The Solution Tree Professional Development in Phoenix
It is a little more than a week since our trip to Phoenix, where a number of Westlawn staff members listened to a variety of keynote speakers presented by the solution tree, and here are my thoughts on the three day session.
When asked in person how the session went I have developed a standard response: "It was great, motivational and inspiring, but it was also a little repetitive. We heard from a variety of speakers encouraging our team to make sure every student learns at a high level in our classrooms, schools and district. It really is a common sense message that is impossible to disagree with." And that is it. That is everything I learned in a nutshell. Sounds easy right?
But that's the thing. It isn't easy, and that is the key message from these authors, leaders and professionals. Making sure that every student learns at high levels is astoundingly difficult.
I want to do three things in this reflective blog post: 1) outline why it is so difficult 2) discuss the solutions that the conference teaches and 3) apply those lessons to exactly where Westlawn stands in our approach towards the stated goal.
First of all, why is it so hard to ensure that all students learn at high levels? It is difficult because there are 30 students to one teacher and six teachers for every one student every day. There are four core subjects, two languages, physical fitness and complimentary courses. Each one of these classes has dozens of learning objectives and goals for every unit of study and the most complicating factor in getting every single student to learn at high levels is the fact that every single student is a unique individual.
With that many students, learning goals, classes and teachers, how can we possibly ensure that they all learn at high levels? Enter the current pedagogical approach used since the days I became a student, and probably much earlier. Group students into age levels, segment them into different subjects, put them with 25-35 of their peers and give them one teacher at a time. That one teacher will work their hardest to teach everyone, and anywhere from 65% - 85% of the students in a given classroom, school or district will succeed and learn at high levels. Fine, good enough, right? Well not according to current social pressures. Our standard curve of acceptable levels of education are shifting and more students need to be more highly educated in order to succeed in the modern world. We need to raise the number from 70% success to 95% success, and then look at the final 5% that are just not coming to school or still failing despite our efforts.
So there is the problem. What then, do the authors and professionals from the solution tree prescribe as the solution? Simple:
- We accept learning as our fundamental purpose.
- We will work together to achieve this goal.
- We assess effectiveness on the basis of results.
This is where an outsider would step in and say something like, ``you went to Phoenix to learn that? I Could have told you that!`` but the problem is that it is just not that easy. Here is what needs to happen in school - I am going to try to contrast the problems I outlined in the preceding paragraphs with the solutions just stated.
Do we accept learning as our fundamental purpose? I must say that for the most part schools do accept that learning is the fundamental purpose of their existence, from the classroom all the way to the district and provincial level, but if that is the case, then why are students grouped according to age? Why do we treat 30 individuals as a group? Why do we organize school wide events and funnel limited resources into events that do not help students learn?
Do we, then, work together to achieve our fundamental purpose? We often work together, but this process needs to be monitored and refined.
How about number three? Do we assess effectiveness based on results? Here we have more of a disconnect. Yes we have results, yes we have assessment, but how often do we strategically and purposefully look back at our practice based on the results and make changes?
Here is the last part of the post. I don`t know how many of our staff read this blog, but I am going to try to live up to the name of the blog and look critically and honestly at where Westlawn is. I will get specific, but if I offend you please keep in mind that this is purely reflective.
Westlawn is working in collaborative teams, and we are focused on learning. We are also on our way to measuring effectiveness based on results, but there are some things we need to work on.
Our humanities team has had to work through many changes in people and they have two daunting curriculums, so it is understandable that they have not yet produced usable ELO`s. The humanities team, based on this fact, is not functioning as effectively as it should. They need to focus on detailing a handful of key outcomes and creating at least one common formative assessment for each grade level and class. One of the ways to ensure this, and to make sure the work that needs to be done is getting accomplished, is to a) establish clear and easy to follow team norms and routines (I suggest the vote of 5), set clear and achievable goals at the start of every meeting, establish a zero tolerance approach to language or behaviour that distracts the team, and, to be quite honest, establish time limits on an individuals talking time. In order to ensure these things happen, there needs to be someone from leadership helping the team establish and affirm their protocols. Once the team has experienced some success then leadership support can step away and let them get on with their good work.
Team science is just too damn small. They need any extra minds and hands that are in the building to get into that room and help with the work that needs to be done. Leadership support could go a long way in helping to build the materials and share in the labour of team science. They are doing great work, but they run the risk of focusing too intently on day to day planning at the expense of creating usable CFA`s that can then be analyzed to look at the results of classroom practice. Are there CFA`s that are being built collaboratively? Team science is on a bit of a roll as far as the impact their work is having on the students, but they could be even more effective if they took a step back and looked at the three step approach outlined above? I challenge you, team science, to tell me where in the three steps either planning field trips or creating labs fits? They do, of course, fit, but can the results of their effectiveness be assessed with CFAs?
Math guys are ahead, and I am seeing far fewer students in the office that are frustrated with math and giving up on math, so there is a big pay-off to helping every student learn to high levels, but I would challenge team math to look critically at their classrooms. Is there room to change the pedagogy and then assess the effectiveness of that change based on results? Are you able this year to take one ELO and one CFA and change the instructional approach? You can then have real data about whether or not that instructional approach was superior, inferior or the same as the traditional approach (teacher teaches, does an example, students practice, students ask questions, students practice, students are assessed). I am not saying this approach does not work. I am just saying other approaches might work better, depending on the learning goals, and team Math is ready to experiment with instructional approaches.
Second Languages. We need a second languages team time, not at the expense of the other teams, but if the group approach works for the other teams, then why not this one as well?
Leadership team. There needs to be more continued emphasis and importance placed on our team time and the PLC approach. Support within each team and awareness of what each team is doing is critical for a few reasons. Staff need to know that their hard work is being noticed and celebrated. Staff also need to know that when a team is falling behind they will get the support and encouragement that they need to be more successful.
When leadership (of which I am a part) insist on a project such as I-Cubed or Digital Storytelling, then they need to be able to prove that this conforms to the three step-process outlined above. They also need to help create CFAs that align with a teams ELOs and not just insist on something being done. This is something I tried with digital storytelling, and that I need to be responsible for with I-Cubed.
Every time I am working at the office I need to check my path.
If I am not doing one of these three things:
- We accept learning as our fundamental purpose.
- We will work together to achieve this goal.
- We assess effectiveness on the basis of results.
Then my path is invalid and I need to delete that item.
