Knight - Unmistakable Impact

Unmistakable Impact by Jim Knight

Book notes compiled by Jane Sigford

Chapter 1: Impact Schools

Learning that is safe, humane, empowering, and guided by a vivid awareness of current reality—should be a driving force for humanizing professional learning in schools. 

The Best Jobs

·         By continually exploring new ways of reaching students, teachers can see their classrooms as learning laboratories where their own professional learning mirrors their students’ academic and life learning.  By empowering students to be masters of language, to transcend their social status, and to love learning, educators have a marvelous opportunity to create a brighter future for their students and society at large.

·         Unfortunately, far too often, teaching does not feel like the best job in the world.  Too frequently, conversation between educators is negative and unpleasant.

Failure of American School System

·         Knight provides many bullet points about the failure of US systems on pp. 4-5.  One is that if 100% of the hs students had graduated 10 years ago the additional graduates would have put back the entire cost of running the gov’t in 2009.  P. 5

Unmistakable Impact

·         Rather than blaming, a more productive approach is to look for ways to make things better.  One area we can improve in schools is professional learning.  Most forms of prof. lrng (workshops, etc.) do not make an impact on teaching or student learning.

·         Students will not be energized, thrilled, and empowered by learning until educators are energized, thrilled, and empowered. P. 6

Core Concepts of an Impact School

Built around 5 concepts:  humanity, focus, leverage, simplicity, and precisions

1.      Humanity—Humanity is not a concept we hear a lot of when people talk about prof. lrng, but I believe the absence of humanity within prof. lrng is precisely why it frequently fails. P. 7                                

·         When a select few do the thinking for others, when people are forced to comply with outside pressure with little or no input, when teachers asking genuine questions are labeled resisters, when leaders act without a true understanding of teachers’ day-to-day classroom experiences, those dehumanizing practices severely damage teacher morale. 

·         The necessity of humanity is articulated by Parker Palmer:  “Nothing will transform education if we fail to cherish—and challenge—the human heart that is the source of good teaching. (Parker Palmer, 2007, p. 3 in Knight p. 8)

·         In Impact Schools people working from the partnership principles see themselves as learners as much as teachers in any helping interaction. P. 8

2.  Focus—educators need to engage in frequent, positive, useful, and humanizing learning experiences AND schools must focus their efforts. 

·         The main components of focused prof lrng are a) 1-page Instructional Improvement Target, b) principals, c) workshops d) teams, 3) instructional coaches, and f) district leaders.

·         ONE PAGE INSTRUCTIONAL IMPROVMEENT TARGET—Everyone must have clear understanding of goal and how to get there.  Doug Reeves, “The size and the prettiness of the plan is inversely related to the quality of action and the impact on student learning.” (2009, p, 81 in Knight, p. 9)

·         PRINCIPALS—Principal is also a learner who a) has deep understanding of teaching practices in plan b) precise understanding of what teaching looks like when teachers use the practices effectively, c) complete knowledge of how the school’s various prof lrng, processes can help each teacher, d) emotional intelligence to guide teachers to use prof lrng, successfully. P. 10

·         WORKSHOPS—Lasting change does not occur without focus, support, and system-wide accountability.  Effective workshops focus on the Target and they are supported by coaching. .  Time should be set aside so that teachers can plan how to work with their coaches, setting goals and benchmarks and creating a step-by-step plan that will help teachers implement the practices described in the plan. The way a workshop is conducted dramatically impacts a) how much teachers learn, b) teachers’ expectations about implementing, c) how engaged teachers are, and d) how much they enjoy the learning experience. P. 10-11

·         TEAMS—Intensive teams bring together teachers who teach the same course so they can plan curriculum, look at data, align with standards, and establish a procedure for ongoing focused lrng about what works and doesn’t with the class. The teams are grounded in meaningful, positive, reflective conversation. P. 11

·         INSTRUCTIONAL COACHES—Above components will be useless without coaching to help teachers translate what is being talked about into the everyday practice in the classroom.  Without coaches to provide precise instructions, to model in the classroom, to provide positive and motivating honest feedback, few new practices get implemented, and those that do, are usually implemented poorly. 

·         DISTRICT LEADERS—At the center of an Impact School are district leaders, led by the sup’t who put teaching at the heart of school reform efforts.  Improving instructions is a complex and difficult task at the best of times.  That is why we need a simple process to cut through the complexity.p. 12

·         LEVERAGE—need to identify and act on, the practices that have the greatest impact with the smallest effort.  Certain teaching practices are most likely to have significant impact on student learning—content planning, assessment for lrng, instruction, and community bldg.  Some prof lrng has more impact than others—those that occur in prof. lrng communities, and other situations that are supported by instructional coaching. P. 13

·         SIMPLICITY—Challenge is that improving instruction is so complex that likely only simple plans will work.  A simple plan is one that removes distractions so that only what matters remains.  It finds order in complexity.  It works a problem until the way out becomes clear and never settles for lack of clarity. P. 13 Change leaders need to push for clear goals, clear action plans, and clear methods.

·         PRECISION—Change leaders must do what is necessary to fully understand and be able to describe instructional practices that make a difference. P. 15

(At the end of each chapter, Knight provides an annotated resource list of references he mentioned or books for further reading.  It’s a wealth of information!!!!  He also provides a summation of the chapter.  Well done.  NOTE MINE)

Chapter 2: Partnership

Prof. lrng fails when change leaders underestimate how complicated change can be.  In education, effective prof. lrng must be grounded in an understanding of how complex helping relationships can be.  Helping relationships are necessary and they contain five factors:

1.      Change:  Educators, like everyone else, are often blissfully unaware of their own need to improve.  Using video recordings of teachers teaching is very helpful here. Change leaders need to recognize that the teachers with whom they work often do not see what everyone else sees. P. 21-2

2.      Status—There is a subtle dance of roles and status whenever a teacher and coach or principal come together to discuss instruction.  The very act of help, Schein (2009) says, puts the helper ‘one up” in a relationship, and because a teacher most likely does not want to be “one down”, he or she may resist a coach’s suggestions just to retain equal status.  Effective coaches intuitively recognize that they need to “equalibrate” the relationship (Schein) so they are quick to downplay their own status and elevate the teacher, congratulating the teacher on their skill, calling attention to their collaborating teacher’s insights during conversation, and downplaying their own skill and success. P. 23

3.      Identity—our understanding of who we are, our identity, is intimately connected with the work we do. Teachers’ identities are wrapped up in how they perceive their ability to teach.  P. 23 Therefore, criticism is taken personally.  Over time, many teachers may develop stories that will explain why they are not achieving their goals.

4.      Thinking: Teachers are knowledge workers—they use their brainpower to do their work.  In general, knowledge workers, according to Davenport (2005), do not like to be told what to do.  They are used to tackling challenging problems.  When the thinking is taken out of teaching, teachers resist. P. 25

5.      Motivation: Daniel Pink said that goals that people set for themselves and that are devoted to attaining mastery are usually healthy.  But goals imposed by others--…standardized test scores, and so on—can sometimes have dangerous side effects (Pink, (2009) p, 50 in Knight, p. 26 Extrinsic rewards sometimes makes things worse because they decrease internal motivation.  External rewards make work for tasks that have a single conclusion but they don’t work for complex problems.  3 factors (according to Pink) motivate: mastery, autonomy, and purpose.  People aren’t motivated by other people’s goals.  They are motivated by doing work that makes a difference. P. 27 We need to treat adults like adults

Partnership: The Theory behind Impact Schools

·         Use partnership approach—treat others as you want to be treated. And use 7 principles: equality, choice, voice, reflection, dialogue, praxis and reciprocity.

1.      Equality—prof lrng WITH teachers, not DONE TO them. In partnership all partners have equal value and listen to everyone with the same care an attention. They don’t decide for each other, but they discuss and decide together.

2.      Choice—Partners get to choose; they can say no to some options, which is what choice means.  It’s the freedom to…. We need to allow freedom to choose, but that does not mean complete freedom from form or rules.  It is freedom within a structure.  The solution is to create structures that provide focus while respecting the autonomy of the individual. P. 33

3.      Voice—Learning is significantly limited unless everyone’s voice is encouraged and heard.  It is a chance to learn from others because others share what they know. To silence the voice of teacher by asking for compliance (just follow the script) rather than ideas and feedback is dehumanizing. Teachers often feel silenced when they are told to implement scripted programs right off the shelf exactly as they are written. P. 35

4.      Reflection—Reflection stands at the heart of the partnership approach, but it is only possible when people have the freedom to accept or reject what they are learning as they see fit. Reflection (Schon and Killion) is defined as looking back, looking at, and looking ahead.  Reflection needs to be a part of all prof lrng.

5.      Dialogue—To engage in dialogue is now countercultural because we have models in the media who are celebrated for their talking over, loudness, manipulation, not their ability to listen with respect and kindness.  Dialogue is “thinking together.” According to David Bohm (1996).  P. 38  Paolo Friere has identified 5 requirements for dialogue: humility, faith, love, critical thinking, and hope. 

·         Humility—when we go into conversations more as learners than as teachers, paraphrasing, being fully present, hearing the emotion and meaning of what is said.  We withhold opinion so that we can hear others.  We don’t hide behind a veneer of expertise.  Humility lays foundation for one of the most important practices within dialogical conversations—questioning assumptions. 

·         Faith—Faith in others means letting go of the notion that we need to control them, tell them what to do, or hold them accountable. P. 40 Faith builds trust and without mutual trust, there is little chance that a conversation will be open enough for true dialogue to occur.

·         Love—Dialogue is only possible if we have empathy for others which means being respectful and nonjudgmental.  P. 41

·         Critical Thinking—When we go into conversation to confirm our views rather than to learn, we choose to think by ourselves rather than with others.  If I only want to hear you tell me that you agree with me, then I don’t really want to hear your thoughts at all.  If we truly want to learn from a conversation, we are wise to go into it looking for ideas that disprove our way of thinking rather than looking for confirmations that our opinion is correct.  Dialogue is the thinking approach to communication. P. 42

·         Hope—Dialogue cannot occur when people are paralyzed by hopelessness. It can only flourish in situations where there are many possibilities. P. 42 Every act of dialogue is a hopeful act, a sign that we believe a better future is possible.

6.      Praxis—Applying learning to real-life practice as they are learning. When we learn, reflect, and act, we are engaged in praxis.  It is impossible without a partnership relationship which demands the ability to practice reflection. P. 43

7.      Reciprocity—We should expect to get as much as we give.  It is the belief that each learning interaction is an opportunity for everyone to learn—an embodiment of the saying, “when one teaches, two learn.” P. 44 Individuals can learn and so can schools and systems.

Chapter 3: Principals

Leaders who walk the talk have a deep knowledge of the work done by people in the field.  In schools this means that principals understand good instruction and support and lead prof. lrng that makes an impact. P. 49

In Impact Schools all the forms of prof. lrng are integrated so teachers can master and implement the practices on the Target

1.      Instructional coaching, workshops, intensive learning teams and all other forms of professional learning focus on a small number of high-leverage teaching practices

2.      Principals’ observations and evaluation of teachers similarly focus on the Target. P. 49The principal plays the central role in translating the Target into the goal of every student receiving excellent instruction every day in every class

3.      The principal is at the heart of prof. lrng—co-planning, observing progress, and keeping the wheel rolling.  The reason is simple: the voice of the principal carries more weight than anyone else’s in a school.  We care about the opinion of our supervisor.  P. 50

Leading Schools and Partnership Principles

1.      Equality—Everyone is equally valuable.  Although the role of principal and teacher is unequal, it is unequal only structurally.  Leaders who genuinely win the respect of their staff are those who never miss an opportunity to demonstrate their respect for others.

2.      Choice—the principal designs opportunities for freedom within form.  Choice but within a structure. P. 51

3.      Voice—To honor voice, principals need to listen to teachers. Principals need to lead team and school meetings that provide an opportunity for everyone to speak, but they also need to use dialogue structures and facilitation skills.  Michael Fullan (2010) calls this relentless leadership. P. 52

4.      Reflection—If principals or district leaders take this opportunity [to wrestle with and resolve challenges through thinking and reflection] away from teachers, by doing the thinking for them and telling them what to teach and how, they deny them much of the joy of the job. P. 52

5.      Dialogue—Dialogue necessary for reflection to occur

6.      Praxis—praxis isn’t possible unless what teachers are lrng is immediately applicable to real-life issues in the classroom.   Principals can ensure that teachers have the freedom to make real decisions about the way they teach.

7.      Reciprocity—a way for principals to communicate that they see the talent and expertise of their teachers, but at the same time, it enables principals to expand their understanding of effective teaching practices, thanks to all they learn from staff. P. 53

Principals as Designers

·         Primary task is to design opportunities for teachers to engage in prof. lrng. That has an unmistakable impact on the way they teach and the way students learn. 

·         Principals are (in the words of Jim Collins and Jerry Porras (1994) “clock builders, not time tellers. “In Knight p. 54

·         Principals also ensure that the right people are hired to be instructional coaches and that those people receive extensive support so that they can be successful. P. 55

·         GREAT BOX OF CORE QUESTIONS FOR IMPACT SCHOOLS ON P. 56-57!!!

The Target

·         Too often school improvement plans do not make an impact on instruction usually for 1 of 2 reasons: 1) if a plan is long, few will fully understand all of the information it contains, and many may not even read it.  Michael Fullan says, “Fat plans don’t move.” P. 24 in Fullan (2010 b), p. 57 in Knight

o       2) if plan is too complex, it is hard for people to understand it fully. 

o       3) school plans often do not address the nuts and bolts of instruction

·         Any plan must be simple, clear, easily understood, and doable

·         Target should be written in such a way that it can be completely understood without any additional explanation. P. 58

·         SAMPLE TARGETS PP. 58-59

The Big Four—At Kansas coaching Project have developed comprehensive approach to improving instruction based on what they call Big Four. 

1.      Content Planning—unpacking standards and using them as foundation for creating guiding questions that guide students to knowledge, skills, and understanding they need to acquire.  Involves creating learning maps for each map and sharing the map and questions frequently with students so they understand.  [LEARNING TARGETS—note mine]

2.      Formative Assessment—Formative assessment is the learner’s GPS. 

3.      Instruction—The energy that drives the classroom journey is instruction.  They have identified 6 high leverage teaching practices

·         Effective questions

·         Thinking prompts

·         Stories

·         Cooperative lrng

·         Experiential lrng

·         Quality assignments

4.  Community Building—developing and teaching clear expectations for all activities and transitions in the classroom, reinforcing those expectations by frequently praising students and calmly, consistently, and fluently correcting them when necessary.

Mechanical and Metaphorical Learning—within Big 4 there are two categories: mechanical lrng and metaphorical lrng.

·         Mechanical—lrng where goal is to master content, skills or information exactly as presented.  Has right and wrong answers

·         Metaphorical—lrng where students need to be free to interpret or make sense of lrng in their own way.  No clearly right or wrong answers. P. 63

·         Both types occur all the time in the classroom. 

Creating the Target—Many ways to draft but some simple ideas to incorporate

1.      Every educator should have opportunity to provide authentic input into document

2.      Target should challenge every educator to become a more effective instructor

3.      Target should describe teaching practices that will genuinely help meet students’ needs

4.      When completed, should describe a compelling set of goals that are easily understood and that everyone is committed to achieving.

·         Guiding the development of the Target is one of the most nuanced challenges facing an instruction leaders

·         The principal’s job is to walk the tightrope between freedom and form

·         Principals establish a Target Design Team—teachers and administrators who work with the principal to create a Target that all or at least almost all teachers are committed to achieving. P. 65

Who Should be on the Team

·         Administrators and teachers who facilitate development of target

·         Team members should have 4 characteristics;

1.      Positive, whose good humor is infectious and encourages others to be positive

2.      Should be credible

3.      Open to new ideas

4.      Responsive to everyone’s thoughts and concerns, flexible

Flexible

·         During development, designers identify the challenge that motivates toward a solution. 

Administrators—They observe for what practices are working to achieve goal.

They can check to see if teachers are using guiding questions for example.

Teachers—They gather data from colleagues to gather information about the Target and information to shape it.

Ideation—at the beginning designers generate, develop and test ideas. 

·         Core activity is to identify different student and teacher goals. 

·         When possible, if a skilled facilitator, principal should lead the ideation discussions. P. 69

·         Can introduce practices that might be included in Target to address student needs

·         Create a draft of practices that address student needs

Implementation—the goal

·         What matters is that all teachers have a chance to shape the Target until they are willing to work to achieve the goal

Observing and Monitoring Teacher Progress

·         Principals observe BUT they need clear understanding of what to observe and how to observe reliably.  [Need to be trained in what to look for. NOTE MINE>]

·         Principals can gather data about effective practices by having one-on-one conversations with teachers. P. 73

·         SAMPLE OBSERVATION CHART P. 74

Principals as First Learners

·         If principals do not walk the talk by being first learners, there is much less of chance that significant, positive change will occur. 

·         Principals need to be first learners so they have deep understanding of all the practices on the Target. P. 76

·         In Knight’s experience too little time is often provided for meaningful prof. lrng for principals.  Sometimes, it is assumed that principals will understand the practices well enough.  Unfortunately, Knight has found that when it is assumed that principals have a deep understanding of the practices, they usually don’t.  If administrators are going to have a deep understanding, they need to have a lot of prof. lrng in the practices on the Target. P. 77

Workshops

·         Workshops are often not effective because they are one shot and there is no follow up. 

·         When effective, they provide lrng on the Target, and delivered effectively by people who respect teachers and who use effective teaching practices and when they are supported by instructional coaches who can help teachers translate lrng into practice.

·         Principals can do more than attend workshops; they can lead or co-facilitate

·         Principals can also increase the lrng by having one-on-one conversations with teachers.

Making it all Happen

·         The person who will lead the charge of implementation within a school is the principal

·         They must be able to manage projects successfully both the project and self-management

·         One strategy to help manage time is to create MITs—Most Important Tasks (Leo Babauta 2009 in Knight p. 79) Identify no more than 3 per day and commit to doing them no matter what.

·         Untouchable Time—To accomplish MITs, create untouchable time and let people, superintendent to teachers, know this and know why. 

·         Handling email—reply in order from top to bottom every day at certain time.  Deal with the issue and get it done.  Forward it on if necessary and ask person to copy you on reply

·         Keeping physical inbox—If a request comes for a written response, create an inbox, put the request in and deal with it twice a week.  Some use 2 inboxes—one for urgent issues and one that can wait.

·         Filing Notes by Month, Not Topic—take notes at meeting but organize by month.  Date the notes and then file them because you can go back to electronic calendar and pull out file.  If confidential, keep a locked file

·         Keep plans written down, not in your head—Can’t possibly remember everything, including our appointments.  Write it down. Can use index cards and then organize them visually.  Also you get the projects out of your head so your thoughts don’t spin.

Getting Support from Central Office—

·         Without central office support, a principal will struggle to make idea of an Impact School come to fruition.

·         Time—most important thing is to find time so you can

o                   Limit Number of meetings

o       Limit length of meetings—anything over an hour is usually wasted

o       Limit paperwork

o       Explore idea of hiring administrators to do paperwork so principal can concentrate on being instructional leader

Supporting Development of Target

·         Crucial that sup’t, ass’t supts, and central office support the Target developed by schools

·         Important that ass’t sup’t responsible for instruction make frequent visits to schools

·         Schools need to focus on smaller number of practices that can be easily implemented and that central office supports this.

·         Leaders can tell principals that the hard work of creating an Impact School will likely lead to some false steps, some mistakes. P. 85

Providing Support

·         Principals need to learn the new instructional practices, methods for gathering data, facilitation skills, etc.

·         One option is for principals to have their own coach or mentor to help them acquire the necessary skills

·         Funding important –for trng, coaches, time, etc

Learning

·         Central office needs to be learners along with principals, teachers and students.

·         Everyone from sup’t on down should attend workshops, develop deep knowledge of the high-leverage practices and understand the Targets clearly that are developed in each school.

Chapter 4: Instructional Coaching

Inst. Coaches re essential for prof. lrng, in Impact Schools

·         Principals provide leadership, guide the development of the Target, and observe and encourage teachers as they grow and move toward Target

·         Workshops introduce teachers to strategies

·         Coaches help teachers take the ideas and practices and bring them too life.  Without coaching, too often, no significant change occurs (Cornett & Knight, 2009 in Knight p. 91)

·         Primary goal of the work of ICs is to support implementation of the target

Partnership

·         Have to work from partnership perspective, embodying following perspectives

o       Equality—helping relationships work best in adult-to-adult conversations with neither person seeing themselves as having higher status  Adopt a “servitude attitude” as described by Lynn Barnes

o       Choice—Freedom within form.  Choose the practices they would like to implement, drawn from the practices on the Target and coaches collaborate with them to meet unique needs

o       Voice—must focus on teachers’ concerns rather than their own agenda

o       Reflection—essential.  Must have opportunity to think about what they are learning.

o       Dialogue—have the best ideas win and that occurs best when both partners think together through conversation.  Balance advocacy with inquiry. Coaches must ask good questions that prompt both coaches and teachers to think about the assumptions they hold

o       Praxis—This is about impact—how can a teacher take theory and make it come to life in real life.

o       Reciprocity—Coaches expect to learn as much from teachers as teachers learn from them

Partnering with Administrators—Principals and coaches must collaborate.  If teachers think coaches are evaluating or judging them, thy may not be receptive to coaching.

The Target—principal designs a setting where teachers are able to learn the Target and coach provides support necessary to implement.  Coaches must understand all the practices in the Target thoroughly. P. 97

Top Down/Bottom Up

·         Inst. Coaching based on partnership principles but the partnership must be both top down and bottom up in order to work.  ICs should continue to build bottom-up support by positioning themselves as equal partners and principals need to be clear instructional leader. P. 97

·         Principal and IC work together to make certain that those who need help get it.

Clarifying Roles

·         Principals help coaches be more efficient by ensuring that everyone clearly understand the coach’s and principal’s distinct roles

·         Coaches do not sub when teachers are away, do administrivia, or work directly with students except in service of larger goal of promoting teacher growth.

·         Coach works to focus attention on helping teachers hit the Target

Confidentiality

·         Coaches must exercise confidentiality as they are privileged to see and hear information most others will not see or hear.

·         Confidentiality builds trust so that teachers will choose to work with a coach

·         In most cases coaches do not have administrative trng on how to evaluate teachers p. 100

Frequent Meetings

·         Coach and principal meetings are important.  Knight suggests once a week.

·         Discuss progress, keep everybody on track, and give opportunity to stay on track.

·         Suggest that the coach lead the meeting and organize it so it is productive because the principal hare overwhelmed with other tasks.  This person should address key topics such as progress since last meting, successes, problems, questions about practices on the target, plans of action.

·         Meetings can be 30 minutes if managed well.

Principal support

·         Support conveyed by principal speaking up about the importance of the coach, by listening, and by encouraging

Workshops and Intensive Learning Teams

·         Leading Workshops and ILTS—Coaches can lead workshops which provides a venue for them to share their learning.  Content knowledge very important for them to have.  Plus, they need to know how to facilitate meetings.

·         Providing Support during sessions—if they aren’t leading sessions, they can help facilitate small group sessions and provide support

·         Conducting Interviews—coaches can have one-on=one conversations with teachers prior to sessions to help clarify the goals of the ILTs and the teacher concerns.

·         Follow-up—coaches can provide the essential follow-up to support the workshop

Components of Coaching

Knight has book Instructional Coach: A Partnership Approach to Improving Instruction that lays out step-by-step approach

·         Videorecording lessons is invaluable as an instructional improvement tool

·         Sometimes in coaching the coach pushes toward new learning and sometimes they pull by leading the teacher with “How close is your class to what you imagine the ideal to be?  What are you going to need to do as a teacher to get there?  Pull coaching starts with the teacher’s most important goals

·         Push approach is convincing teachers to implement certain instructional practices

Enroll

·         Coaches need to get teachers to enroll in the process. 

·         One-on-one interviews work well to do this

·          Coaches need to be credible and realistic in order for teachers to enroll

Identity

·         Coach and teacher need to identify exactly what practice from the Target that the teacher will implement.

·         Coaches need to train how to watch videos for the best effect. GREAT GUIDELINES ON PP. 108-109

·         Can move people forward by asking questions “What surprised you?  What did you learn?  What would happen if….What change would you like to make

·         Teachers need to establish goals, may even use some of the strategies from SMART goals so that goals are precise, measurable, and achievable.

Explain/Mediate

·         Once goal has been set and a practice to be implemented, the coach must explain the practice. 

·         Using checklists may be an effective tool in implementation. P. 112-113 because they help distill practice into its “practical essence.” P. 114

·         The less precise a coach’s explanation is, the less impact the coach will have on teaching and learning. p. 115

·         Coaches can’t take one-size-fits-all approach when they adopt partnership approach.

Modeling

·         Coaches can be helpful by modeling approach

Observe

·         After providing model lesson, and even examining video, coaches and teacher can converse about what the teacher saw.  Then teacher can teach, coach observes and then the conversation can be repeated.

Explore

·         Coach should collect data about how close the coach and teacher are to the goal of the teacher

Refine

·         Coaches must provide ongoing support so after the conversations and taping, and model lessons, the coach and teacher refine the goal

·         Important that teachers receive ongoing support

Who Should be a Coach?

·         A poorly skilled coach will have little impact on student lrng; a talented coach can make a real different.

·         Knowledge of teaching practices

o       Coaches must be knowledgeable.  Can deepen their knowledge by reading, creating mind maps of what they are learning, attending workshops

o       They can learn from others

o       Important to have long-term personal experience in working with students

·         Emotional intelligence

o       Coaches need to be relationship builders

o       Need to be good listeners

o       Need to be positive, optimistic who are quick to see the good in others

o       Need to be able to ask good questions

·         Growth Mindset

o       Need to have growth mindset as described by Carol Dweck—They must see themselves as constant learners

o       It is believing that “the hand you are dealt is the starting point for development.” Dweck p. 8 in Knight p. 124

·         Humility and Ambition

o       Need to embody both ambition and humility.  Can’t be too aggressive or too passive

o       Have same characteristics as Level 5 leaders as described by Jim Collins

·         Trustworthiness

o       Must act in ways that engender trust

o       Must be reliable, able to create intimacy that validates and creates comfort for teacher

·         Informed and Adaptive Thinking

o       The more coaches know, the better able they are to provide support when teachable moments come along in coaching conversations

o       Must be adaptive to have many strategies to respond to teacher needs. P. 129

Chapter 5: Workshops that Make an Impact

Workshops can be highly effective for introducing ideas into a system so long as ideas are translated into practice with assistance of coaches and other forms of follow up.  Michael Fullan, “ You can’t put any kind of precise number on it, but we might say workshops are about 30 percent of professional learning.  They introduce ideas into a system but you need the coaching to really have an impact. (personal communication, 2008, in Knight p. 133)

Making Workshops Effective by pursuing the following factors:

1.      Take Partnership Approach—presentations more engaging if the presenter acts with partnership principles of equality, choice, dialogue, reflection, praxis and reciprocity.  (Attributes described in previous chapter.)

            Choice means that effective workshops allow participants to have some choice in what the attend.  Dialogue important for people to voice opinions.  Praxis is important for people to be able to take information and put it into practice. Reciprocity means presenter can learn from participants.

            2.  Address Impact Factors—3 impact factors of principals, teams and coaching

a.       principals—Administrators must show they believe in the workshops by attending and/or leading them.  Principals must ensure that the topics presented help teachers learn aspects of the specific practices identified in the one-page instructional target. Everyone in the school should learn effective presentation skills so that many offerings can be available.

b.      Learning teams—if teams attend together it gives an opportunity to go deeper together.

c.       Coaches—workshops do not make an impact unless coaching is a component of prof. lrng.  Workshops can be conducted by coaches.  Time must be set aside for teachers to plan how, when, and where they will work with a coach to implement whatever is being described

3. Use Effective Design

a.       Developing Content and activities—5 stages: preparing, mapping, organizing, integrating activities and creating slides

b.      Preparing—Take notes as you read books, maybe type some up, and keep notes in a notebook as you read of important points you can use later

c.       Mapping—Knight uses mind maps on a white board to use a random process to gather information before organizing

d.      Organizing—Writes one sentence simple state to sum up presentation’s purpose.  Then builds presentation around 3 big ideas.  Steve Jobs’ presentations were always around no more than 3 ideas. If ideas don’t fit, he tosses them out so the presentation is clear and focused. Then he puts sub-points beneath the 3 big ideas.

e.       Integrating Ideas—bring in visuals, a variety of structures and activities, time for reflection, sharing cases, etc.  Reviews list then to have activities every 10 minutes.

f.       Creating Slides—What’s wrong with PowerPoint    

                                                              i.       We put too much information on one slide

                                                            ii.      then it forces audience to make a choice of reading the slide or listening to presenter

                                                          iii.      Poorly designed slides take away from presentation

g.      Creating Effective Slides

                                                              i.      Recognize that it is a creative act

                                                            ii.      Words—use smallest number possible

                                                          iii.      Practice presenting several times

                                                          iv.      Typeface size—use smallest number of words and largest font possible.  Estimate age of oldest investor in audience and divide that number by 2 to get your font size.        

                                                            v.      Exploit white space

                                                          vi.      Background should not detract from message

                                                        vii.      Images important—use high quality ones

                                                      viii.      Handouts—printing from slides not particularly effective.  Instead, make one page summary of presentation to give to people and on that sheet, provide further resources/bibliography

4.  Apply Learning to Real Life

a.       Reflection Learning—Give opportunities for how content can be generalized and implemented

b.      Thinking Prompts—Any object facilitators can share to stimulate conversation and dialogue can function as a thinking device. –film clips, student work, songs, etc. They precipitate dialogue

c.       Experiential Learning—create experiences that enable learners to act out the behaviors, strategies or other content being learned. P. 156

5.      Deliver the Message Powerfully—a presenter’s delivery can make or break a session.  Presenters must be clear about exactly what they want to say.  Shy away from buzzwords and acronyms and use simple, clear language that listeners will understand immediately. 157 But content should not be “dummied-down”

6.      Sound bites—create, short powerful phrases that capture a key idea or concept concisely.  Again Steve Jobs was a master e.g. “Today, Apple re-invent the phone.” P. 158 

7.      Pacing, Passion, Authenticity—Keep a perky pace, be committed to and passionate about topic—don’t fake it.  PowerPoint of Keynote is not delivering the presentation, you are!!  Don’t feel as though you have to address each slide.  It is much more important to connect with your audience and provide them with a variety of learning opportunities (about one every 10 minutes. P. 159

Connect with the Audience

·         Use strategies mentioned before, including emotionally intelligent practices, listening authentically, asking good questions, finding common ground, and building emotional connections. 

·         Also pay attention to position in room and eye contact—Step away from podium

·         Look at each participant

·         Use a remote control device so you can move away from podium to advance slides.

Walk the Talk

·         Use the Big Four as discussed in chapter 3 in your presentations

·         Vary your presentation practices

·         Use think-pair-share, jigsaw, gallery walk, open-space dialogue

Keep Energy High

·         Movement—Keep people moving and therefore energized. 

·         Learning environment—make sure room is not crowded, has fresh air, light, healthy (and sometimes unhealthy) snacks.

·         Read the nonverbals—are people engaged?  On their cell phones?  You may have to change what you were going to do to keep them involved

Use dialogue architectures.  That means:

·         Clearly explain activities

·         Use signals for starting and bringing the group’s attention back

·         Use strategies getting attention—hand signals, e.g.

·         May use strategies like holding up a card with a 1, 2, or 3 to show level of understanding of a presented concept [this is a formative assessment to see where the group is.  NOTE MINE]

·         Use different hosts at tables.  E.g. Have everyone close their eyes and point to the person at the table they want to facilitate. 

·         Tell stories—Stories are engaging and emphasize the point.  They can convey complex ideas in a simple fashion

·         Creating stories—having participants create stories if appropriate engages the group and builds sequencing. P. 170

In resources, Knight gives these 10 Simple Secrets of the World’s Greatest Business Communicators (2006) from Carmine Gallo’s book of that name:

1.      Be passionate, use your head to reach their heart

2.      Inspire your audience by getting them to care about your message

3.      Prepare, then toss the script

4.      Start strong but don’t bury the lead

5.      Clarity, lose the jargon or lose your audience

6.      Brevity, keep it short.

7.      Say it with style

8.      Command presence through body language

9.      Wear it well, the way you dress speaks volumes

10.  Reinvent yourself, continually improving your speaking skills

11.  Believe you belong; the success of your presentation will be direct result of the vision you hold of yourself as a speaker. P. 172

Chapter 6: Intensive Learning Teams

·         In the past two decades there has been a lot written about the power and potential of teams and collaborative learning.  Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline in 1990 was a seminal work about learning organizations. P. 176

·         James Surowski in Wisdom of Crowds  (2004) said that “on average [a group] will consistently come up with a better answer than an individual could provide” p. 235 in Knight, p. 177

·         In education collective intelligence is celebrated through several approaches to collaborative learning—data teams, professional learning communities and positive behavior supports.

·         Data teams—analyze student achievement and make instructional decisions

·         PLCs—results-oriented collaborative teams of teachers who concentrate on improving teaching and learning

·         Positive behavior supports—educators who collaborate to gather and analyze behavioral data and identify and evaluate interventions designed to create more positive and effective lrng climates in schools. P. 176

·         This chapter talks about ILTs—intensive learning teams—they bring groups of teachers from across a district for short, intensive collaborative meetings to refine or reinvent the course or grade that they share responsibility for teaching. P. 177

·         Need a facilitator who will meet with each person to know where they are and to organize the meeting.

·         The group focuses on curriculum development—unpacking state standards, developing guiding questions, and creating learning maps

The Challenge

To make an ILT work—leaders must structure the team meetings and keep an idea on how the team progresses.  They need to use the partnership principles [described before]; impact factors of workshops; principal observations, and coaching focused on the Target led through use of partnership facilitation skills; and are structured as intensive learning teams.

1.  Partnership Principles

·         Equality—facilitator equal to participants

·         Choice—essential as emphasized before but it is choice with structure

·         Voice—participants voices need to be heard to keep collaboration and trust

·         Reflection—people can think together p. 179

·         Dialogue—Confrontational conversations do not foster learning.  But tapping into everyone’s wisdom help us explore possible new ideas.  If conversations become about winning and losing, you lose.  Confrontation also silences some participants.  Very important to have dialogue to create learning community.

·         Praxis—with praxis, there is no gap between knowing and doing because people are learning and making plans to use ideas right away in the classroom.  The group’s facilitator may just have to get out of the way so that the group can do the work.

·         Reciprocity—ILTs provide setting where reciprocal dialogue can become the norm.  When effectively facilitated and structures, ILTs can be springboards for re-culturing schools. P. 182

2.      Address Impact Factors

·         Principals—Principal must lead change so that what occurs in teams is designed to address the Target.  They must be in constant communication with central office staff so that they fully understand district initiatives and ensure that they are built into the Target.  Teacher observations are very important

·         Instructional Coaches—IC help teachers organize and remember how to implement the practices, they plan for implementation which changes the nature of conversations during team meetings, they gather data on effectiveness of the work.

·         Workshops—can present new ideas, also can deepen teachers’ knowledge of practices after prof. lrng, and can reinforce what was learned.

3.  Partnership Facilitation

·         When facilitators do their job well, no one even notices that they are there.  On the other hand, creating learning opportunities that appear to run on their own takes a lot of planning and skill.  A lot has to be done so that a learning community is productive and moves ahead effortlessly. P. 184

·         Partnership facilitators must have minds like water.  They must be ready to process whatever comes their way, be quick to intervene as much or as little as is necessary to keep the ball rolling, and retreat from intervening as soon as possible. 

·         In the best scenarios, teachers should be so consumed by the activities they are in engaged in within a team that they barely notice the facilitators input.

·         Reducing Friction—Primary goal of partnership facilitation is to design learning experiences that run smoothly….to put it another way partnership facilitators must reduce friction during collaborative lrng. P. 185

o       Friction isn’t all bad but it is job of facilitator to remove anything that slows down the team lrng process.

·         Thorough Planning—Take the time to plan everything that will happen.  Should take time to debug activities so that they can be ready if something doesn’t work out as planned.

o       Purpose of plan—not to follow it slavishly minute by minute

o       Once team starts working plan is often set aside to accommodate real creativity and lrng.

o       Respecting teacher choice means facilitators must be willing to change direction when that is the desire of the team

o       Yet creating detailed plan helps facilitator understand exactly what every activity involves before the activity is employed.

·         Coaches Facilitating Small Groups—Coaches can facilitate small group

o       Attend to creature comforts of groups—natural light, ample space, ability to adjust temperature

o       Have clearly organized handouts (with page numbers)

o       High Quality materials—markers that work, quality paper, etc

o       Doing the dirty work—Facilitators can reduce friction by typing up notes, reviewing data, designing and printing out graphic organizers, creating slides, moving chairs and tables, cleaning up after meeting, etc.

o       Freedom within form—have a plan but have freedom within Allow group to flow by Keith Sawyer’s ideas from Group Genius

§         A clear goal

§         Close listening

§         Complete concentration

§         Being in control—when people are in control of their actions

§          Blending egos—use each person’s ideas

§         equal participation

§         familiarity—develop common language and set of unspoken understandings

§         communication—continues from hallway and break discussion

§         Moving it forward—build on ideas to move discussion forward to new point

§         Potential for failure—no creativity without failure and no group flow without the risk of failure. P. 55 in Knight p. 191

o       Modified Open Space—use open space technology—have participants list topics to discuss and then they organize themselves by joining those who want to discuss that topic.

o       Structured Choices—Provide opportunities for people to have a say in decisions, particularly if there are 2 or 3 camps.

o       Affinity Diagrams—Can be used well in collaborative activities—Participants pick a topic and write down their ideas on sticky notes.  Then they put them on the wall.  Then sort into related groups

o       Dynamic Planning—Groups put tasks that must be done on index cards, Then the sequence the tasks as to how they can be done, estimate the time necessary, set a time to be accomplished, decide who is responsible, then compile all the information on to a spreadsheet.

Intensive Learning Teams

·         Usually every district creates teams that create curriculum guides.  ILTs involve everyone who will be expected to teach a curriculum by bringing together all relevant teachers and making sure that everyone has voice and that an entire grade-level of teachers shares their knowledge with each.  This increases teachers’ knowledge of content.

·         Laying the Groundwork: Preliminary 1-to-1 Conversations

o       Short 1-to-1 conversations before creating the ILT to invite members and let them know what it is about does a lot to introduce ILTs and answer questions.

·         Reporting Back—Listening may be simplest, most powerful way to communicate respect.  The facilitator can report out to the ILT what s/he heard in the 1-to-1 conversations to help establish common ground

·         Establishing Team Values—Creating mission statements is often meaningless but there does need to be a way to identify, articulate, model, promote and protect shared values.  Facilitator can help shape that as a result of 1-to-1 conversations.  The act of creating team values is an important process to establish a team culture.

·         Unpacking Standards—Powerful way to empower teachers and contribute to their prof dev.  They really learn what is involved in the stds through the process. Need to go through state stds and identify those foundational stds. Larry Ainsworth has book Unwrapping the Standards  about the process

·         Developing Guiding Questions—once stds are located in the curriculum, teachers move forward to develop guiding questions for each unit. 

o       [NOTE MINE]  In my years as curriculum director what I have found is the most forceful tool in improving student learning is to take the curriculum and have teachers develop student-friendly specific learning targets that students know and teachers teach to and assess.  Then teachers need to use formative assessments to direct instruction. Dylan Wiliam’s work says that if done correctly, formative assessments more than any other strategy will improve student learning. 

·         Creating Learning Maps—Have teachers map out their units [In my work this can be one by creating learning targets.  NOTE MINE]

·         Integrating Other Practices—

o       Formative Assessments—Having teachers design effective formative assessments is a powerful way for students to know what they need to know and to assist teachers in guiding instruction.  [NOTE MINE]

§         Excellent resources—Dylan Wiliam Embedded Formative Assessment and James Popham

o       Behavioral Expectations—Have clear, well-established expectations for classroom behavior

o       Other teaching practices—ILTs can concentrate on what the district has identified as high leverage practices [What we know from research and the work of Mike Schmoker in Focus is that practices that make a difference are:

§         Well-designed lesson plans—Madeline Hunter.  I have updated it for the Sigford-modified Madeline Hunter.

§         Interactive lecture

§         Authentic literacy strategies in all disciplines

§         Use of well-designed learning targets

§         Use of formative assessment

§         Giving frequent and meaningful feedback] NOTE MINE]

·         Planning for Instructional Coaching Support—all the work of an ILT will not mean much unless it creates new practices in the classroom.  For that reasons coaching plans must be created during ILTs.  Coaches must follow up with teachers immediately to build on the momentum of the ILT.  P. 205

Chapter 7:Partnership Communication

In Impact Schools all forms of prof. lrng are coordinated to have a powerful positive impact.  The strategies that work are those that are discussed in the following pages. :

Partnership Principals and Communication—communication strategies need to be used with partnership principles in practice.  Following are the effective communication strategies:

1.      Listening—Listening crucial, however authentic listening is scarce commodity.  Authentic listening is a chance to enter into a deeper form of communication. P. 209Knight believes that if we act ourselves into better behavior using a few high-leverage strategies we can become better listeners.  Those strategies are:

Strategy 1:  Simply commit to listen—Be the listener not the speaker.  See each conversation as a lrng opportunity, not a telling opportunity and use questions to learn about your conversation partner. P. 211

Strategy 2:  Make sure your partner is the speaker—Pause and think before you respond

2.      Good questions

a.       Be curious—this is the embodiment of the principle of reciprocity

b.      Ask open-ended, opinion questions because they elicit unlimited responses and provide the opportunity for an expansive, extended response.

c.       Be non-judgmental—listen without assumptions and without prejudging your conversation partner P. 216 has a great chart of good questions.

3.      Finding Common Ground

a.       Commit to finding common ground—core belief is that we are more alike than we are different and in every communication we should attempt to find common ground

b.      Seek common denominators; avoid common dividers.  If we call attention to a major difference between us and our conversation partners, it can build a stonewall between us. 

c.       Use words that unite; avoid words that divide.  Words like yes/and can bring us together when words like but can separate us.  Be careful of words with negative emotional implications e.g. careless, dishonest, lazy.   

4.      Controlling Difficult Emotions—Many emotions are constructive but some like anger, shame, and fear can tear us down if we don’t control them.  Ways to control those emotions:

a.       Name it—recognize those situations that may trigger an emotional response and watch our actions and environments carefully to recognize the potential for mayhem. P. 223

b.      Reframe it—We must believe we can reframe.  It’s Carol Dweck’s “growth mindset.”  We can change if we believe it to be true.  Reframe a situation so it is something you can control by 1) think of yourself as listener, 2) think of yourself as a learner, 3) have a person victory, 4) go to the balcony—stay detached.

c.       Tame it—Buy time to think, rewind the tape, break vicious cycles, equilibrate the conversation by being aware of status, don’t make assumptions—ask questions.

5.      Love your partners

a.       Make emotional connections with your partners

b.      “Bids”—use questions, looks, touches to express the desire to feel connected to the other person

c.       Turning toward—turning toward someone gives them the idea that you want to be connected

d.      Turning away—turning away can be devastating and we are often unaware that we do this

e.       Turning against—sometimes we reject the “bid” for connection.  Can be destructive

f.       Fuzzy “bids”—some signals are “fuzzy”.  We need to train ourselves to be sensitive to nonverbals.

g.      Pay attention

h.      Make lots of bids and respond to lots of bids

i.        Let it go—we stop trying to control how other people feel or act.  To let it go means to respect others enough to truly let them make their own choices about what they do and feel.  At it s extreme, trying to control how others feel about us is emotionally abusive, but the need for control can show up in other rather innocent kinds of personal interactions, and it almost always has a negative impact. P. 236

Final Thoughts

Creating an Impact School is not for the faint of heart.  In an Impact School everyone learns so that they can do a better job right away.

·         Principals need to embrace being instructional leaders

·         Central office must make instruction a priority and become actively involved in the nuts and bolts of prof. lrng.

·         Instructional coaches, workshop leaders, and team facilitators must master a host of new skills and attain a deep, practical understanding of all the practices on the Target

·         Teachers and all other educators need to learn, implement, and master the new teaching practices and engage in honest conversations about what is working and what is not.

·         Teachers need to seek out and act on the precise feedback that can come from instructional coaches and from watching themselves on recordings of their teaching.

Impact Schools also demand that everyone works together to create a new kind of school culture, one based on partnership rather than on top-directives a culture based on love more than bullying and fear.

The work is hard, but the rewards are great.  A fully realized Impact School is characterized by the quality and respect of the conversations taking place there and embodies a love of learning that is modeled by everyone in the district.

Love of learning is infectious; it is energizing, joyous, and humanizing.  In this way, each day, an Impact School moves closer to the goal: every student receives excellent instruction, every day, in every class.  [Couldn’t this be the team statement of all ILCs?  Why reinvent? NOTE MINE]