Collective Responsibility - Learning Forwardproposals.learningforward.org/handouts/Nashville2014/B07/Collective... · Connecting the essential work to the moral imperative (collective

Collective

Responsibility Engaging The Heart Head and Hands

Learning Forward Conference December 2014

Ken Williams Unfold The Soul www.unfoldthesoul.com Twitter @unfoldthesoul [email protected]

Collective Responsibility in a PLC: Engaging the Heart, Head, and Hands

What Am I Prepared to Do Differently?

What Resonates With Me? Things I Plan to Start Doing

REPRODUCIBLE

© Williams, Unfold the Soul 2014. solution-tree.comReproducible. 1

What Is Collective Responsibility? Collective responsibility is the shared belief that the primary responsibility of each member of the organization is to ensure high levels of learning for every child (Buffum, Mattos, & Weber, Simplifying Response to Intervention: Four Essential Guiding Principles, 2012, p.15). What does collective responsibility look like in practice?

Thomas W. Many on collective responsibility: Collective responsibility in a PLC exists when two conditions are examined, clarified, and adopted as the foundation for the shared mission of a school:

1. We believe that all kids can learn at high levels.

2. We make the collective commitment to ensure learning occurs for every student.

Every school has a mission and vision statement, however, for many schools these statements are not worth the paper on which they are written. While educators agree that school communities should have some form of mission, vision, and a set of values to guide their work, few can articulate what is being done to make it so. Collective responsibility requires much more than clichés, slogans, and catchphrases. It requires that the moral imperative of your work courses through every aspect of a school’s culture. Learn how to have your posters reflect your practices. Leaders must stop thinking of schools as collections of inanimate objects. We align things (desks, chairs, books) but we engage people (behaviors, beliefs, attitudes). School improvement initiatives struggle when they fail to engage the hearts and minds of the very teachers who are responsible for making the change a lasting part of their school. Leaders have to engage people in the relentless pursuit of the right work.

2© Williams, Unfold the Soul 2014. solution-tree.com

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Authentic Alignment Authentic alignment is the process by which schools:

Explore core beliefs and develop a guiding school mantra.

Envision and create a description of what schools seek to become.

Reconnect with the moral imperative of the collective commitment to the five essential elements of a PLC.

Systematically integrate the mantra, vision, and commitments into existing structures.

Collective responsibility in a PLC exists when two conditions are examined, clarified, and adopted as the foundation for the shared mission of your school:

1. We believe that all kids can learn at high levels.

2. We make the collective commitment to ensure learning occurs for every student.

Using the authentic alignment model, you commit to building a culture of collective responsibility by engaging three critical elements: the heart, the head, and the hands:

Exploring the why of the work: examining existing culture and your shared fundamental purpose

Clarifying a shared vision for your school

Clarifying shared commitments to the essential work of a PLC and

connecting that work to core of the organization (mission and vision Connecting the essential work to the moral imperative (collective

responsibility)

Sustaining the culture of collective responsibility by intentionally embedding opportunities to keep the why of work the present in every aspect of the PLC, allowing the collective responsibility of your shared mission to course through every aspect of your school’s culture


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The four stages of creating a culture of authentic alignment: 1. Exploring the WHY

2. Envisioning the EYE

3. Connecting the HOW

4. Integrating the NOW

Four Stages of Authentic Alignment

Exploring the WHY

You identify your fundamental purpose and develop a guiding school mantra.

Envisioning the EYE

You envision and create a description of the school you seek to become.

Connecting the HOW

You connect with the moral imperative of your collective commitment to the five essential elements of a PLC.

Integrating the NOW

You systematically integrate mantra, vision, and commitments into existing structures.

Exploring the WHY is the process of exploring a school’s core beliefs, habits, and assumptions. The goal is to get clear on the school’s fundamental purpose. The end product of exploring the why is the development of the school’s guiding mantra. A mantra is akin to a motto, albeit more fundamental to a school’s internal purpose than a simple slogan. It’s concise, repeatable, and core to a school’s existence. The mantra is easily understood, works as a rallying point, and represents the unwavering core values that drive your daily work. A school’s guiding mantra encapsulates the answers to questions like:

What do we believe?

What do we want to achieve?

Why do we go to work each day?

Why does our school exist?

Envisioning the EYE is the process by which you develop a clear, compelling vision of the school you want to become. Schools need to develop a detailed description of what they want to become.

What does our school look like when it’s a great place for students?

What does our school look like when it’s a great place for teachers?

What does our school look like when it’s a great place for parents?


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Connecting the HOW is the process by which you connect with the moral imperative of your collective commitments to the five essential elements of a PLC. Those five elements are:

1. A focus on learning

2. The collaborative culture

3. Clear definition of what every student needs to learn

4. Constant measurement of effectiveness

5. Systematic response when students do or do not learn

Integrating the NOW is the process of systematically embedding the WHY (beliefs), the EYE (vision), and the HOW (collective commitments) into existing school structures. Three practices will ensure that the work of actualizing these deeply held cultural beliefs remains at the front and center in everything you do. These three practices are: 1. Aligned feedback

2. Aligned storytelling

3. Aligned celebration

Exploring the WHY Ron Edmonds, Harvard University: “We can, whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all children whose schooling is of interest to us. We already know more than we need to do that. Whether or not we do it must finally depend on how we feel about the fact that we haven’t so far.”

Exploring the WHY is the process of examining your school’s core beliefs, habits, and assumptions. The goal is to get clear on your school’s fundamental purpose. The end product is the development of your school’s guiding mantra.

What is your school’s mission statement?


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Owning Your Current Reality What two words would you use to describe your school’s culture?

1. _____________________________ 2. ____________________________

What are some of the behaviors and practices that support the description of your current school culture? What message does each behavior and practice communicate?

Current Practice Message Sent

Swami Vivekananda: “We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act.”


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All Beliefs Are Not Created Equal

Belief Levels

A tentatively held belief that does not engender a high level of personal investment

Level 1: probationary belief

Relatively easy to change with better information

A strongly held belief generally created over time by repeated experience

Level 2: immersion belief

Not easily changed; requires significant experience to shift

A deeply rooted belief based on meaningful experience that entails a fundamental value about right and wrong

Level 3: visceral belief

Almost unchangeable; based on moral and ethical values

The Problem With Mission Statements We have learned that developing guiding statements is no simple task and that building the collective will to bring these guiding statements to life is equally challenging. Here are five problems that contribute to schools ignoring their guiding statements: Problem 1: We share and shelve.

Problem 2: All fluff, no stuff

Problem 3: T-shirting

Problem 4: No skin in the game

Problem 5: We accept pockets of excellence.


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Developing Your School’s Guiding Mantra

Defining a guiding mantra: Your school’s guiding mantra is a three- to five-word statement that clearly defines what your school is and why you matter to people. A mantra is a powerful, energy-infused chant that everyone inside and outside your organization can instantly get their heads around. A guiding mantra is defined as a word, sound, or statement repeated frequently to aid in concentration of thought. In Sanskrit, mantra literally means “instrument of thought.” In schools, we suggest a mantra is a highly effective organizing principle easily shared by people who care. Your school’s guiding mantra should be created collaboratively, and meet these criteria: memorable, simple, credible, positive, and uniquely yours.

Mantra Criteria

Memorable It is vital that your school’s guiding mantra finds its way into your school’s subconscious, attaching your mission to your commitments, behaviors, and decisions.

Simple

To be memorable, your school’s guiding mantra should get one simple idea across in as few words as possible (we recommend three to five). You can’t mean everything to everybody, so just focus on one specific thing. Say one thing well.

Grounded

Your school’s guiding mantra must reflect the two conditions necessary to have a culture of collective responsibility:

We believe all kids can learn at high levels. We make the collective commitment to ensure

learning occurs for every student.

Positive Your school’s guiding mantra should take an affirmative tone, stated in terms of what you’re seeking, not avoiding.

Uniquely Yours Make sure your school’s guiding mantra is unmistakably about your school.


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Guiding Mantra Examples While your guiding mantra is a unifying principle, it’s critical that you make personal commitments to that end. Collective mobilization begins with individual responsibility. That’s why we’ve included examples of I-messages below.

Guiding Mantra I-Message (Mantra in Practice)

We work as a village. All of us are smarter than one of us. I commit to embrace a true collaborative culture. I will pull my weight as part of my interdependent team.

We believe you can achieve!

I embrace accountability for our results, and I am constantly asking, “Is there something else I can do?”

Every child is my child. I consider every child my child, and the failure of any one of them is not an option. I am humble enough to ask for help and think abundantly enough to share resources and best practices.

Tomorrow depends upon today.

I will spend time focusing on factors I can control, and I will hold my teammates accountable to do the same.

Act as if … I operate each day as if we are already the ideal school we described.

In three to five words, what would you suggest for your school’s guiding mantra?

Write an I-message commitment:


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To clarify your fundamental purpose and your school’s guiding mantra, ask: 1. What is our school’s fundamental purpose? What is our school’s unshakable sense of

mission? 2. What makes our school special and unique? 3. What do we mean when we say that all students can learn? Does all really mean all? 4. Was our school built as a place where teachers come and teach or as a place where

students come and learn? What evidence do we have to support our choice? 5. What happens in our school or district when a student experiences difficulty in learning? 6. What is our school’s one non-negotiable that serves as a lens for everything we do?

What is our school’s guiding North Star? Our mantra? 7. Why did you become an educator? 8. Think of a child you love with every fiber of your being. If you had an opportunity to

create a guiding mantra for his or her school, what would it be?

“At the heart of every great group is a shared dream. All great groups believe that they are on a mission and that they could change the world, make a dent in the universe. They are obsessed with their work. It becomes not a job but a fervent quest. That belief is what brings the necessary cohesion and energy to their work.”

—Bennis, Managing the Dream: The Secrets of Leadership and Change (2000), p. 137


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Envisioning the EYE Swami Vivekananda: “Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life—think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.”

The EYE is the process by which you envision and develop a clear, compelling picture of the school you want to become. What will your school look like when it’s a GREAT place for students?

What does our school look like when it’s a great place for students?

What does our school look like when it’s a great place for staff?

What does our school look like when it’s a great place for parents?

In three years, here is what we want our ideal school to:

Look Like Sound Like Feel Like


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To clarify the EYE for your school or district, ask:

1. Can we describe the school we are trying to create? 2. What would our school look like if it were a great place for students?

What would it look like if it were a great place for teachers? 3. It is five years from now, and we have achieved our vision as a school. In what ways are

we different? Describe what is going on in terms of practices, procedures, relationships, results, and climate.

4. Imagine we have been given sixty seconds on the nightly news to clarify the vision of our

school or district to the community. What do we want to say? 5. Decades from now, if they build a statue to remember your school, in one sentence, what

will the plaque say?

Point to the future and describe, in clear terms, the school you imagine that doesn’t yet exist. If others volunteer to help build that future, then, and only then, do you become a leader.


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Connecting the HOW

When people begin to act, people begin to hope. When people begin to gain hope, they begin to behave differently. When people behave differently, they experience success. When people experience success, their attitudes change. When a person’s attitude changes, it affects others’ attitudes. This is the essence of reculturing schools into professional learning communities.

(DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many, Learning by Doing: A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities at Work, 2010)

The HOW is the process of connecting with the moral imperative of your collective commitment to the five essential elements of a PLC. The five elements are:

1. A focus on learning

2. The collaborative culture

3. Clear definition of what every student needs to learn

4. Constant measurement of your effectiveness

5. Systematic response when students do not learn

It is important to note that the HOW consists of behaviors, not beliefs.

Culture of Accountability Embed to ensure: The most effective way to build collective efficacy in this context is to embed experiences and routine practices of the school that will facilitate adults engaging in expected behaviors.


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Building the Foundation: Five Essential Elements

Guiding Questions Our Current Reality: Where Are We Now?

Desired Reality: Where Do We Want to Be?

Next Steps: How Do We Get There?

A focus on learning

Do we believe all students can learn at high levels?

Will we take responsibility to make this a reality?

Learning by Doing: ch. 2, p. 19

Collaborative culture

Do we have frequent (weekly) collaborative time embedded during our professional day?

Does our teamwork support each member’s daily responsibilities?

Have we identified team norms?

Do we hold each other accountable to follow our norms?


Clear definition of what every student needs to learn

(What do we expect our students to learn?)

Have we clearly defined essential learning outcomes that students must master to succeed in the next course or grade level?

Do all students have access to grade-level essential standards?


Constant measure of effectiveness

(How do we know if they have learned it?)

Have we created common assessments that measure student mastery of each essential standard?

Do we compare results to identify the most effective teaching strategies?

Do we use this information to guide our interventions?


Systematic response when students don’t learn

(How will be respond when students don’t learn?)

Do we have frequent time during the school day to reteach and enrich students?


Start, Stop, and Continue List Write the desired result:

List the behaviors to start:

1

2

3

4

5

List the behaviors to stop:

1

2

3

4

5

List the behaviors to continue:

1

2

3

4

5


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To clarify the HOW of your school or district, ask:

1. What are the specific commitments we must honor to achieve our WHY and EYE? 2. What are the specific behaviors we can exhibit to make a personal contribution to the

success of our school? 3. What commitments are we prepared to make to each other? 4. How will we demonstrate learning for all?


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Integrating the NOW

Martin Luther King Jr.: “We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. … We must move past indecision to action. … Now let us begin. … The choice is ours, and though we may prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment in human history.”

An Ongoing Dialogue The NOW is the process of systematically embedding the WHY (beliefs), the EYE (results), and the HOW (behavioral commitments) into your existing school structures. Three practices will ensure that the work of actualizing these deeply held cultural beliefs is front and center in everything your school does. These three practices are:

1. Aligned feedback

2. Aligned storytelling

3. Aligned celebration

We have developed these three practical tools that when used systematically, will integrate and embed your school’s most important WHY beliefs, EYE results, and HOW commitments into everything you do.

Aligned Feedback The first powerful tool in the NOW stage is aligned feedback. Whether the feedback is praiseworthy or constructive, it is always aligned with what has been deemed most important: your guiding mantra (WHY) and vision (EYE).

Feedback is a muscle that should be exercised often in an effort to constantly assess where you are in terms of authentic alignment.

The power of this alignment is in its depersonalization. Aligning the feedback mitigates some of your general resistance to providing any kind of constructive feedback for fear of negative reaction.

Aligned feedback is not centered on any one person’s particular and isolated beliefs; it is directly connected to your guiding mantra (WHY). Feedback gives your mantra context.

It provides the opportunity to focus on areas to improve and areas to reinforce.


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Aligned Storytelling

“Stories put a human face on success. They tell us that someone just like us can make it happen. They create organizational role models that everyone can relate to. They put the behavior in a real context and make standards more than statistics. Stories make standards come alive.”

—Kouzes & Posner, The Leadership Challenge (2007), p. 361 Working in concert with aligned feedback, aligned storytelling is the second of three powerful tools used to keep your school’s mantra in the here and now. Conveying important information about your school through aligned storytelling is one of the most powerful ways to share priorities. Whether you know it or not, storytelling is used as a tool in your school. Once you gain a level of awareness of this fact, then you must assess whether these stories move your culture toward your desired results or away from your desired results. Aligned stories do much to help lay the foundation of your culture. Stories also serve as the foundation of your school’s mantra (WHY) and vision (EYE). Aligned Celebration Aligned celebration allows anyone in the organization to observe and then to recognize teammates for what they do to demonstrate and live your school’s mantra. To continue to fuel the powerful HOW behaviors, there should be time devoted to acknowledging gains of individuals, the team, and the entire community—where you take a refreshing drink from the chalice of success before moving forward again toward authentic alignment. Aligned celebration spotlights the momentum established through aligned feedback and aligned storytelling. Like the first two, aligned celebration is most powerful when there is an explicit and direct connection made between what is being recognized and your school’s mantra.

1. Celebration in a PLC is about recognizing behaviors, actions, and results that are aligned with improved student learning.

2. An opportunity to remind you again:

What is important

What you value

What you are committed to do

There should be expressions of both appreciation and admiration.


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Four Keys to Celebration in a PLC In Learning by Doing (2010, pp. 38–39), DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, and Many “offer the following suggestions to those who face the challenge of incorporating celebration into the culture of their school or district:

1. “Explicitly state the purpose of celebration.

2. “Make celebration everyone’s responsibility.

3. “Establish a clear link between the recognition and the behavior or commitment you are attempting to encourage and reinforce.

4. Create opportunities to have many winners.”

Aligned Celebration Form I would like to recognize: ____________________________________________________ for reinforcing our school’s guiding mantra: ____________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ in the following way: _______________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ Given by: _________________________________________________________________ Date: _____________________________________________________________________


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Opportunities to Embed Authentic Alignment in Existing Structures Meetings Every school holds meetings, and so the task of embedding the tools should begin with developing a list of every meeting that occurs at your school, regardless of size. These include meetings that are led by the principal, a teacher-leader, support staff, a collaborative team, and all others unique to your school context. Systems and Structures You understand that meetings are a part of systems and structures. However, meetings can also represent an opportunity to accelerate the culture and embed the ongoing conversation, and in this regard they can have an important and lasting impact. This list may apply to your school and, depending on your school’s structures and systems, can be added to. The following list is designed to activate your thinking:

Newsletters

School website

School social media sites

Posters

Incentives

Feedback on performance evaluations

Displays

Phone calls

Job descriptions

E-mail communication

Calendar Check-Ins The last critical step of this process is to place on the calendar the details of your plan to embed the tools. Regardless of its size, all schools contend with competing priorities and being pulled in too many directions. A school day can slip away like grains of sand through your fingers. If you do not schedule the things deemed to be most important, they can easily slip away.


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Checking for Collective Responsibility

Question Evidence

Are we aligned around the urgency to shift the way we think and act? (Exploring the WHY)

Are we aligned around our school’s

guiding mantra? (Exploring the WHY)

Are we aligned around the compelling

vision for our ideal school? (Envisioning the EYE)

Are we aligned around the essential

work (five elements) of a PLC?

Have we clarified behavioral commitments? (Connecting the HOW)

Are we aligned around the essential

work (five elements) of a PLC?

Have we clarified behavioral commitments? (Connecting the HOW)

Are we aligned around how we hold ourselves accountable? (Connecting the HOW)

Are we clear on the plan to integrate

aligned storytelling, feedback, and celebration into existing structures? (Integrating the NOW)

Have we calendared meetings and

other opportunities to integrate in which we expect people to engage? (Integrating the NOW)


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Personal and Collective Commitments as a Result of This Presentation 1. I will personally commit to implementing this strategy or idea I heard today:

2. I will measure my effectiveness by:

3. I plan to see results from my action by this date: _____________________________ 4. My accountability partner is: ______________________________________________ 5. I will encourage my collaborative team to make a collective commitment to

implement this strategy or idea I heard today:

6. As a result of our action, we expect to see the following results in student

achievement:

22© Virginia Mahlke. Used with permission.

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Collective Responsibility - Learning Forwardproposals.learningforward.org/handouts/Nashville2014/B07/Collective... · Connecting the essential work to the moral imperative (collective