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Check out Daniel's recent article in Educational Leadership: http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/apr15/vol72/num07/The-Case-for-Protocols.aspx

Daniel R. Venables is an education consultant and founding director of the Center for Authentic PLCs. He is the author of The Practice of Authentic PLCs: A Guide to Effective Teacher Teams (Corwin, 2011), and How Teachers Can Turn Data Into Action (ASCD, 2014), which are the guiding works behind the Center's efforts to assist schools nationwide to develop, lead, and sustain high-functioning, authentic PLCs.

Mr. Venables' experiences in education as an award-winning classroom teacher, as a speaker and consultant, and as a professional development coordinator with our nation's 18th largest district, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, span more than thirty years. He has spent 24 years as a classroom teacher in both public and independent schools in South Carolina, North Carolina and Connecticut, serving as a department chair for eighteen of those years. In 1993-1994, he was trained as a Math/Science Fellow with the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES), where he began his experience with CFGs (Critical Friends Groups) and PLCs. Since that time, he has helped a wide range of schools across the U.S. develop high-functioning teacher teams. In 2002, he was awarded South Carolina Independent School Teacher of the Year. In 2014, he was invited to be a member of ASCD's prestigious National Faculty for Professional Learning.

His presentation style is energetic, humorous, and intelligent and his message is practical. Whether presenting at national conferences or offering on-going, site-based assistance to individual schools, he is always well-received by teachers.

At the heart of it, Daniel cares deeply for kids, their teachers, and the work that authentic Professional Learning Communities can do to make a real impact in how much and how many kids learn. He can be reached at dvenables@authenticPLCs.com.

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Facilitating Teacher Teams and Authentic PLCs: The Human Side of Leading People, Protocols, and Practices: The Human Side of Leading People, Protocols, and Practices

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Facilitating Teacher Teams and Authentic PLCs: The Human Side of Leading People, Protocols, and Practices: The Human Side of Leading People, Protocols, and Practices [Venables, Daniel R.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers.

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In 6 Tools for Collaborative Mathematics Coaching , Nicora Placa lays out a clear path to help you become a trusted and effective math coach. Her "6 Tools" are flexible structures that you and your colleagues can use to learn together:

1. Building Teams: Fostering a Learning Community

2. Student Interviews: Learning to Listen

3. Visiting Classrooms: Developing Your Lens

4. Learning Walks: Focusing the Team on Students' Thinking

5. Rehearsing Routines: Practicing with Colleagues

6. Lesson Study: Learning Collectively with Voice, Choice, and Agency

In this easy-to-use, practical guide, Placa introduces each of the 6 Tools with classroom vignettes, step-by-step guidelines for rollout, connections to the literature, resources for further research, planning templates, and opportunities for you to adapt the tool for your particular context.

Whether you're a new coach who loves teaching math to children but is new to adult education, or a more experienced coach who is looking for new strategies to engage your teams, 6 Tools for Collaborative Mathematics Coaching can help you create learning opportunities that honor teachers as professionals. With a collaborative coaching approach, you can improve teaching and learning across your school and for all your students.

"There's so much to love about how 6 Tools is constructed." ― Elham Kazemi

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6 Tools for Collaborative Mathematics Coaching

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6 Tools for Collaborative Mathematics Coaching [Placa, Nicora] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. 6 Tools for Collaborative Mathematics Coaching

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ICG Books | The Instructional Playbook: The Missing Link for Translating Research into Practice

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Providing resources for teachers to help implement new teaching strategies is an essential part of an instructional coach's work, and an instructional playbook can be one of the most effective tools to ensure that teachers reach the goals they set with their coach.

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Our resources are designed to assist coaches, principals, teachers, and leaders in the furthering of their professional development.

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Teacher-coach collaboration is critical to teacher effectiveness and student learning, but sometimes the in-the-moment response rate required when supporting several teacher requests at once can make literacy coaching appear to be, well, rather random.

No More Random Acts of Literacy Coaching looks at the common obstacles and misconceptions that can prevent effective coaching, and offers strategies that literacy coaches, teachers, and principals can employ to make wise use of their time together. The authors offer practical steps to create a climate of positive professional learning that include:

Providing responsive coaching in varied settings

Identifying coaching activities that have the greatest impact

Matching goals and priorities to coaching cycles

Honoring teachers as co-designers of the work.

When literacy coaching is intentional, carefully planned, and a collaborative team effort with teachers and principals, the results are dramatic. Student literacy growth increases, and the number of students needing intervention decreases. Learn how your team can work together to accelerate student success.

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No More Random Acts of Literacy Coaching

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Improving teacher-coach collaboration with intentional, carefully planned coaching cycles. - Heinemann

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Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive.

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The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious & Change the Way You Lead Forever

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The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay... by Bungay Stanier, Michael

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The role of an instructional coach is fundamental. The personalized, job-embedded professional development, instructional strategies, and targeted feedback you give to teachers helps them hone their craft. Your work impacts student success and school improvement. If you’ve got questions, this guidebook is for you.

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Laurie Elish-Piper, PhD, is Acting Dean of the College of Education at Northern Illinois University, where she also holds the titles of Distinguished Teaching Professor and Presidential Engagement Professor in the Department of Literacy and Elementary Education. Her research and teaching focus on literacy leadership and coaching, and she has published and presented widely on literacy coaching at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Dr. Elish-Piper has worked extensively with school districts to develop and implement literacy coaching programs, and she teaches graduate courses related to literacy coaching and leadership. She has coauthored eight books, including The Common Core Coaching Book (with Susan K. L'Allier). Formerly, she worked as a middle school reading and language arts teacher and an educational therapist in a clinical setting.

Susan K. L'Allier, EdD, is Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Reading Program in the Department of Literacy and Elementary Education at Northern Illinois University. She and Laurie Elish-Piper have conducted multiple research studies to examine the relationship between literacy coaching and student literacy achievement. In addition to their journal articles, chapters, and presentations about literacy coaching, they have also published a video "workshop in a box" titled The Literacy Coaching Series, which enables viewers to see and analyze interactions between literacy coaches and teachers. Formerly, Dr. L'Allier worked as an elementary teacher, a lead teacher, and a principal.

Michael Manderino, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Literacy and Elementary Education at Northern Illinois University. He has presented widely with Laurie Elish-Piper, Susan K. L'Allier, and Paula Di Domenico on disciplinary literacy coaching at the secondary level. He coauthored a book on content-area learning and has published articles on disciplinary literacy in leading journals. He received dissertation awards from the Literacy Research Association and the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers. Dr. Manderino also works closely with school districts to implement disciplinary literacy in the curriculum and teaches undergraduate and graduate courses related to disciplinary literacy. Formerly, he was a high school history teacher and disciplinary literacy coach.

Paula Di Domenico, EdD, is a secondary disciplinary literacy coach at Leyden High School District 212 in Franklin Park, Illinois, and serves as an adjunct instructor of graduate courses in literacy education at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb and at Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois. Dr. Di Domenico's research focuses on teachers' disciplinary literacy knowledge and on secondary literacy coaching. She has presented on the topic of disciplinary literacy coaching with the other authors of this volume. Formerly, she was a high school English and developmental reading teacher.

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Collaborative Coaching for Disciplinary Literacy

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Today's standards challenge middle and high school teachers to teach their content deeply and meaningfully. This book provides an innovative coaching model for helping science, social studies, and English language arts teachers promote the reading, writing, listening, speaking, and thinking skills needed for high-level work in each discipline.

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Tool 1: Building Teams                     Atul Gawande, TED Talk The Power of a Coach

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Tool 1: Building Teams                     Atul Gawande, TED Talk The Power of a Coach

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Want to get great at something? Get a coach | Atul Gawande

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Tool 1: Team Building Marshmallow Challenge Resources

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Tool 1: Team Building Marshmallow Challenge Resources

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The marshmallow challenge is a classic problem-solving exercise.

On this page, you'll find everything you need to understand the point of this challenge and why kindergarteners can easily win against business school graduates.

Short Summary

The marshmallow challenge is a simple design exercise and team-building activity for small groups.

The groups have to build the tallest free-standing structure from some spaghetti sticks, tape, and string and place one whole marshmallow on the top.

Running the challenge requires about 1 hour and some simple household items.

The exercise teaches essential lessons about the creative product development process and the nature of collaboration.

The challenge was invented by Peter Skillman and popularized by Tom Wujec.

Photo by Dylan Gillis on Unsplash

Rules for the Marshmallow Challenge

The rules are easy; in 18 minutes, each group can use 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of masking tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow to build the tallest free-standing structure with the entire marshmallow on the top.

To run the challenge yourself, check out our detailed step-by-step instructions.

The teams can break the spaghetti and cut the tape and string into any sized pieces.

A team can also use the materials as much or as little as they wish. For example, if they can decide to use all or no spaghetti, the same applies to the masking tape and string.

The exercise should be done indoors, and each team should have a steady table.

This challenge needs to be friendly and encouraging. However, the following three instructions need to be strictly respected.

You Must Use the Entire Marshmallow

The marshmallow mustn't be split into smaller pieces and must be placed on the top of the structure.

Build the Tallest Free-standing Structure

The groups can hold the structure until the end of the exercise. After that, the structure with the marshmallow on the top must stand on its own.

The team with the tallest structure measured is the winning team.

Stop When the Time Runs Out

The exercise is 18 minutes long. Therefore, the teams must stop working on their structure at the 18-minute mark. After this, if a team tries to support their structure, they're automatically disqualified.

Ideal Participants

The marshmallow challenge is suitable for teams of all ages and backgrounds.

It can significantly benefit students, professionals, and organizations seeking engaging activities to enhance collaboration and innovation.

The challenge is helpful for teams to encourage them to think outside the box and brainstorm about a new idea.

It's a highly recommended exercise for teams new to agile project management.

Design Exercise And Team Building Activity

The marshmallow challenge helps the participants to improve their innovative and problem-solving skills by helping to discover the value of prototyping.

The challenge is also a great team-building activity; it improves team collaboration and communication.

The fun nature of the game will create a memorable experience for everybody.

How Do People Perform

Usually, first people orient themselves to the task, talk about it, discuss how it would look, and try to create some hierarchy within their team for who is doing what.

Then they try to create a detailed plan, neatly organize their materials, and start building.

They build the spaghetti sticks into ever-growing structures, taped and bound together.

And just before the time runs out, they place the marshmallow on the top. Most of the time, the structure collapses because of the unexpected weight.

Different groups perform differently based on their background. For example, business school students, kindergarteners, and architects deliver the most exciting results.

Business School Students

Business school students are constantly fighting for power; for them, it's essential to know who the project's leader will be.

Besides that, they are trained to find the single right plan for the task and then execute it.

During the challenge, they focus on breaking down tasks, spending most time planning who is doing what, the structure of the spaghetti, and how the tape and string would hold them together. And when they have almost no time left, they place the marshmallow on the top, and the crisis begins.

They don't try to build a mediocre structure just to see their plan works. Instead, they want to build the perfect one.

Kindergarten School Students

Kindergarteners create taller and more interesting structures than their adult competitors.

Their secret is that they don't fight for power or plan the whole project. Instead, they build and build. Always keeping the marshmallow on the top. They build a higher structure than before.

They are building prototypes, continuously improving their already working structure with the marshmallow on the top. With new structures, they get immediate feedback about what works and what doesn't. This is the essence of the iterative design process.

Architects And Engineers

Architects also tend to overlook the weight of the marshmallow. Fortunately, they still build working marshmallow tower structures.

They understand that triangles and self-reinforcing geometrical patterns are the key to building stable structures to support more weight.

They already have the skills to build good structures.

What Can We Learn From This?

Most teams have a hidden assumption about the weight of the marshmallow. They're confident it's so light that their structure will easily hold it, and they wouldn't need to worry about it. When they try to place it on the top, to their surprise, the building collapses under its weight.

The marshmallow symbolizes the hidden assumptions about the project.

Every project has its own hidden assumptions nobody considers until the very last moment. They can only be discovered by building working prototypes that can be repeatedly improved to reach the best result.

Prototyping Matters

The exercise highlights the importance of prototyping and iterative design.

Successful startups use iterative design to get to the market fast and test their product's viability before shoveling more money and time into useless functionalities.

First, they identify the minimum viable product containing only the essential functionalities of their imagined final product.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is the Marshmallow Challenge?

The marshmallow challenge is a simple design exercise and team-building activity. The participants are split into smaller competing groups to build the tallest free-standing structure using spaghetti, tape, and string with an entire marshmallow on the top. The exercise teaches an essential lesson about creative product development and the importance of prototyping.

What Materials Do I Need for the Marshmallow Challenge?

You need 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of masking tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow for each participating group. For example, 16 oz spaghetti, 1 roll of masking tape, 1 roll of string, and 1 bag of marshmallows should be enough for more than 20 groups.

What Are the Rules for the Marshmallow Challenge?

The rules for the marshmallow challenge are easy; in 18 minutes, each group can use 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of masking tape, and one yard of string to build the tallest freestanding structure with an entire marshmallow on the top. Check out the step-by-step instructions about how to organize and run the challenge.

What Does the Marshmallow Challenge Teach?

The marshmallow challenge teaches an important lesson to build prototypes instead of trying to build the perfect solution. The participants have a hidden assumption that the marshmallow is light, and their spaghetti structure can easily support it. They only focus on building one perfect structure without trying to build a simple one to test their assumptions. Their structure collapses when they place the marshmallow on the top at the last minute.

Every project has its own hidden assumptions that can remain hidden until the last minute and then ruin the project. Therefore creating working prototypes as early as possible is crucial.

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The Marshmallow Challenge is a simple, and instructive design activity that promotes and teaches valuable lessons in collaboration, innovation, and creativity.

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Tool 2: Student Interviews Planning Template

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Tool 2: Student Interviews Planning Template

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Tool 3: Visiting Classrooms Planning Template

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Tool 3: Visiting Classrooms Planning Template

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Tool 4: Learning Walks Planning Template

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Tool 4: Learning Walks Planning Template

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Why 2 is Greater than 4: A Proof by Induction: Max Ray-Riek