Making a Difference
October 9, 2009
We are a BIG School
 Therefore, we have to find better ways of
doing excellent work.
 We are accountable to each other.
 Learning is the Work
 Systems Learn
 And then we need to get practical with these
ideas.
We are accountable to each
other.
 “School culture is the set of norms, values,
and beliefs, rituals and ceremonies, symbols
and stories that make up the ‘persona’ of the
school”
 Peterson. (2002). Is your School Culture Toxic or
Positive? Education World 6(2)
Healthy School Culture
 “Educators have an unwavering belief in the
ability of all of their students to achieve
success, and they pass that belief on to others
in overt and covert ways. Educators create
policies and procedures and adopt practices
that support their belief in the ability of every
student.”
 Peterson. (2002) Is your School Culture Toxic or
Positive? Education World 6(2)
Toxic School Culture
 “Educators believe that student success is
based upon students’ level of concern,
attentiveness, prior knowledge, and
willingness to comply with the demands of
the school, and they articulate that belief in
overt and covert ways. Educators create
policies and procedures and adopt practices
that support their belief in the impossibility of
universal achievement.”
 Peterson. (2002). Is Your School Culture Toxic or
Positive? Education World 6(2)
Cultural Differences
in a School
 The Believers
 The Tweeners
 The Survivors
 The Fundamentalists
The Believers
 Their objective is “Success for All Students”
 They are:
 Intrinsically motivated
 Primary characteristic is flexibility with students
both academically and behaviorally.
 In extreme situations, they are willing to confront
negative talk and attitudes toward children.
 Have a varied level of pedagogical skill
The Tweeners
 Their objective is to find their own comfort
zone within the organization
 They are:
 Loosely-coupled with the school mission
 Are enthusiastic about the idealistic nature of
school, but have not quite hit the tipping point.
 Stay out of school and district politics.
 Follow administrative instructions.
 One extreme experience can swing them to be a
believer or a fundamentalist.
Survivors
 Their objective is survival.
 They are:
 Overwhelmed by the nature of the job or life.
 They have no political or organizational
aspirations.
 They create subcontracts with students to broker
a cease-fire agreement
 Little to no professional practice is evident.
 All members of the organization agree that they
do not belong in the profession.
Fundamentalists
 Their objective is to maintain the status quo
(Leave me alone!)
 They:
 Believe not all children can learn.
 Believe that school reform is a waste of time.
 Believe in autonomy and academic freedom.
 Believe that gaps in learning are due to outside
forces (students, parents, etc.)
 Have a very rigid view & sometimes refuse to
change even when confronted with evidence.
 Have varied levels of pedagogical skills.
A PLC Team must work
collaboratively.
 What is collaboration?
 “A systematic process in which we work together,
interdependently, to analyze and impact
professional practice in order to improve our
individual and collective results.”
 DuFour, DuFour, & Eaker (2002)
We are accountable to each
other.
 We need to be able to talk about
controversial topics and deal with each other
as professionals.
 Resources:
 Crucial Conversations by Patterson, et al.
 The Power of a Positive No by Ury
 Getting to Yes by Fisher and Ury
 The Influencer by Patterson, et al
PLC Team
 Is the perfect place to give the Believer with
high pedagogical skills the opportunity to
build shared knowledge through research.
 Is the perfect place for the Believer with the
low pedagogical skills to learn better
strategies that he/she remains a believer and
doesn’t turn into a Fundamentalist.
 Is the perfect place to care and nurture a
Tweener so he/she doesn’t become a
Fundamentalist.
PLC Team
 Is the perfect place for the Tweener to find
connections to the school and stay and
become a Believer.
 Is the perfect place for a heart-to-heart talk
with a survivor because living the life of a
survivor is a mental illness.
 Because a student subjected to a Survivor takes 3
years to recover and if a students gets 2 in a row,
it’s almost impossible to recover.
PLC Team
 And is the perfect place to help a
Fundamentalist:
 Level One – Doesn’t change because he has been
given no clear reason to change.
 Level Two – Doesn’t change because he doesn’t
trust the person who tells him to change.
 Level Three – Doesn’t change because he views
the alternative as frightening. (Border-line
survivor)
 Level Four – Doesn’t change because change
would be admitting failure. He would rather die
than admit he was wrong.
We are accountable to each
other.
 PLC teams can make this happen.
 PLC teams can make us better.
 PLC teams can make a difference for our
students.
We are a BIG School
 Therefore, we have to find better ways of
doing excellent work.
 We are accountable to each other.
 Learning is the Work.
 Systems Learn.
Learning is the Work
 Tiger Woods ad:
 “relentless consistency, 50 %;
 willingness to change, 50%
 Jobs vary in their degree of routine vs.
nonroutine but the consistency-innovation
continuum applies to all jobs.
How is our work “learning”?
 To truly make a difference in the complicated
world we live in, we have to address our core
goals and tasks with relentless consistency
while at the same time learning continuously
how to get better and better at what we are
doing.
Depth of Understanding
 Liker and Meier note, “We estimate that
Toyota spends five times as much time
detailing work methods and developing
talent in employees as any other company we
have seen” (2007). “If we were to identify the
single greatest difference between Toyota
and other organizations (this includes service,
healthcare, and manufacturing
organizations) it would be the depth of
understanding among Toyota employees
regarding their work.”
The Art & Science of Teaching
 Marzano’s work:
 Three Components of Effective Classroom
Pedagogy
 1. Use of Effective Instructional Strategies.
 2. Use of Effective Management Strategies.
 3. Use of Effective Classroom Curriculum Design
Strategies.
Instructional Design Questions
 1. What will I do to establish and




communicate learning goals, track student
progress, and celebrate success?
What will I do to help students effectively
interact with new knowledge?
What will I do to help students practice and
deepen their understanding of new
knowledge?
What will I do to help students generate and
test hypotheses about new knowledge?
What will I do to engage students?
Instructional Design Questions
 What will I do to establish or maintain




classroom rules and procedures?
What will I do to recognize and acknowledge
adherence and lack of adherence to
classroom rules and procedures?
What will I do to establish and maintain
effective relationships with students?
What will I do to communicate high
expectations for all students?
What will I do to develop effective lessons
organized into a cohesive unit?
Learn in Context or
Learn Superficially
 “Improvement is more a function of learning
to do the right thing in the setting in which
you work.” (p. 73) Richard Elmore (2004)
 The essence of Toyota’s approach to
improved performance in all areas of work
consists of 3 components: (1) identify critical
knowledge; (2) transfer knowledge using
job instruction; and (3) verify learning and
success.
Consistency and innovation
can and must go together:
 Nail down the common practices that work
so that you can get consistent results; at the
same time, you are freeing up energy for
working on innovative practices that get even
greater results.
PLC Team
 Is the perfect place to learn how to teach a
specific skill the most effectively.
 Is the perfect place to learn how to teach a
specific skill to the students who are not
learning like the others.
 Is the perfect place to watch another
colleague teach a specific skill.
 Is the perfect place to have a colleague watch
you teach a specific skill.
PLC Team
 Is the perfect place to learn how to do the
mundane tasks efficiently.
 Is the perfect place to learn how to organize
the day to get everything done.
 Is the perfect place to bounce a crazy idea
that just might work.
 Is the perfect place to ask for help when the
lesson tanked.
Learning is our Work
 PLC teams can make this happen.
 PLC teams can make us better.
 PLC teams can make a difference for our
students.
We are a BIG School
 Therefore, we have to find better ways of
doing excellent work.
 We are accountable to each other.
 Learning is the Work
 Systems Learn
Systems Learn by:
 “By focusing on developing many leaders
working in concert, instead of relying on key
individuals.”
 By “building a robust set of interrelated
management practices and philosophies that
provide advantage above and beyond the
ideas or inspirations of single individuals.”
Systems must learn because:
 “The world has become so complex that no
one individual can grasp or predict what
might happen, because the number of
interdependent factors at work and their
ramifications are impossible to predict it.”
Systems Must Learn
 “Risk taking by definition is not about getting
results every time but about being successful
in more situations than not.”
 In an Uncertain World, Robert Rubin states,
“Even the best decisions about interventions
are probabilistic and run the risk of failure,
but failure wouldn’t necessarily make the
decision wrong” (p. 37).
PLC Team
 Is the perfect place to learn to lead others.
 Is the perfect place to make mistakes, forgive,
be forgiven, and start again.
 Is the perfect place to learn how to motivate
others.
 Is the perfect place to analyze a complex
problem to find possible solutions.
 Is the perfect place to risk, fail, risk, succeed.
Systems Must Learn
 PLC teams can make this happen.
 PLC teams can make us better.
 PLC teams can make a difference for our
students.
 Professional Learning Teams
 Holding us accountable to each other to be the
best that we can be for our students.
 Giving us resources so that every single day we
learn more about how to be the best we can be for
our students.
 Creating a system so that we all support each
other and learn from each other so we can be the
best we can be for our students.
And what is best?
 Sir Ernest Shackleton, “Life to me is the
greatest of all games. The danger lies in
treating it as a trivial game, a game to be
taken lightly, and a game in which the rules
don’t matter much. The rules matter a great
deal. The game has to be played fairly or it is
no game at all. And even to win the game is
not the chief end. The chief end is to win it
honorably and splendidly.”
Let’s get practical:
 With accountability:
 When you have meetings, be on time.
 When you have meetings, be prepared and be
present.
 Read the Tiger Weekly.
 Don’t complain – do what it takes to be a
contributing and valuable member of your PLC
team and the BHS staff.
Let’s get practical:
 Learning is the Work:
 What can you do to improve efficiency?
 Don’t email the entire staff on questions/comments.
 Seek out your SLC principal for questions/problems.
 Have a fool-proof system to take attendance each
and every period, each and every day.
 Have a system to make parent calls.
 Have a system to know what needs to be copied,
when it has been sent, and where it is when
returned.
 Have a paper grading system.
Let’s get practical:
 Learning is the Work
 Your PLC Smart Goal should tie directly to the
School Smart Goals. Here are some excellent
ones:
 Increasing the passing scores of AP Lit & Comp to a
passing rate of 73% for the 2010 exam.
 English III honors students will have an average
score of 24 on the English subtest of the ACT.
 90% continuation rate from English II Pre-AP to AP
Language and Comp.
PLC Goals
 Increase the % of Hispanic students to 65% who




score P/A on the 11th Literacy Exam.
All seniors in regular English IV will achieve 19+
on ACT English subtest.
Reduce F’s to 2% or fewer in Civics.
Increase the number of students scoring 3+ on
the AP World History Exam from 36% to 46%
for the 2010 exam.
Reduce the number of F’s on all Unit tests by
5% in Economics classes.
PLC Goals
 Increase students in AP Psy from 123 to 150.
 Increase 3+ in APUSH to 65%
 Reduce students leaving our Algebraic
Connections class for GED/HS/attendance to
3% or less from 10%.
 Reduce the student failure rate to 10% in
Algebra I.
 Raise students scores on math ACT to 22 av in
Alg III.
 Increase AP Calculus scores of 3+ to 48%
PLC Goals
 Increase 2010 Geometry EOC open response avg






from 22/40 to 25/40.
Reduce F’s in chemistry by 2%.
Increase from 95% p/a on Biology EOC to 100%
p/a in Pre-AP Bio.
Reduce Physical Science failure rate by 10% from
last year’s rate of 12%.
Reduce F’s by 10% in Sped Environmental Sci
Increase 3+ in AP Chem from 42% to 47%.
Increase students involved in Skills USA by 10%.
PLC Goals
 Increase Choir Boosters from 35 to 72 members.
 Increase parental involvement by creating a
Drama Booster Club of at least 25 parents.
 Reduce F’s by 10% in Oral Com.
 Increase student membership in HOSA, FBLA,
DECA by 10%.
 90% of Spanish I students will go into Spanish 2.
 Increase the % of Spanish 2 students by 10% who
take Spanish 3.
 Increase SC & SSP students extracurricular act by
at least 10%
Let’s get even more practical:
 If Learning is the Work:
 Your PGP should tie to your PLC or SLC Smart Goals.
i.e.
 Smart Team Goal: Reduce F’s by 10% in our classes
 Good PGP: What is your Professional Growth goal?
 My goal is to reduce F’s by 10% in our classes.
 And then strategies will follow – Guided Study, parent
calls for all failing students, after school tutoring, etc.
 Great PGP: What is your Professional Growth Goal?
 My goal is to reduce F’s from 16% to 10% in my classes.
 My goal is to read Classroom Instruction that Works and
incorporate 5 high yield strategies into my lessons each
month and share them with my PLC team.
PGP
 How can you help your team meet that goal?
 What are you going to do this year?
 This is due Monday so today is a great time to
get it finished and turned in to your
evaluation principal.
 You can do this all electronically. The PGP
form is on our BHS website/Staff tab/
Principal’s Blog.
To make a difference…
 For a our students and their future
educational experiences, we have to MODEL
where we want them to go.
 Collaboration that includes accountability
 Learning about how to do the best work.
 Creating systems and more leaders to help.
 http://www.cbs.umn.edu/bioprog/courses/interact
iveclass/