Creating a High-Performance Learning Culture

Session #1

Welcome!

But first A word from our sponsors !

Creating a High-Performance Learning Culture

Session #1

OBJECTIVE: Participants will develop a shared understanding of the nature of school culture and examine the relationship between school culture

and student and adult performance in their school’s.

 Time Issues: 45 minutes

Activities: Culture Inventory and the Gray School

Culture Inventory

• For each item, select the answer that best fits your perception of your school’s culture. There are no right or wrong answers.

Culture Inventory

• Stand up, walk around the room, and find another person who selected the same answer for item #1.

• Share your name, role, and why you chose that choice. Sign the inventory on the line left of the stem

• For each item repeat the process.

The Gray School…The Story of a Colorless School

with a Toxic Culture

• Listen to the story of the Gray School.• Identify the elements of this schools culture that

need immediate attention in order to make a difference for the performance of students in the school

The Gray School…

• Imagine you are members of the Gray School’s leadership team.

• What three or four features of this school would you select as targets for change?

• Why are these important?

Getting Clear About the Nature of Culture

• What is it?

• What are its component parts?

• How does it evolve?

• What difference does it make?

Metaphorically Speaking. . .

Understanding Culture Via Metaphors

Common Threads Running Through Metaphors

• Culture as a web (Deal and Peterson)

• Culture as a complex pattern (Roland Barth)

• Culture as glue (Thomas Sergiovanni)

• Culture as a garden (Rick Dufour)

Common Threads Running Through Metaphors

• Which of these metaphors speaks to you about culture? Why?

• Which is most helpful to you in understanding culture?

• Can you give a specific example of how this metaphor applies to your school?

• How could you introduce this metaphor to the rest of your faculty?

Common Threads Running Through Metaphors

• Culture is intangible

• Culture is complex

• Culture evolves over time

• Culture is powerful

Top-Notch Toxic

Caring, supportive of others Apathetic & self-protective

Cohesive Fragmented

Collaborative Independent or competitive

Diverse Homogeneous; conforming

Efficacious; “can-do” Helpless; dependent

Energetic Lethargic

Democratic; egalitarian Elitist

Focus: Student, adult learning. Focus: Schooling

Focuses on excellence; high expectations Focuses on “getting by”

Hopeful; optimistic Hopeless; despairing

Innovative Satisfied with status quo

Interdependent Isolated

Respectful Disrespectful

Trusting Cautious; suspicious

Norms Behaviors

Ability & Achievement

Power & Control

Effort & Efficacy

Core Beliefs

Distributed Accountabili

ty

Reflection

Dialogue

Relationships

Policies and Procedures

Physical Environment

Strategic Structures

Inquiry

Questions?