to share their ideas for alternative PD structures. Holy cow.

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Create a new presentation and edit with others at the same time. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Slides to edit PowerPoint files. Free from Google.

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The Healthy Skeptic - Blog | The Educator Collaborative Community

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The Healthy Skeptic - Blog | The Educator Collaborative Community

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Blog | The Educator Collaborative Community

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Soon, my next book will be published. I am proud of it, but also awfully nervous to see it fly off into the world. See, it's a little bit controversial. I am a die-hard Readers Workshop person. I believe in choice, and independence, and student centered teaching. That is my true north. And yet, in this book, I argue for the worth of the whole class novel, of every kid reading the same book for a chunk of time, some of the time. *

This was not where I thought I would be. As I began working with teachers around the country to develop engaging, rigorous, choice based reading workshops, I was asked continuously about the whole class novel. "Can I teach To Kill A Mockingbird/Because of Win Dixie/ insert favorite title here?"

I knew what to say, the reasons why many educators choose to avoid putting a whole class of kids in one text for a long period of time: engagement, volume of reading, text difficulty, personalized learning. I knew these reasons, and I still agree with almost all of them. What's more, my heroes mostly - if not only - spoke in this way, and I modeled myself after them. (Thank goodness, because I became so much better at teaching!)

This was my community. This was what my community said. And I agreed. Mostly.

But...

There was this other voice in my head and heart. This very quiet one, that was.... skeptical. Is it true that every whole class novel is un-engaging? Is it always true that being in a tough text will not teach you to read more powerfully? Is it ever worthwhile to read as a community, to read a text someone else chooses for you, one that you would never read on your own? How could it work better? Can we bridge the gap?

It is from here - from these skeptical questions, these "buts" - that I began to work in classrooms in new, scary ways that helped me to articulate one way we could consider using whole class texts in ways that keep readers at the center. It is from the skeptic that this book was born.

I believe in the power of healthy skepticism. I believe that while listening and learning is essential to growth, so is questioning, problematizing, and critiquing, particularly when everyone around you is jumping onboard. By listening to the "buts" in your heart - at your PD session, during that webinar, and as you read that professional book or tweet - I believe you serve three high ideals that better us all. When we are healthy skeptics we:

1. Push to make the work the best it can be.

2. Feel a sense of ownership and integrity over our own professional life.

3. Nurture the best in everyone around us.

I have so many of these "buts" in my head right now, as I'm sure you do too. Are templates always bad? Is Teachers Pay Teachers always the lazy way out? What about grammar instruction? I do not have the answers to these questions yet, but they are the beginning of future research, of hard work, of collaboration and practice and lots and lots of productive failure.

It is difficult to find this balance of healthy skepticism and open-mindedness. Too skeptical, too vocal, and we become that guy in the room - the one everyone cringes listening to at the staff meeting. We need to stay open, to think and mull, to find the right time and place for our questions. Too open and we find ourselves parroting back things a speaker said that we don't even know if we believe - it's just that she sounded so good saying it at that workshop and everyone else seems to agree so....

Here are a few ways we can nurture the healthy skeptic in all of us:

1. Listen critically, especially to the people you agree with.

This is hard. If you are like me, you have many professional "crushes," teachers who inspire you, fill you with energy and help you to see answers to tough questions in your practice. And yet when we like someone, we have to be particularly careful not to automatically nod along. I liked President Obama. But I did not like his drone program, his education policies, and many other moves I believed to be unproductive or abhorrent. Both can exist. I work to listen for the "buts" when I am listening to my heroes, not to tear them down, but to build me up.

We all have them: beliefs about teaching that we wear like a cloak into every encounter. I try to name mine so that I can be aware of the other "side." For example, my bias will always be for choice, and for skills and strategy instruction. By naming this as my bias I can pause when I find myself automatically disagreeing with someone to see whether I think they are wrong, or if they are simply presenting an alternate model or method of teaching - one that might have value and might make me better at what I do.

3. Constantly ask: Do I agree with that? Do I agree with all of it?

Rarely, of course, is it a question of all or nothing. More often I agree with that one part of what I learned but not that next part. Or I agree, but not with the intensity or absolutism surrounding the idea. An example: I have come to realize that I do not agree with always assessing a child's reading level and holding them to that level, and yet I also do not subscribe to never guiding kids to levels that they can read with strength. In the course of my career I have been at one extreme or another, but I am now in a place where my relationship with reading levels is close, but more flexible. It's important to break down the parts and levels of absolutism within arguments, methods, and models to see which resonate for us and which give us pause.

4. Search for a wide range of teachers.

As I began chasing down some of my questions about whole class novels, I began to read up on people whom I had avoided before, who I somehow had designated "against" what I believed. And, well, I disagreed with a lot of what I read. I even got angry. ( How can you honestly argue for the canon 2018?) But more importantly, I learned. These teachers, authors, and speakers pushed me, they made me smarter, they introduced me to ideas and practices that felt very true but that I had never given time to consider. By learning widely in our field, we can only get better.

5. Name what you truly believe in vs. what feels debatable.

As we study widely on our skeptical questions, some truths will emerge. I now believe very strongly, for example, that only teaching whole class novels - one novel for 8-10 weeks where the work is mostly content driven - is not good for most kids. I believe that independence - what kids are able to do without us - is everything in teaching. I believe that our curriculum must strive for relevance, engagement, and meaning. But then there are all of these other things that feel debatable. How long exactly should a whole class novel be? Not sure. How many skills should we focus on in a unit? Lots of possibilities. How much should kids write about their reading? Find what works for you. Developing my own non-negotiables - mine, not my administrator's - helps me to decide when I stand firm and when I play, and practice, and adapt.

Bonus: Find productive ways to enter into a dialogue.

There is nothing more distracting than the person who sits arms crossed for an entire workshop, peppering the speaker with questions that poke at possible holes in the argument, always bringing up the counterpoints. Even when they are right, it makes the work unproductive for the group, takes all momentum out of the air. Similarly, if my administrator is presenting a whole school focus on close reading, while they are standing in front of the school may not be the best time to bring up my very healthy skepticism. Instead, find productive times to offer up your questions, and be ready to debate. Most importantly, offer an action plan (I was thinking I could try it this way and see how it goes) to help your skepticism feel like more than complaining.

Of course, there are dangers to embracing your inner skeptic. People don't always enjoy pushback, and you may find striking the balance between being annoying and productively critical challenging. And yet if we aren't skeptical - of the new boxed curriculum at your gate, the "newest" thinking on the block, or even at the next PD workshop I am facilitating, we run the risk of allowing others to tell us how to teach. And when we do embrace our inner skeptic in healthy, productive ways, we are able to use the work of others to craft our careers with even greater depth, investment, and integrity.

Skeptics Unite!

*See my TheEdCollab Gathering presentation for more on my work with whole class novels right now: ( https://gathering.theeducatorcollaborative.com/session-one/session-1-workshop-1-balancing-whole-class-texts-with-choice-reading-in-the-purposeful-joyful-classroom-5-12/)

...and look for A Novel Approach: Whole Class Novels, Student-Centered Teaching and Choice, out February 2018 through Heinemann Publishing.

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The Healthy Skeptic - Blog | The Educator Collaborative Community

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Soon, my next book will be published. I am proud of it, but also awfully nervous to see it fly off into the world. See, it's a little bit controversial. I am a die-hard Readers Workshop person. I believe in choice, and independence, and student centered teaching. That is my true north.

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What Administrators Can Do to Promote a Reading Culture |

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What Administrators Can Do to Promote a Reading Culture |

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Dear administrators,

I have been pleading with teachers for a few years to please help students become passionate readers. I have given as many ideas as I could and directed toward the great minds that inspire me as well. I have begged at times, sharing the words of my students as proof that we teachers have an immense power when it comes to either nurturing a love of reading or killing it. There are so many things we teachers can do that will have a lasting effect.

And yet, it is not just the teachers that have an immense power over whether children will read or not. It turns out that much of that power also lies within the realm of administration. In fact, many of you that are doing incredible things to create schools that are seen as literacy communities that cherish the act of reading and becoming readers. What are they doing? What can you do to foster a love of reading school-wide?

You can believe in choice for all. That means protecting the rights of students to read the books they choose. To help staff support this as well by speaking about choice, and making sure not to put restrictive policies in place that will hinder a child from developing their own reading identity. That will stop a child from choosing a book they want to read. Teachers should not be the only ones choosing books for students, please don't put them in that position. Instead, they should be working with students to learn how to self-select great books based on many things, not just their levels!

You can buy books. Research shows again and again how vital having not only a well-stocked school library, but also a full classroom library, is to students becoming better readers. Students need books at their finger tips, not far away, and they need high quality, high interest books. That takes money, please help out in any way you can.

You can fight to have a librarian full-time in your building. Everywhere we are seeing libraries that have no librarians, yet a knowledgeable librarian can be the lifeblood of a reading community. I know budgets are being slashed, but the librarian should be seen as a necessity in schools, not as an unnecessary privilege.

You can celebrate books read. Not the number of minutes logged or the points gained in computer based reading programs. How about keeping a running tally of how many books students self-selected to read and then finished? How about you keep a display board of all of the picture books being shared in your school, yes, even in middle school and high school? Celebrate the right things, not the ones that can kill a love of reading.

You can protect the read aloud. When schedules are made there should be time placed for reading aloud. This should not be seen as a frill, nor as something that would be nice to fit in if only we had more time. All students at every age should encounter an adult that reads fluently with expression aloud to them every day. It develops their minds as readers and creates community. This should not just be reserved for special times in elementary school but should be protected throughout a child's reading experience in school.

You can promote independent reading time. Students reading silently is not time wasted, it is one of the most important investments we can make in our school day for any child, any age. If you want children to become better readers, then give them the time to read.

You can hire teachers that love reading. I am amazed that there are teachers who teach literacy in any capacity that do not identify themselves as readers. This should not be happening. Years of experience shows that students will read more if we read as well and are able to create a book community where our love of reading is a cornerstone of what we do. Even when I taught non-literacy subjects, even when I taught science, the fact that I read for my own pleasure meant that our conversations were deeper, more engaging, and the students trusted me as a reading role model.

You can use levels for books and not for children. Too often the levels that a child reads at becomes their entire reading identity. Yet, that level is meant to be a teacher's tool and not a child's label to quote Fountas and Pinnell. That level should be a part of that child's reading identity but not the thing that defines them. We should not have policies in place where students can only choose books that are at their levels, but instead have policies that promote exploration of texts so that students have a natural chance to figure out who they are as readers. Confining them, even if meant to be helpful, will hurt them in the long run.

You can have tough conversations. Part of my job as a teacher is to grow and learn and while I think that most of my ideas are solid, I wish an administrator would have questioned me when I had students do reading logs and forced book reports a few years back. While the push-back may be hard to swallow, it certainly would have made me think. However, within those tough conversations, please do listen to the teacher as well. What are they basing their decisions on? Perhaps they are the ones who are right, perhaps not, but ask the questions and keep the bigger goal in mind; students who like to read!
What else can you do to create a school where the love of reading flourishes?
You can be a guest read alouder.

You can have books in your office for students to read.

You can share your own reading life by displaying your titles outside your office.

You can make assemblies and other fun events celebrate literacy.

You can bring in authors.

You can promote reading literacy projects like The Global Read Aloud or Dot Day.

You can ask students what they are reading whenever you see them.

You can institute school-wide independent reading time.

You can stand up for poor literacy decisions being made within your district.

You can ask your teachers for ideas. You can ask your students what they need and then implement their wishes when possible.

You can send your teachers to professional development with the likes of Kylene Beers, Donalyn Miller, Penny Kittle, Kelly Gallagher and any other of the incredibly talented literacy experts that inspire us all.

There are so many things that fall within your realm, please help us teachers (like my principal Shannon Anderson does) protect the love of reading that students have and nurture it as we teach. You can choose to create passionate reading environments or you can support decisions that smother them. The choice is yours.
If you like what you read here, consider reading my book Passionate Learners - How to Engage and Empower Your Students. The 2nd edition and actual book-book (not just e-book!) comes out September 22nd from Routledge, but rumor has it that it is out on Kindle already!

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What Administrators Can Do to Promote a Reading Culture

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Dear administrators, I have been pleading with teachers for a few years to please help students become passionate readers. I have given as many ideas as I could and directed toward the great minds that inspire me as well. I have begged at times, sharing the words of my students as proof that we teachers...

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9 common-sense rules for getting the most out of meetings |

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9 common-sense rules for getting the most out of meetings |

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Veteran financier Ray Dalio has been in every kind of meeting: the good, the bad and the ugly. Here's how he keeps his meetings focused and productive.

In 1974, Ray Dalio founded the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, and it's now the world's largest, managing roughly $160 billion. Besides its financial success, Bridgewater has become known for creating a unique culture of radical truth and radical transparency. Here is Dalio's advice for how to run meetings that don't go off the rails.

1. Make it clear who is directing the meeting and who it is meant to serve. Every meeting should be aimed at achieving someone's goals; that person is the one responsible for the meeting and decides what they want to get out of it and how they will do so. Meetings without someone clearly responsible run a high risk of being directionless and unproductive.

2. Make clear what type of communication you are going to have in light of the objectives and priorities. If your goal is to have people with different opinions work through their differences to try to get closer to what is true and what to do about it (i.e., open-minded debate), you'll run your meeting differently than if its goal is to educate. Debating takes times, and that time increases exponentially depending on the number of people participating in the discussion, so you have to carefully choose the right people in the right numbers to suit the decision that needs to be made. In any discussion, try to limit the participation to those whom you value most in your objectives. The worst way to pick people is based on whether their conclusions align with yours. Group-think (people not asserting independent views) and solo-think (people being unreceptive to the thoughts of others) are both dangerous.

3. Lead the discussion by being assertive and open-minded. Reconciling different points of view can be difficult and time-consuming. It is up to the meeting leader to balance conflicting perspectives, push through impasses and decide how to spend time wisely. A common question I get is: What happens when someone inexperienced offers an opinion? If you're running the conversation, you should be weighing the potential cost in the time that it takes to explore their opinion versus the potential gain in being able to assess their thinking and gain a better understanding of what they're like. Exploring the views of people who are still building their track record can give you valuable insights into how they might handle new responsibilities. Time permitting, you should work through their reasoning with them so they can understand how they might be wrong. It's also your obligation to open-mindedly consider whether they're right.

4. Watch out for "topic slip." Topic slip is random drifting from topic to topic without achieving completion on any of them. One way to avoid is by tracking the conversation on a whiteboard so that everyone can see where you are.

5. Enforce the logic of conversations. People's emotions tend to heat up when there is a disagreement. Remain calm and analytical at all times; it is more difficult to shut down a logical exchange rather than an emotional one. Remember, too, that emotions can shade how people see reality. For example, people will sometimes say, "I feel like (something is true)" and proceed as though it's a fact, when other people may interpret the same situation differently. Ask them, "Is it true?" to ground the conversation in reality.

6. Be careful not to lose personal responsibility via group decision making. Too often, groups will make a decision to do something without assigning personal responsibilities, so it is not clear who is supposed to follow up by doing what. Be clear in assigning personal responsibilities.

7. Utilize the "two-minute rule" to avoid persistent interruptions. The two-minute rule specifies that you have to give someone that uninterrupted period to explain their thinking before jumping in with your own. This ensures everyone has time to fully crystallize and communicate their thoughts without worrying they will be misunderstood or drowned out by a louder voice.

8. Watch out for assertive "fast talkers." Fast talkers say things faster than they can be assessed, as a way of pushing their agenda past other people's examination or objections. Fast talking can be especially effective when it's used against people worried about appearing stupid - don't be one of those people. Recognize that it's your responsibility to make sense of things, and don't move on until you do. If you're feeling pressured, say something like, "Sorry for being stupid, but I'm going to need to slow you down so I can make sense of what you're saying." Then, ask your questions. All of them.

9. Achieve completion in conversations. The main purpose of a discussion is to achieve completion and get in sync, which leads to decisions and/or actions. Conversations that fail to reach completion are a waste of time. When there is an exchange of ideas, it is important to end it by stating the conclusions. If there is agreement, say it; if not, say that. When further action has been decided, get those tasks on a to-do list, assign people to do them, and specify due dates. Write down your conclusions, working theories and to-do's in places that will lead to their being used as foundations for continued progress. To make sure this happens, assign someone to make sure notes are taken and follow-through occurs.

Excerpted from the new book Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio. Copyright © 2017 by Ray Dalio. Used with permission of Simon & Schuster, New York. All rights reserved.

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9 common-sense rules for getting the most out of meetings

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In 1974, Ray Dalio founded the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, and it's now the world's largest, managing roughly $160 billion. Besides its financial success, Bridgewater has become known for creating a unique culture of radical truth and radical transparency. Here is Dalio's advice for how to run meetings that don't go off the rails.

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Teacher as Researcher: The Ultimate Professional Development | Edutopia

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Teacher as Researcher: The Ultimate Professional Development | Edutopia

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Teacher researchers pause each morning as they walk into their classrooms and ask, "What will my students teach me today?" To answer that question, they listen to and watch their students engage in authentic work; collect work samples, photographs, and transcripts to document what their students say and do; and use that information to evolve their practice as they celebrate and support the voices and experiences of the children they teach. In this sense, teacher researchers are innovators, curriculum drivers, agents of school change, and directors of their own professional development.

Support and Growth

As a doctoral student, I participated on the Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum Teacher Researcher Team led by Jane Hansen, Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia and Reading Hall of Fame Member. For years, in preparation for our teacher research team meetings, I selected a piece of student writing that spoke to me. It would be a piece that made me scratch my head and ask, "What can I learn as a writer and teacher of writing from this young author?" or "What do I need to do next to support her growth?" I would capture these contemplations in a one-pager. That one-pager was exactly that, one page, and its content was reflective of my immediate classroom experience. During our small group meetings, every teacher researcher brought her one-pager, shared her contemplations, and elicited response from her team. We met weekly for one and a half hours. We took our work and time together seriously, because we had an internal charge to grow.

Diversity is essential in creating strong and dynamic teacher research teams. Each year our six- to eight-member group spanned across ages, gender, years of experience, grades, and content areas. Difference expanded the vocabulary of the room. As we heard our fellow researchers use new words and frameworks to discuss their experiences, we began to internalize those new ways of thinking, and thus pushed our own understandings of who and how we teach. Coming to know students as individuals and opening spaces for them to grow in their own directions is difficult work. Teachers' voices and contemplations need support. That is what teacher research teams do; they provide a place to lean and space to explore and expand.

The Best Tools

I have three primary tools that I use as a teacher researcher:

1. My first tool is my spiral notebook. Here I jot notes while I conference with students, tape in samples of their work, and record insights and observations. Each evening, I reflect on my notes and use them to plan for tomorrow.

2. My second tool is my iPhone. Throughout the day, I take pictures and videos of my students' writing samples, projects, and engineering feats. I often interview them as they share their innovative thinking. These visuals sometimes go in my spiral notebook, sometimes in my Evernote app, and often on my blog to parents. I also use them when I share my students' thinking and creations at our research team meetings and when I present at conferences or write about my practice. The visuals serve as an outward product of our classroom's evolution.

3. My third and most important tool is my teacher research team. These colleagues focus me and serve as a sounding board and support network for my contemplations in the classroom.

Tapping Into the Power

The initial power of being a teacher researcher illuminates as you live the classroom life beside your students and realize that they have much to teach you. As you start to listen and record their thinking, you are amazed at the work that is happening in your room. Because of your amazement, you begin to more purposely structure your classroom to meet your students' needs. And because of that new structure, your students' learning is intensified, and their talk and work starts to surpass your own expectations. That power of being a teacher researcher is then clarified and intensified as you sit and discuss your observations and insights with your own teacher research team and receive their response.

Today, I am a classroom teacher and the research coach for our Saints Action Research team, part of our school's Center for the Study of Boys. In that role, I lead a team of seven teacher researchers who teach across grade levels and content areas, researching the work that gets done in their classroom, on the field, and in the studio.

This year I challenge you to join (or perhaps start) a teacher research team. Invite the experiences in your classroom, the questions in your head, and the support of your team to become your most powerful professional development. After all, the most effective curriculum is the one that follows the students, and the most successful professional development is the one that grows from the questions in your classroom.

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Teacher as Researcher: The Ultimate Professional Development

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Teacher researchers pause each morning as they walk into their classrooms and ask, "What will my students teach me today?" To answer that question, they listen to and watch their students engage in authentic work; collect work samples, photographs, and transcripts to document what their students say and do; and use that information to evolve their practice as they celebrate and support the voices and experiences of the children they teach.

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7 Coaching Myths That Are Keeping You From Being A Better Leader

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7 Coaching Myths That Are Keeping You From Being A Better Leader

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There's a lot of talk these days about executives integrating coaching into their leadership style to establish a coaching culture within their organizations. Recently, I've been curious about what actually makes an effective coach.

A friend connected me to a pioneer in the field of building coaching cultures, Cylient CEO Dianna Anderson, to understand what coaching-based leadership really is.Dianna says, "Coaching can be a bit like love. You think you know what it is until you experience the real deal, and then you may realize it wasn't what you thought it was."

The hallmark of coaching as a leadership style is the igniting of insight in day-to-day conversations, which enables people to learn from their experiences "in the moment." That kind of coaching builds confidence, encourages people to become more resilient, and energizes them to take action and continue learning. That's why coaching-based leadership is the foundation of a coaching culture.

Unfortunately, all too often, "coaching" is practiced in ways that produce the opposite results. When coaching is done poorly, it can leave people feeling bruised, used, and disenchanted. The true value of coaching cultures won't be realized when coaching is practiced in these limiting ways. That's why it's essential to understand what coaching really is - and what it isn't.

Having been in the field of coaching since its infancy, Dianna has identified the seven most pervasive myths about coaching as a leadership style. She shared these myths with me, along with the real story behind the misconceptions.
1. Myth: If I'm asking questions, I'm coaching.
Not all questions are created equal. Consider leading questions that direct people to do what you want them to do, such as, "Don't you think that if you did it this way, it would be better?" Or even questions that are intended to gather enough information so you can tell the person what to do, such as, "What are all of the contributing factors to this problem?"

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7 Coaching Myths That Are Keeping You From Being A Better Leader

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There's a lot of talk these days about executives integrating coaching into their leadership style to establish a coaching culture within their organizations. Recently, I've been curious about what actually makes an effective coach.

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Heinemann Fellow Katie Charner-Laird on Questions of Leadership | Heinemann Blog

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Heinemann Fellow Katie Charner-Laird on Questions of Leadership | Heinemann Blog

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What does it really mean to be an instructional leader?

Ever since I was in graduate school, studying to become a principal, this was the lingo of the great leader-be an instructional leader. At first I thought this meant I had to be the best teacher in the building, and when I walked into classrooms, I might show a teacher a few moves. But every time I went into a classroom that was "someone else's classroom" (who, by the way, I was also in charge of evaluating), getting up and interrupting the teacher's lesson with my own brilliant ideas never seemed like the right move. Over the next eight years, I often wondered whether I was being an instructional leader. If this is the gold standard of being a principal, of course that is what I was aiming for, but how was I to know if I had gotten there?

I am discovering that being an instructional leader is NOT about being the best teacher in the building but about being a leader who is unendingly engaged in thinking about how children learn. I have the greatest impact as an instructional leader when I am curious, asking questions about how children learn. Perhaps being an instructional leader is not about knowing it all, but is about wondering.

As the principal of the Cambridgeport School, I have always been a literacy leader. Teachers know I was a literacy coach and often come to me with questions, wonderings, and observations about literacy teaching. During my first year as the principal, I brought the staff together throughout the year to ask questions about our writing instruction. What do we think high-quality work looks like in second grade, and how does this lay the foundation for high-quality writing in fifth grade? I asked questions about how children use the resources in front of them. I asked questions about how teachers were conferring with children. It seemed that each question I asked led to deep, important conversations and ultimately to teachers reflecting on and adjusting their practice.

But this level of deep thinking and questioning about how children learn best was not present in our conversations about math.

The conversations about math teaching and the questions I was asking were about compliance-are we using the right curriculum? Are we on the right pace? Are our students doing well enough on the assessments? Occasionally someone might get excited about exploring an actual math teaching practice-maybe how to engage students in problem solving-but this didn't last. I didn't support it as the instructional leader in the school. I had never put children's joy, enthusiasm, and agency in math at the front and center of my work, so it is no wonder teachers in my school hadn't either.

In my first year as a Heinemann Fellow, I designed an action research plan alongside a third-grade teacher. My goal in the plan was to encourage our students to be engaged, enthusiastic, self-directed mathematicians. Working side by side with a teacher helped me see the kinds of questions I wanted to be asking all teachers about math instruction in their classrooms. What are the big ideas in this unit? What games might reinforce these ideas? What are the different ways to model these ideas with manipulatives? What choices might we provide to allow students to engage with these big ideas? If we listen in on student conversations while they do math, which students are doing the heavy thinking work? How do we get all students doing this heavy thinking work? My work with this teacher and the questions I began to ask of other teachers seemed to inspire teachers across the school to take a closer look at their math teaching practices.

By the end of my first year as a Fellow, we had not really moved the needle significantly on the achievement and agency of the third graders in the classroom I was teaching (and we certainly came away with some new things to try). However, over three-quarters of the teachers in the school reported in a survey at the end of the year that they were more enthusiastic about teaching math than they had been in the past. Might this have had something to do with the kinds of questions that I, as an instructional leader, had been asking?

I am an asker of questions. It's what I do best. I can't turn it off. So I need to make sure the questions I am asking move the work forward in my school. Last year I started asking, "how do we, as a school, shift our thinking about math so that teachers and children can become joyful, enthusiastic, lifelong mathematicians?" And just asking that question in every aspect of what I do seems to be making a difference. We have an instructional leadership team that meets twice a month-this question has been the foundation of all our work this past year. We have an annual math night for families and children-this is another place to ask that question. Is the math at math night truly joyful? Does it sustain enthusiasm within children so they want to do more of it at home with their families? When we look carefully at assessment data, and find that some students need more support in learning math concepts, I ask,how do we do this in a way that does not take away agency and allows these children to still be enthusiastic mathematicians?

This year I will explore my own questions in a more intentional way. I will look at each move I make with teachers and each question I ask about their math instruction to see how these very interactions can shift how teachers in the school think about math and, thus, how our children think about and engage with mathematical ideas. I no longer think being an instructional leader really has anything to do with being "the best teacher." Rather, it's about being deeply curious about teaching and learning and bringing that curiosity to work every day in order to ask questions that shift teaching and learning.

Katie Charner-Laird is principal at Cambridgeport School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Katie views her role as an instructional leader, spending large amounts of time in the classroom because "There is no perfect lesson. There is only a lesson that perfectly matches the needs of the students." Recently, Katie has worked to create an approach for teachers to be in one another's classrooms, engaging in what her school calls "collaborative observation."

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Heinemann Fellow Katie Charner-Laird on Questions of Leadership

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What does it really mean to be an instructional leader? Ever since I was in graduate school, studying to become a principal, this was the lingo of the great leader-be an instructional leader. At first I thought this meant I had to be the best teacher in the building, and when I walked into classrooms, I might show a teacher a few moves.

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Power to the People; Can Teacher Coaching be viewed as a form of Transformational Leadership? | BERA

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Power to the People; Can Teacher Coaching be viewed as a form of Transformational Leadership? | BERA

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There is something both alluring and disquieting about theories which can be summed up as a catchy combination of letters and numbers. They create a hook, something which we can engage with, may recall more readily and perhaps therefore start to exploit in our busy professional lives. Teachers may be familiar with the '4 "R"s' of Guy Claxton's Building Learning Power; Resilience, Resourcefulness, Reciprocity, Reflection, or perhaps with the '4 "C"s' underpinning the pedagogic approach of Philosophy for Children; Caring, Collaborative, Critical, Creative. For some these are a powerful shorthand, for others they are overwrought clichés. Recently I was introduced to another one, this time on an academic leadership programme. Wait for it, yes there are four of them, and this time they are the '4 "I"s of Transformational Leadership identified as:

Individualised consideration

Intellectual stimulation

Idealised influence

Inspirational motivation

We were asked to reflect upon different models of leadership. It was suggested that rather than be 'transactional' leaders we should be 'transformational' leaders. Transactional leadership was summarised in a way that we recognised as managerial; holding people to account against criteria they were unlikely to feel ownership over and holding fast to hierarchical rules of engagement. Transformational leadership was first coined by building on the work of Burns. Both men were researching and reflecting on observable qualities of successful leaders in the US political and business contexts of the 1970's and 1980's. On the leadership programme it was proposed that 'transformational' was something to aspire to, and to nail it as a concept it had the magic formula of the '4 "I"s'. Clearly this was the true path. And yes - my immediate response was of sly cynicism and I wondered whose eye I might catch amongst my fellow academic leaders. Then I realised that the '4 "I"s' were begging for my attention, they were the hook and I was dangling on the line. But wait, I was again distracted, not by the alignment of the transformational leadership model with my own ambitions as a leader, but by their resonance with my work on teacher peer coaching. The '4 "I's' seemed to offer a frame through which good teacher coaching, and the school culture that supports and is constructed by it, can be viewed. I had recently led a workshop and written a about the relationships between coaching and leadership, perhaps what I had been missing was the concept of transformational leadership.

My work on coaching in schools (both research and practitioner engagement) always throws a spotlight on its limitations and its potential to clash with performative cultures as I illustrated in an earlier BERA blog post. That same work, however, offers an equally powerful narrative of hopeful optimism. We know that where coaching is working well, often between peers, and frequently supported by a sustained coaching development programme it creates a different sort of collaborative professional space than is often experienced by teachers in episodes of training and performance management. Uncannily the '4 I"s' of transformational leadership describe the characteristics of the best of these spaces.

Coaching conversations have impact when they offer 'intellectual stimulation'

Coaching can create a genuine opportunity for 'individualised consideration'. Teachers are invited to share concerns and areas of interest emerging from their own practice and a good coach will work from that platform rather than from an imposed agenda. This is critical in building and sustaining the buy-in and trust that means that teachers and coaches will work around some of their workload to give time for coaching. Coaching conversations have impact when they offer 'intellectual stimulation'. These are neither cosy chats nor dogmatic instructional transactions. Within a coaching conversation there are opportunities for both participants to experience challenge, to engage constructively with knowledge from multiple sources and grow their capacity to make decisions appropriate to the complexities of their teaching roles. And then of course there is the crucial question of professional credibility. Few people will accept coaching from someone who they judge unlikely to be able to walk the talk, instead they want a coach who offers 'idealised influence'. Finally hardworking teachers are looking to share a sense of hopeful enthusiasm (not naïve goal sharing). Effective coaches can encourage colleagues to raise their game by building optimism and thus providing 'inspirational motivation'.

So now I am paying more attention to the '4 "I"s' as I think they offer a route to building an experience of professional solidarity, and I think they reinforce how coaching can give 'power to the people'.

Dr Rachel Lofthouse is the Head of Education in the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences at Newcastle University. She is also partnership development director for the Research Centre for Learning and Teaching (CfLaT). She has a specific interest in professional learning for teachers and educators, based on innovative pedagogies and curriculum design and practices for coaching and mentoring. These support her learners in building their workplace expertise while developing critical reflection and their ability to contribute to, and draw productively on, the evidence base for teaching and learning. She works with student teachers and their school-based mentors, fulltime teachers as part-time Master's students, international postgraduate students and school leaders. Rachel has published in peer-reviewed journals on the subjects of coaching and mentoring, the innovative use of video to support practice development, practitioner enquiry and professional learning.

You can find more information at http://www.ncl.ac.uk/ecls/staff/profile/rachel.lofthouse.

You can follow Rachel on twitter @DrRLofthouse

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Power to the People; Can Teacher Coaching be viewed as a form of Transformational Leadership?

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There is something both alluring and disquieting about theories which can be summed up as a catchy combination of letters and numbers. They create a hook, something which we can engage with, may recall more readily and perhaps therefore start to exploit in our busy professional lives.

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Guest post: The Stretch – Your Instructional Coach

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Guest post: The Stretch – Your Instructional Coach

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What?

The work of an instructional coach often involves helping a teacher or administrator stretch beyond their present abilities enough to grow and develop new skills. The really tricky part is to apply just enough pressure to move the needle without a blowout.

This was more than evident during one of my first coaching sessions with a young alternative certification intern. Brilliant guy. Not handling his stress very well. Enter the new instructional coach. Boom! Too much pressure, way too soon.

So this got me thinking about rubber bands and I discovered some interesting connections to the work I am doing as a new instructional coach. Here are some of my conclusions.

Fact: Rubber bands are sensitive things. Treat one badly and the effect is evident. You've seen the kind of rubber bands I'm talking about. The kind that have spent a month or so in the sun, or allowed to dry up, losing much of their elasticity. Maybe you've even abused one or two in your lifetime.

Corollary: After nearly 20 years in the classroom, I get how much stress and strain some teachers are under. Some are drying up and losing their elasticity. As a coach, I can't fix that, but I can empathize and take it into account. I also have to assume that it is there, waiting like a tiger in the dark. I don't want to be part of what causes them to snap.

Fact: Rubber gets hot when stretched. According to Scientific American , when a rubber band is stretched, it produces heat. In fact, you can stretch a rubber band and hold it - still stretched - to your face and you will feel a slight warming of the rubber band. Release the rubber band and it will return to its original temperature.

Corollary: Coaching is hot work. Working to develop new skills in a teacher or administrator can produce a similar rise in temperature - at least metaphorically - resulting in a higher degree of stress. Releasing the stress will also lower the metaphorical temperature.

Fact: Even when stretched, a rubber band will eventually cool down. Holding a stretched rubber band in position until it naturally returns to normal temperature while still stretched will alter the shape of the band permanently. For example, a rubber band wrapped around a folded newspaper for a period of time will heat up, cool down, and then be permanently stretched out of its original shape. It will be slightly bigger.

Corollary: As a coach, I have to stretch my coachee beyond his or her normal "shape" and hold the pressure on just long enough that when things "cool" down, the new skill level is retained, resulting in a slightly new and improved model of teaching or leading. Part of my growth as an instructional coach is learning just how long to keep the pressure on so that I don't "snap" the coachee.

I saw this first hand in one of my first coaching assignments, I stretched a little too far and held on a little too long and had to spend some time helping my coachee put it back together before we could continue the coaching process.

Fact: If I do not stretch the rubber band enough, it won't heat up enough so that when it cools the shape is permanently altered.

Corollary: When working with a teacher or administrator, one might be tempted to take an "easier" route to a desired growth point out of fear of stretching too far. It's not exactly about "no pain, no gain", but if I don't take my coachee far enough out of their comfort zone to experience the win that comes from improved ability, they will not be as likely to expand enough to ensure permanent change.

The sensitivity to know how much is enough and how much is too far is part of the art of instructional coaching. Consider this graphic and the sensitivity required to measure the state of your coachee.

In his book, Get Better Faster , Paul Bambrick-Santoyo writes that "Teaching is a performance profession...Just like the soccer player going for the goal, the actor delivering the monologue, and the surgeon performing an emergency operation, teachers have to deliver excellent instruction live...modifying it swiftly and surely in response to whatever challenges or triumphs the students bring to the classroom that day." (p. 25)

Coaching for peak performance requires growth and is going to generate some heat. Coaching is hot work.

About our Guest Author: Dr. Harrison McCoy brings nearly 20 years of classroom and administrative experience to his new position at Texas' Education Service Center Region 11 in Fort Worth, where he is a new Instructional Content Coach. In that role, he supports teachers and administrators in their campus improvement strategies in the service center's more than 75 school district region. Professionally, he enjoys connecting with educators at a global level, blogging and creating amazing learning experiences for teachers and students.

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Being an instructional coach has a lot in common with rubber bands. What? The work of an instructional coach often involves helping a teacher or administrator stretch beyond their present abilities enough to grow and develop new skills. The really tricky part is to apply just enough pressure to move the needle without a blowout....

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10 Characteristics of Professional Learning That Shifts Practice – KATIE MARTIN

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10 Characteristics of Professional Learning That Shifts Practice – KATIE MARTIN

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Across diverse districts I have asked teachers how they like to learn and what they want out of their professional learning opportunities. Over and over I hear the same kinds of responses and wishes for how they could learn. There is a deep desire to develop their practice, not just be talked to but be inspired, valued, and pushed to take their practice to the next level. To help teachers shift their practices and make learning experiences for their students the best they can be, these are the desired characteristics of professional learning that shifts practices:

Purposeful- There is nothing worse than sitting through a meeting without having a clear understanding of what the purpose is for the meeting or what you are supposed to do with the information. Clearly defining the purpose of learning and how it connects to the larger vision is critical.

Goal-oriented- Second to not understanding the purpose is working on a task without and clear understanding of the desired outcome or goal. This is an easy oversight but makes a huge difference if all stakeholders develop a shared understanding of the common goal and structure the time and activities to meet them.

Inquiry-based- Inevitably, when learners are posing questions and seeking answers, they are more invested than if they are being told what to think or do. Structure professional learning to allow for educators, as professionals, to question, observe and find resources and create new solutions to solve the problems they are facing.

Applicable- Too often for the sake of "convenience" we mandate professional development for all when it only pertains to a few. Ensure that the learning is connected to the content, experience, and resources of those in the rooms and connects the students they serve.

Safe- Creating an environment where teachers have permission and feel encouraged to take risks in pursuit of learning and growth rather than perfections is absolutely foundational to shifting practices.

Models- To teach in new ways, teachers have to have models and experience learning in new ways to visualize new and different possibilities.

Learner-centered- Focus on teachers as learners and connect to their beliefs about teaching and learning. Teachers have to begin as learners themselves and engage in desired learning experiences to understand the resources and opportunities available for their students.

Collaborative- Creating opportunities for educators to work together allows for new and better ideas to emerge. When we are exposed to diverse ideas and perspectives, we grow in our own practice and impact others as well.

These 10 characteristics likely do not come as a surprise as they align with much of what we know about the power of purpose, motivation, and empowerment in learning. The problem is that they so rarely represent how teachers learn despite what we know. Why?! Well, most often because it requires leaders and designers of these experiences to trust the learners, be flexible to meet their needs, allow for diverse pathways and be open to new ideas. Often pressed for time and trying to fit it all in, many take short cuts to ensure that they have covered it all rather that engage in deep learning. Another challenge is that many have not truly experienced this type of learning in their formal education, which makes it hard to imagine how to create new and better experiences. Without new models, people tend to revert back and recreate their own experiences.

One step that many districts and individual schools are taking is moving from one large session and allowing learners choice in a variety of sessions. This is a good start but if we continue to perpetuate the same type of learning experiences in each of the choice sessions we are not doing enough. There is a time and place for learning new information, we need to gather new ideas through reading, listening and observing but we also must allow learners to make sense of what they are learning. If we never create the space for teachers to learn, synthesize ideas, and put the new ideas into practice, we will not see the impact of the new learning translate to better outcomes for students.

This is the first of 5 part series on the 10 Characteristics of Professional Learning that Shifts Practice. Check out the rest of the series:
Purposeful Professional Learning- Part 1 Meaningful Problem Solving- Part 2 Moving from Planning to Action- Part 3 Creating Safe Learning Environments - Part 4 Create Your Own Adventure- Part 5

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10 Characteristics of Professional Learning That Shifts Practice

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Across diverse districts I have asked teachers how they like to learn and what they want out of their professional learning opportunities. Over and over I hear the same kinds of responses and wishes for how they could learn.