Chapter 5: Developing High Performing Groups

Here is the meat of the text!  High performing groups are key to our ability of meeting the goals we set, especially educating students to high standards.  Two statements in chapter 5 continue to linger in my thoughts as we prepare to start a new school year.  "Groups flounder when their problems are bigger than their skill sets'  they need protocols, structures and skills to define messy problems in ways they can pursue productively."  Luckily for us, FWCS has partnered with Learning Forward, and the past few days I have learned several protocols to aid collaboration, inquiry, and deeper conversations around student work, planning of lessons, assessments, and instruction.  Another comment found on p. 78 was also thought provoking for me, "To move forward as a group, members must be willing to grow, setting new and challenging goals for themselves as learners.

In the coming week, the QIT will dive into reviewing our current protocols such as our common planning forms and collaboration schedule in order to maximize our resources and time to best serve our students.  I ask each of you to reflect on two items.  The first, what makes your current team or previous team great.  Secondly, what are areas your team needs support in to strengthen and increase the effectiveness of your work.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 was quite technical, but offers great basic information about data and key terms.  As I have mentioned in professional learning sessions and collaborations, triangulation of data is key to getting at the entire picture of what our students need academically.  I believe at times, that we view data as a task to complete and something done to us and our students.  I think this is because as educators, we have been given tools (data) but never really taught how to use them, and how they can help us improve.

  

I hope this year we embrace professional learning and growing as professionals.  Imagine a Likert scale in your mind and rate your ability to effectively use data to inform your instructional decisions, be honest with yourself.  Now, think about three data sources in either language arts or math, that could be used in a triangulated fashion to give you a better understanding about your incoming students.

Chapter 3: Avoiding Reality Wars

• "You're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts."
• "The need for group members to convince others of the "correct way" to see data, or solve a problem, creates tension and drains time and energy from group work."

Chapter 3 talks about a big issue in education.  When members are faced with data that presents uncomfortable facts, it leads to unproductful conversations, defesiveness, and resentment.  For example, the topic of race and achievement gaps that exist at Haley are often met with excuses or reasons why groups of students are not performing.  Another example would be owning the data regardless of the results, but rather we choose to own the positive and excuse away the negative.  However, we as educators should not be comfortable with any excuse, especially those variables that we can improve ourselves.  Instead, our conversations usually focus on the variables we have no control over such as socioeconomic status, parent involvement, and past educational experiences.

I ask these questions for reflection and comment, how do we begin to take our issues that we realize through analyzing data, and form them as problems and questions?  Furthermore how do we take those hypothesis and begin to investigate them further?  How do we begin the work of developing action research practices to improve the issues of concern?