September 4, 2014 Special Topics Webinars: School Improvement

Margaret Buckton, PartnerSusie Olesen, School Improvement Enthusiast

© Iowa School Finance Information Services, 2014 1

Collaboration

• Update us with your email address sean.gibson@isfis.net• PowerPoint on ISFIS web site at

http://sites.google.com/site/iowaschoolfinance/Home/webinar-recordings

• Power Point on Skills Iowa web site at http://www.skillsiowa.org/?q=PL

• Use question pane to pose questions • Ask questions. We will find the answer if we don’t know it today.

If we don’t answer during the Webinar, we’ll get back to you.• This series of 9 webinars pairs with ISFIS conference for one credit

hour (15 hours of content) for administrator license renewal• This series of 8 webinars pairs with 1 day at the ISFIS office NEXT

WEEK, September 10, for one hour of admin. license renewal• Watch for invite or check ISFIS web site to register

Webinar Reminders

Dates, Topics and Links to Register

• Thursday, July 17, 2014, 9 AM – What’s happening in school with students?• Thursday July 31, 2014, 9 AM –What’s happening with teachers?• Thursday, August 14, 2014, 9AM – What’s happening with school leaders?• Thursday, August 28, 2014 9 AM – Professional Development

• Thursday, September 4, 2014 9 AM – Collaboration• Wednesday September 10, 2014 8:30 – day at ISFIS• Thursday, September 18, 2014, 9 AM – Assessment and Data• Thursday, October 2, 2014, 9 AM – TLC Model• Thursday, October 16, 2014, 9 AM – TLC Model• Thursday, October 30, 2014, 9 AM – What’s next in my school?

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Using Webinar Information Later• PPT, Recording and related tools posted on the

Webinar Page and also the Skills Iowa professional leaning page: http://www.skillsiowa.org/?q=PL

• Itemized list of contents is searchable (this week, we will talk about collaboration, but also core curriculum, etc.)

• Find what you need when you need it via Google search box

• Use PPT or information with leadership teams or with PLCs or data teams to get the conversation going

• Or shoot us an email and we’ll send you what you need.

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Agenda

• Collaboration• Assumptions • Research related to collaboration: changing

teacher practice and student learning• Policy in Iowa related to collaboration• Finding time for teachers to work together• Food for thought to help you get the most out

of the PD going on in your school(s)5

What is collaboration?

Definition – There is a lot of confusion on the very definition of collaboration. If you ask 20 people, you might get 20 answers.

So let’s test this theory – what do you think of when you hear the word “collaboration”? Type a few words in the chat pain. . . .

Webster’s online

col·lab·o·rate verb \kə-la-bə-rāt\

: to work with another person or group in order to achieve or do something

: to give help to an enemy who has invaded your country during a war

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/collaborate

Collaboration: What does it really mean?Carlos Dominguez, Writes in Cisco Blog

• Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google, had a very interesting — and sarcastic — comment on this topic. He said, “When you say collaboration, the average 45-year-old thinks they know what you’re talking about: teams sitting down, having a nice conversation with nice objectives and a nice attitude.” (smile)

• Here’s what Carlos found by searching for collaboration.– Wikipedia -- “Collaboration refers abstractly to all processes wherein people work

together.”Oxford Dictionary -- “United labour, co-operation; especially in literary, artistic or scientific work.”Webster -- “To work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor.”

– All of these seem really outdated so he continued to look. Michael Schrage in his book No More Teams! defines it this way: “Collaboration describes a process of value creation that our traditional structures of communication and teamwork can’t achieve.” I like his introduction of the point that collaboration requires a process and the purpose is to create value.

Collaboration: What does it really mean?Carlos Dominguez, Writes in Cisco Blog

• So Carlos continued to search and found this by Evan Rosen in his book The Culture of Collaboration: “Working together to create value while sharing virtual and physical space.” Rosen highlights that technology can bring people together and that they don’t need to be in the same location. A very important point since technology, especially video, plays a key role in enabling collaboration across the enterprise.

• Another key ingredient in the recipe is the concept of “wisdom of the crowds” or collective intelligence. Mark Granovetter in his 1973 paper, The Strength of Weak Ties, highlights the importance of diversity in the areas of brainstorming, problem solving and ideation. The more diverse the group, the better they are at these tasks.

• 2. Value of collaboration – For the most part everyone agrees collaboration is a good thing to do but many haven’t defined what value it brings to their company, or why to do it at all.

• 3. How to do it? – “Effective collaboration” requires a major focus on culture, the deployment and use of technology, the adoption of process / governance for positive results. Few companies focus on all three.

• 4. Bad is worse than none – Morten Hansen points out in his book Collaboration, that bad collaboration is a waste time and resources and produces no results. Deciding not to collaborate is a better option than bad collaboration.

http://blogs.cisco.com/news/collaboration-what-does-it-really-mean/

Collaboration: What does it really mean?Carlos Dominguez, Writes in Cisco Blog

Purpose of Collaboration (and all other processes through which educators are developed)

To ensure that EVERY child, not just some children, have effective instruction and through that effective instruction learn what they need to know and develop a thirst for learning more.

Rethinking PD in the context of effective Collaboration

• Working together to create value while sharing physical or virtual space

• Focus on culture, structure and processes for positive results

• Adding value, working toward a specific end• Wisdom of the crowds applies with sufficient

diversity and skill level among the participants

Keep in mind. . ..

And as it necessary for doctors, lawyers, and merchant chiefs, ongoing learning for teachers is a must if we are to have great

schools…

“Effective teaching is an activity that can be learned, and the notion that someone is born to teach is simply inaccurate. Improving the practice of teaching – learning to teach better – does not necessarily come from teaching longer. Experience does not lead directly to better instruction. Enhancing skills, knowing strategies, and understanding content and knowing how to unpack content in ways that students can understand – these are aspects of teaching that can be learned and improved upon.”

Center for American Progress

about…

All collaboration isn’t professional development, just as all professional development isn’t only collaboration.

Share in the chat pain. . . .Can you think of a recent example in your school that shows this difference?

Does collaboration change instructional practice?

Well, that depends…..- on the purpose- how it’s structured

Assumptions:As COLLABORATION is implemented,

• the focus is on developing educator content knowledge and pedagogical skill in a discipline where students are struggling.

• the model used (IPDM which includes theory, demonstration, practice, and coaching) focuses on and monitors transfer of new instruction into classroom practice.

• student response to the instruction is monitored, and if new practice is implemented with fidelity, students learn more.

Center for Public EducationTeaching the Teachers

The Common Core standards focus on teaching for critical thinking, but research shows that most classroom instruction is weak in this area. Therefore PD, (with embedded collaboration within the school day) is necessary.

As early as 1909, researchers began to look at American classrooms and found that teachers overwhelmingly asked students fact-recall questions. Countless studies throughout the 20th century repeatedly showed the same thing (Burstall, 1909; Colvin, 1919; Bloom, 1954; Bellack et al., 1966; Nystrand & Gamoran, 1991; Nystrand et al., 1999).

The 2012 MET study from the Gates Foundation confirms that little has changed since 1909 (Kane & Stainger, 2012). The study used trained observers to watch 7,491 videos of instruction by 1,333 teachers from six socio-economically and geographically diverse districts. All of these observations pointed to one glaring weakness — the vast majority of teachers were not teaching for critical thinking.

While almost all of the participating teachers managed well-behaved, on task classes, the following practices were rarely seen: students participating in meaning making and reasoning, investigation and problem-based approaches, questioning strategies, and student generation of ideas and questions—the exact kind of teaching the Common Core calls for (Kane & Stainger, 2012).

Describe in the chat pane if you are confident your school is addressing higher order learning, how you’re doing it, how you know it’s being implemented.

An earlier study of the various models of professional development found if the training merely described a skill to teachers, as traditional workshops do, only 10 percent of teachers could transfer the skill to practice. The majority of the teachers simply left the training completely unchanged (Bush, 1984).

What it takes to impact classroom instruction - review

Training Components and Attainment of Outcomes ( Percent of Participants)

Outcomes Components Knowledge Skill

(Strong) Transfer

(Strong Classroom Implementation)

Study of Theory 10 5 0 Demonstrations 30 20 0 Practice 60 60 5 Peer Coaching 95 95 95 Joyce, Bruce and Showers, Beverly. Student Achievement Through Staff Development. 3rd Edition.ASCD. 2002.

Hence, the area of greatest struggle is not in learning a new skill but in implementing it, something referred to as the “implementation dip” (Fuller, 2001). This is true with any new skill—learning about writing isn’t as difficult as actually writing, learning about bicycling isn’t as difficult as actually riding a bike, and learning about a teaching method isn’t as difficult as actually implementing it.

Center for Public Education Teaching the Teachers continues: Most professional development today is ineffective. It neither changes teacher practice nor improves student learning. However, research suggests that effective professional development abides by the following principles:

The duration of professional development must be significant and ongoing to allow time for teachers to learn a new strategy and grapple with the implementation problem.

• In nine different experimental research studies of teacher professional development, all found that programs of greater duration were positively associated with teacher change and improvements in student learning (Darling-Hammond, Wei, Andree, Richardson, & Orphanos, 2009). In fact, in a study analyzing the impact of a science professional development program on teacher’s practice, researchers found that teachers with 80 hours or more of professional development were significantly more likely to use the teaching practice they learned than teachers who had less than 80 hours of training (Corcoran, McVay & Riordan, 2003).

• French (1997) concluded that teachers may need as many as 50 hours of instruction, practice and coaching before a new teaching strategy is mastered and implemented in class.

There must be support for a teacher during the implementation stage that addresses the specific challenges of changing classroom practice.

• Simply increasing the amount of time teachers spend in professional development alone, however, is not enough. The time has to be spent wisely, with a significant portion dedicated to supporting teachers during the implementation stage. Support at this stage helps teachers navigate the frustration that comes from using a new instructional method.

• Studies have found that when teachers are supported during this phase, they change their teaching practices. Two studies (Truesdell 2003 and Knight and Cornet 2009) demonstrated the connection between support and implementation.

Teachers’ initial exposure to a concept should not be passive, but rather should engage teachers through varied approaches so they can participate actively making

sense of a new practice.

• Just like students, teachers learn better when they are able to actively participate and make sense of the information being presented (French, 1997).

• Active participation can include: readings, role playing techniques, open-ended discussion of what is presented, live modeling, and visits to classrooms to observe and discuss the teaching methodology (Roy, 2005; Goldberg, 2002; Rice, 2001; Black, 1998; Licklider, 1997).

Modeling has been found to be a highly effective way to introduce a new concept and help teachers understand a new practice.

• Modeling — when an expert demonstrates the new practice — has been shown to be particularly successful in helping teachers understand and apply a concept and remain open to adopting it (Snow-Renner & Lauer, 2005; Carpenter et al., 1989; Cohen & Hill, 2001; Garet et al., 2001; Desimone et al., 2002; Penuel, Fishman, Yamaguchi, & Gallagher, 2007; Saxe, Gearhart, & Nasir, 2001; Supovitz, Mauyer, & Kahle, 2000).

The content presented to teachers shouldn’t be generic, but instead grounded in the teacher’s discipline (for middle school and high school teachers) or grade-level (for elementary school teachers)

• Several studies, for instance, have shown that professional development that addresses discipline-specific concepts and skills has been shown to both improve teacher practice, as well as student learning (Blank, de las Alas & Smith, 2007; Carpenter et al., 1989; Cohen & Hill, 2001; Lieberman & Wood, 2001; Merek & Methven, 1991; Saxe, Gearhart, & Nasir, 2001; Wenglinsky, 200; McGill-Franzen et al., 1999).

• Teachers themselves report their top priority for professional development is learning more about the content they teach, giving high marks to training that is content specific (Darling-Hammond et.al. 2009)

Collectively these principles present a Catch-22: to internalize a practice and change their beliefs, teachers must see success with their students, but student success is very hard to come by initially, as learning new skills takes several attempts to master. Crafting effective professional development means confronting this reality and building a significant amount of support for teachers during the critical implementation phase in one’s actual classroom.

COMMITMENT FOLLOWS COMPETENCE.

Researcher Judith Little describes …two different functions..1) the teacher as a technician and 2) the teacher as an intellectual (Little, 1993). An effective professional development program, therefore, needs to address both functions, understanding that there are differences in the ways each should be supported.

Teacher as TechnicianTechnical Skills Training

Teacher’s role: To implement particular skills or strategies which are backed by research

Focus: Explaining the skill and strategy and research base behind it with support for the teacher as he/she tries to transfer the skill or strategy to the classroom

Structure: Workshop and Coaching

Teacher as IntellectualAn inquiry process where teachers innovate

Teacher’s role: An intellectual examining broad research on learning and developing innovative classroom strategies to achieve goals

Focus: Exposing teachers to pedagogical research in teacher’s content area and provides support for innovation and implementation through a local teacher community

Structure: Professional Learning Communities

BIG IDEA

Commitment follows competence.

Professional development is considered an essential mechanism for deepening teachers’ content knowledge and developing their teaching practices. As a result, professional development could be a cornerstone of systemic reform efforts designed to increase teachers’ capacity to teach high standards.

Smith and O’Day, 1991

One comprehensive study analyzed 1,300 studies representing the entire landscape of professional development research (Yoon et al., 2007). The researchers found the only professional development programs that impacted student achievement were lengthy, intensive programs. Programs that were less than 14 hours (like the one-shot workshops commonly held in schools) had no effect on student achievement. Not only did these workshop programs fail to increase student learning, they didn’t even change teaching practices.

PD programs must be 14 hours

Describe in the chat pane something you’ve heard today about the research on effective PD that you’d like to confirm is happening in your district. What can you do to find out?

POLICY IN IOWA RELATED TO PD

TQ Committee Law 284.4(3)(3) Determine, following the adoption of the IPDM by the state board of education, the use and distribution of the PD funds calculated and paid to the school district or agency as provided in section 257.9, subsection 10, or section 257.10, subsection 10, based upon school district or agency, attendance center, and individual teacher and professional development plans.

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PD Supplement per pupil

Allowable PD supplement Expenditures: Iowa Code 284.6 (8)

• Use is limited to – providing PD to teachers, including additional salaries for time

beyond the normal negotiated agreement; – pay for substitute teachers, – PD materials, speakers, and PD content; and costs associated

with implementing individual PD plans. – Ed reform law added another use – PD provisions of the TLC

career paths and leadership roles– A portion is for core curriculum implementation

• The use of the funds shall be balanced between school district, attendance center, and individual PD plans, making every reasonable effort to provide equal access to all teachers.

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SF 2284: 36 Hours of Collaboration Time for Practitioners

• Collaborate with each other to:– deliver educational programs and assess student learning– engage in peer review– during PD time, but not during prep time – proceed with

caution if you move to 1,080 hours and not 180 days.

• In Code Section 284: references the Iowa Professional Development Model (TQ Committee has some say)

• Collaboration must be outside the minimum school instructional day - defined in Iowa law to be at least 6 hours, but most districts exceed that threshold. Law doesn’t say collaboration must be outside of minimum contract day.

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Peer Review Requirements

• Peer Review – in years 1 and 2 of a 3-year cycle. • Peer group reviews all of the peer group members. • Peer reviews are formative, informal, collaborative and

focused on each teacher meeting individual PD plan goals.

• Peer group reviews are prohibited from an employment consequence (intensive assistance, compensation, promotion, layoff, termination or any other.)

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Collaborative Peer Review

• Working together to create value while sharing physical or virtual space

• Focus on culture, structure and processes for positive results

FINDING TIME FOR TEACHERS TO WORK TOGETHER

Finding Time• Fund additional days – PD supplement per student, Categorical funds (DoP,

Title I, Title II, TLC, ISL)• Early outs and Late starts (remember to tell parents that this is learning time

for teachers)• Consider Hours rather than days calendar – make instructional days a little

longer to create full days for just teachers• Use Substitutes or have administrators or teacher leaders cover some class

time so teachers can observe each other• Use video – great for demonstration and opportunity for feedback• Common planning time• Digital learning time for students, double up noncore classes with Paras or

extra help• Merge classes for assemblies/common activities with fewer adults supervising• Engage TQ committee to create time and involve teachers in creating time• Assign reading, prepare PD agendas, have data gathered prior to collaborative

time so you make the most of what time you have• Find local or business support to provide stipend or sponsor a learning day• Don’t forget about students https://

www.educateiowa.gov/sites/files/ed/documents/IPDM_Tools_5-2.pdf

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN YOUR SCHOOL?

Questions to consider related to your school district’s professional development:

• Are teachers learning new instructional skills in your school district?

• What are they? Can you describe the moves of the new instruction?

• Are teachers implementing the new instruction into classroom practice? How do you know?

• How are students responding? How do you know?

FOOD FOR THOUGHT IN MAKING THE MOST OF PD IN YOUR DISTRICT TO MATTER FOR IMPROVED STUDENT OUTCOMES . . .

Questions for School Districts to Consider

• What existing professional development does the district provide?

• Does the district’s current professional development programming align with research about teacher learning?

• Is professional development producing an impact on student learning?

• What current in-house staff can be used to provide coaching and professional learning communities?

• What external resources can be used to staff coaching and professional learning communities?

• Is an in-house or consulting model of staffing more cost efficient and effective for the goals of the professional development, or is it better to have a combination of the two?

- See more at: http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/teachingtheteachers#sthash.H3kwJTMt.dpuf

Assignment Details for Recertification Credit – Building on Last Week!

• Review the Professional Development Self Assessment Checklist again (http://www.skillsiowa.org/?q=PL or check your email)

• Rethink your PD in terms of effective collaboration – processes in place, structure, working together in virtual and physical space, toward an end, adding value.

• Either ask your staff to provide the self analysis and report to us on what they told you or review it yourself.

• Identify 3 areas of strength and 3 areas that could use work. • Send your write up to Susie Susie.olesen@isfis.net 52

Questions or Comments?

Margaret Buckton , ISFIS – PartnerCell: 515-201-3755

margaret.buckton@isfis.net

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Susie Olesen, ISFIS School Improvement EnthusiastCell: 641-745-5284susie.olesen@isfis.net

Iowa School Finance Information Services

1201 63rd StreetDes Moines, IA 50311Office: 515-251-5970

www.isfis.net