Unleashing+the+Power+of+Collaborative+Inquiry

Unleashing the Power of Collaborative Inquiry Connecting Data to Results

Diana Allen Summary: This session talked about bridging the gap between data and results. It spent a good deal of time “selling” the need for a collaborative culture which we already have. The part of the workshop that was interesting for me was the conversation about marrying the need for a trusting school culture and equity to instructional improvement. They talked a lot about the power of coaching to build trust and getting people to begin to develop cultural proficiency continuum(See handout). As I thought about our building, we are of cultural blindness when it comes to Race/Ethnicity, we often act with cultural incapacity when dealing with IEP students.

Then we walked through a data coaching model that is similar to ATLAS but adds a step that brings out conversation about cultural beliefs. The steps are from the book The Data Coach’s Guide to Improving Learning for all Students.

Step 1: Is to set protocols and assign roles (dialogue monitor, facilitator, timekeeper, materials manager).

Step 2: Predict – before ever seeing the data, the facilitator asks each person to write down his/her predictions about the disaggregated data.

Step 3: Go visual – On chart paper, create a comparison of data.

Step 4: Observations – No opinion allowed! No inferences! No hypothesizing! Strictly facts.

Step 5: Infer/Question

We also talked about the type of data that we should be looking at. The speaker asked us to list the data that we use both in our building and as a district. I made my list of formative and summative data on a post-it note and then placed it on a big chart of paper (see paper-size handout). What I realized was that because our teachers were only required to do two common formative assessments, they ended up with either two monster formatives that were more like quarterly summatives or they had two smaller formatives that no longer measured the breadth or depth of the content that was assessed on the summatives. There seemed to be no correlation between formatives and summatives. As I was talking at my table with other administrators, many of them talked about giving common district benchmark assessments at the end of a unit and that is what the administrators looked out to monitor the implementation of the curriculum and spark discussions with teachers about whether the taught curriculum was the intended curriculum. Then it was through those discussions that they discussed with the teacher’s what they did with their teacher-created common formative assessment results to re-teach the material before the unit benchmark assessments. Oddly enough, in the English I EOC PD, teachers requested that we have common district-created assessments that held them accountable for certain material so that their conversations about data can be more about student learning and not so much about changing the assessment. It’s that whole idea of “Just tell us what you want us to teach and let us decide the best way to teach it.” One teacher described this as possibly being “liberating”.

THOUGHTS FROM COGNITIVE COACHING: Data has no meaning no meaning in and of itself. Meaning comes from interpretations and inferences we make about the data. The problem is .... our interpretations are shaped by the frames of reference our brains filter things through. So if you don’t address people’s frame of reference the data will not affect change in instruction. Sometimes our frames of reference are so unconscious to us that unless you “spot light” what you believe, our thinking will never change.—In my opinion, this answers the question, “Why doesn’t PD change practices in the classroom?”

Resource: Ed Trust – A website of over 2,000 schools who achieve despite poverty and minority.

Tony Wagner – The Global Achievement Gap

Seven Survival Skills for Careers, College and Citizenship:

1. Critical thinking and problem solving. (Ability to ask good questions).

2. Collaboration across networks and leading by Tony Wagner – The Global Achievement Gap.

3. Agility and adaptability.

4. Initiative and entrepreneurialism.

5. Effective oral and written communication (writing is fuzzy because thinking is fuzzy).

6. Accessing and analyzing information (textbooks obsolete before ink is dry).

7. Curiosity and imagination.


 * 70% of GNP is consumption – we used to be inventors/producers. What will our niche be in the Global Economy. It has to be the greatest thinkers.


 * Walkthroughs – should spend as much time conversing about lesson & debriefing than we spend walking through.

PISA test – Top 1% of our kids scored lower that rest of country.

This generation wants: • Accustomed to instant gratification and “always on” • Use web for 1) Extending friendships 2) Self-directed learning 3) Self expression • Constantly connected • Want to make a difference – impatient with worksheets.

Harvard – Re-thinking acceptance standards

History and the World Societies and the World

College & Work Readiness Assessment ** (Why don’t we give this as part of the Guidance Task Force project??). National Student Clearinghouse – tracking college graduates Virginia Beach & Catalina Foothills
 * We have to change question asking of teachers – more coaching.

Building School Cultures Through Intensified Leadership

Summary: We first looked at the three essential components of changing school culture. The acronym that they gave it was PCOLT (Professional community, trust, and organizational learning) We first took a look at the current reality of our school to determine how well we hit each of those components. We have hit the most on organizational learning and professional community and are hitting trust this year. They mentioned Trust Matters as a way to get started with building trust in your school. There is also a website with trust surveys that I will share with our A-team—wmpeople.wm.edu/site/page/mxtsch/researchtools.

We then looked at the Part 1 handouts; Sojourner Truth School and identified the 3 components missing (see handouts).

We then looked at Part Two and discussed using a Circle and Storytelling Process and Coaching of the storytellers. I was really frustrated because they didn’t go deep into the steps/criteria/procedure of storytelling. I wanted to know more, but it came from a book that the gal wrote and she wasn’t allowed to sell her book at the workshop. Frustrating☹