Building a Culture of Team

As a new principal I was faced with the task of changing a culture in the face of several obstacles that were impacting our staff moral.  Over the summer leading to my first year as principal I read DuFour and Marzano's book Leaders of Learning on my way to and from ISTE 2012 in San Diego.  This book led me to a plan to create a culture that builds  the capacity of all of our teachers.  Although this plan seems simple and common sense, I believe that we owe educators to keep things simple sometimes.

BUILDING A TEAM OF LEADERS

My vision was to create a team of leaders that shared our capacity building efforts.  I emphasized from the first day that we are all leaders and that we all have the capacity to share our practices.  We had department chairs already in place and to share the wealth I  solicited volunteers to be team leaders.  We currently have a group of 12 leaders on our leadership team that meet once a month.  These leaders share in the task of building a catalog of best practices via podcasts.  The team determined what our essential best practices were that we would begin to build our collective capacity as a staff.  As an instructional leader I started by creating the first podcast.  Modeling the way is extremely important.  The first podcast was about Conley's Intellectual Standards and the role they play in all classrooms.  During our meetings we use collaboration protocols to determine the content of the podcasts.  This process helps build the collective capacity of the leadership team and of course those creating the podcasts.  If we believe that students should have a voice in the classroom then it is equally important that teachers have a voice as leaders of our school.  Our leadership team has begun to help the school become a culture of WE.

OBSERVING CLASSROOMS

As a coach I always learned best by watching others in action.  I wanted to give my teachers the ability to do just that.  Each month teachers complete the assignment of watching the leadership team created podcast then visit either a team or department teachers classroom observing the monthly best practice.  Teachers can spend a minimum of 15 minutes in their colleagues classroom but I am finding out that many are spending much more time in classrooms.  Teachers fill out a form that they share with me each month while they are in the classrooms.  FORM The form is simple but allows for teachers to receive valuable feedback from others in a non threatening way.

FACULTY MEETINGS

Each month our entire staff meets for 30 minutes.  My belief is that faculty meetings need to be used to get better and learn and I believe that we learn by collaborating and sharing.  Because of this belief meetings are used to reflect and share on teacher observations of classrooms as teams.  Teachers sit together and we practice a version of a collaboration protocol called Critical Friends.  The reflective sharing process lasts about 15 minutes.  It has been great to see and listen to the discussions that happen at these meetings.  As the principal I am not the sage on the stage during this time.  Teachers are learning from each other through non threatening feedback.  The second 15 minutes of the meeting is devoted to the introduction of the next months best practice and building a team culture.

THE CULTURE OF TEAM

This process has allowed our staff to build a culture of TEAM where the room is the smartest person in the room.  As leaders of schools we need to share leadership and build the capacity of all of our teachers.  In what ways do you share leadership and build the collective capacity of your staff?  How do you give your staff a voice?  How are teachers learning from non threatening feedback?