Every Day is a Bones Day at Bloomer!

 

    So I'm absolutely not a fan of Tik Tok but I saw this story on a Sunday Morning show and thought, "Fabulous!"  I think this is a metaphor for how we use our daily work to create the conditions that are given Bloomer Bones!  Noodles is a pug who has become an internet sensation.  He is now seen as a motivator or seer for the day up or down.  Your daily PLC is also an opportunity to develop optimism for the day.  Together you can do so much!

    You are so marvelous!  This staff works hard each day to make a difference and you are!  We are raising achievement one student at a time.  You measure your success by looking at data and analyzing it.  Next steps are in the making because you have determined what a student needs to advance in learning. The point of the blog this week is to focus on your PLC and establish a revised set of ideas that will help you become a stronger teacher or staff member.  

    Your professional learning is interdependent, your success hinges on the efforts of your team.  In order to make the learning happen as a grade level collaboration is required.  Your work needs to be characterized as collective action and interdependence .  Your success is correlated to the efforts of your entire team.  

Your efforts are twofold:

1. Creating a goal that is shared by the entire team.   Setting an interdependent goal sets the stage for collective action.  When you work toward one goal you persist and refuse to give up.  You work together to find strategies that continually examine the status quo.
   
2. Interconnecting tasks that teams work on.  Working collaboratively is key to making work efficient and to get results.  Working together on a task strengthens the opportunity for collective efficacy.  This is the belief that together you can accomplish great things.  Think about designing, delivering and debriefing lessons.  Drawing on your collective expertise, collecting ideas, discovering methods and materials all to raise achievement.  Your team can just do one or the other.  It requires efforts in both.

What is a team to do?

1. Actively engage in the PLC process.  Maximize the opportunity of support from coaches and the principal. We are here to support your practice and want to learn alongside you. 
2. Have open conversations around learning.  Listen and ask questions.  Develop trust with one another so you feel comfortable wrestling with problems and solutions.
3. Set interdependent goals.  Create the goal and monitor progress. Listen, prioritize and observe student learning.
4. Use student evidence. Use the day to day work to determine if you are making a difference in learning.  
5. Focus on Outcomes: link your collaborative work to student results.  Using this idea it makes sense to adjust practices day to day.

    If you are to be a difference maker you must maximize the work of your team.  Consider how your work is shaped by the discussions you have.  Are you using coaches to support the work?  Do you have interdependent goals and tasks?  Are you sharing the load?  If the answer is yes you will begin to see your data triangulate and achievement improve.

    So as you warm up each day in your PLC ask one another if it's a bones or no bones day.  I challenge you to make the choice for bones.  Our students deserve it.

It's No Secret!

 

    Last week during the data walk Carol asked me if reading achievement was improving at a higher rate than math was because we spent more time in professional development on comprehension.  I said, "Actually, no."  "Reading and math achievement is going up because you are becoming a more effective teacher."  It's true.  We have spent the bulk of our time in PLC and whole group on developing clarity in the classroom.  That means writing quality learning intentions and success criteria and using them.  During this round of observations I'm looking for learning intentions posted and also used through the course of the lesson.  I'm looking for teachers who use the language of the success criteria as they confer with kids during guided and independent work. I'm looking for clarity.   The results are clear in my mind.  I consistently see learning intentions posted or stated about 90% of the time.  This is fantastic data and the best first step in making clarity a reality.  

    Excellent teachers have high expectations and share their notion of success criteria with their students.  They ensure that there is alignment between the delivery of the lesson, task and assessment of students.  When this happens you see results like those that were shared within  Abby Oswald's classroom last week.  She was teaching a writing lesson.  Abby's intention and success criteria were posted.  She used the success criteria in her mini lesson and then asked students to repeat over three times.  What was the result? 85+% proficient on the assignment.  I also asked students as they worked.  "How do you know you are successful."  They repeated the criteria, in their own words.  Fabulous.  This is an example of how it can be done.  This is teacher clarity!  The intentionality and specificity of the language in this lesson when applied consistently throughout all content areas will result in double the growth for students.

It's critical to develop highly effective teaching an increased emphasis on the Common Core or Standards.  It's not enough to just write them.  You need to understand the content.

Doug Fisher shared with us in the Teacher Clarity Playbook:

 "A major aspect of teacher clarity consists of learning intentions and success criteria."  "Careful analysis of content standards benefits those who need to teach them.  Through the process of discussion and debate, colleagues identify what students should know and be able to do, and thus prevent the inevitable creep that occurs when textbooks and activities, not the standards, begin to drive instruction.  Keep in mind that publisher-and teacher-created curricula are not the standards themselves, but rather are materials that (hopefully) facilitate progress toward standards.  When discussions at a grade level meeting are focused more on covering a chapter in a textbook rather than the learning outcomes, it is a telltale sign that the standard has been lost."

    It's critical that you each contribute to developing learning intentions and success criteria and they are not centered on a story or activity.  If you don't have a shared understanding and purpose in the PLC you may get varied results.  Remember we are lifting the grade level not just one classroom.  We lift all grade levels to see results at a building level. 

    We are moving in the right direction and IT'S NO SECRET that other buildings and ESC staff are noticing.  However, we must stay diligent in our efforts to reach our goal of 70% at the end of the year.  You have to be constantly checking on the status quo through your DFAs (daily formative assessments) and CFA (Common Formative assessments).  It's NO SECRET that reaching 80% consistently daily on grade level standards will result in correlated result on standardized assessments.

    It's no SECRET that this is a tough hill to climb and you need the strength of your team to reach the summit.  Make it happen.  TAP into the expertise of instructional leaders.  Analyze student work and be diagnostic.  

You can do it!  IT'S NO SECRET!

Flying in Formation Again and Again

 

        Geese have a mission.  They fly south for the winter and then north in the spring.  The barriers are enormous.  Yet they do it.  Year after year efficiently with a collective effort to 'get it done.'  They communicate; they share responsibility; they trust one another.

Geese Fly Further Together:  The relationships you have with one another is critical.  The trust you have gives lift and allows for constructive conversation.  Providing one another support means more than just agreeing all of the time.  It's also about helping one another reach the goal.  Provide feedback and allow others to benefit.  Please specific about how it can be done and why.  Think Efficiency!

Geese Support one another when it gets tough:  You have a hard job.  There is not doubt but sharing the burden with support and care allows the team to do the work.  You are as strong as you allow yourself to be.  If you think you can't you are usually right.  However, if you think you can you are also right.  Supporting one another means self-care and collective care.  NOTE it's so difficult on a good day.  You need one another.

Geese take turns leading:  Everyone can be a leader in your PLC.  What does it take commitment and a reflection on your collective goal.  Leading means knowing.  Knowing begets doing.  Doing creates results.  Share the load.  Don't be a passive member.

Geese Cheer for one another:  HONK HONK HONK.  Means keep going.  You are doing a great job.  Thank you for helping our group move forward.  You have the means to provide one another the support through feedback and the specificity through celebration to motivate through the journey.  Make a point of efficiently finding an example of our mission in action and CELEBRATE it!

Geese are Focused on their purpose.  They don't fly haphazardly; they move forward together with the purpose of finding a better climate to sort out the winter.  Remember that our purpose is growth and growth mean high proficiency.  Likewise, it is highly likely that your stress levels will go down when you find you are making a difference.  The purpose is to move together as a group to reflect on your success and how you got there. 

When you take the lessons of the geese into your own hands you are working to build efficacy.  Efficacy is the ability to produce.  It is also the belief in your ability to effect the change necessary to meet goals.  It's more than collaboration.  It's more than getting together to talk every day.  IT is the result of collaborating effectively over time. You keep going when it's tough.  You collaborate because you believe in the group's collective belief to change the achievement profile of the entire grade level.  You build knowledge by learning from one another.  You are optimistic, confident and resilient because your created the conditions for successful learning experiences for children and your peers.

Take a look at these graphs

What do you see?  It's a dramatic change over time across every grade level.  It's possible and you need to realize that you make this happen.  

The purpose for your team is more than just what your goal is, it includes the culture of the group.  Your team members are the guide to live our mission to become...

The School Where Everyone Wants To Be!

Turn Turn Turn (To Everything There is a Season)

You may not have heard this song before.  It was written by Pete Seeger in the 1965.  He was a folk singer and activist.  I bet you've heard of a few of his other songs like "If I had a Hammer" and "This Land is You Land".  In any event, I choose this song to get your brains moving in the direction of change and how you are impacting it daily as a team.  There is a time for everything. "A time to gain".  That is where we find ourselves gaining in achievement and confidence.  The key to getting the momentum going and keeping it moving is your team.

To build a culture of efficacy (the belief in yourself to accomplish goals) You n eed to intentionally and mindfully put a plan together that provides for ongoing opportunity for your team to experience the four forms of efficacy (Bloomberg and Pitchford: High Impact Teams 2017)

1. (WHAT)Mastery Moments:  You need to experience success.  This comes from direct experience that you agree was successful.  These conversations increase confidence and build your resiliency. Taking on challenging goals and working together to overcome obstacles so you are successful will result in a mastery moment.  This builds efficacy. (HOW) Look at your data and celebrate the achievement. Take the time to compare MAP data with you DFA/CFA.  Is it making a difference?  How do you know? (WHY) WE need to realize together that you can accomplish our goals.  Our students are worth the effort.
2. (WHAT)Models of Success: Learning from one another's successes is another way to build efficacy.  Think of this as modeling effective practice.  Taking the time to watch one another shows/proves that it can be done.  (HOW)  There are many ways to view one another.  Working with Julie and Bri, video taping one another, watching a video are all ways to use this in your PLC.  Taking the time to discuss and share works to develop the team. (WHY) You are your best asset.  Using the team to strengthen the team is a great way to realize how effective you are.  Our students are worth the effort.
3. (WHAT) Feedback:  Yes, feedback doubles the rate of learning for students and teachers.  We all learn best when we get specific relevant feedback in a timely manner.  Teams who collectively focus on getting better, commit to doing the research, taking the risks and sharing knowledge and skills use feedback as a tool for learning from on another."  Not all feedback is equal or received.  Effective teams have productive/constructive discussions using feedback.  It moves your group forward.  Stay positive, specific and appreciative for the risks you take.  (HOW)  Protocols are great ways to get your group moving and provide a structure for efficiency.  Consider a tuning or triad protocol when looking at student work.  The tuning protocol provides for warm and cool feedback allowing the person receiving an opportunity to gain knowledge.  (WHY)  You've got to break eggs to make a cake.  Feedback and process help to advance practice and move forward.  If you can give effective feedback it also advances you knowledge also. YES, Our kids are worth the effort.
4. (WHAT)  Safety:  Trust is key to building effective teams.  Relational trust translates into members who truly listen to one another.  They respect varied opinions and are willing to try new things when suggested.  You feel accepted, respected and empowered by each member.  (HOW) Creating norms and sticking with them is the first step.  Understanding the mission and the direction you are going is also foundational.  Yes, it also doesn't hurt to buy coffee sometimes too.  In the end you need to feel safe and confident so you can share and take a risk. (WHY) Collaboration is the way to solve big problems and it's so much easier when you are linked arm and arm.  Our kids are worth it.
   

When you have developed efficacy you are:

OPTIMISTIC

                    CONFIDENT

                                            COLLABORATIVE

                                LEARNING

YOU PERSEVERE

 

Time is on our side.  It's the beginning of October ladies and gentlemen.  I swear it's not too late.

Let's get our teams going and maximize our time together to meet our goals.  I believe in you!