Let’s discuss strategies for promoting collaborative teams, especially professional
learning communities. In the
endeavor to develop and sustain a collaborative
learning culture, effective leaders should seek to mitigate informational
overload. Effective leaders know that reducing
stress and fear optimizes organizational learning and success.
An effective
school collaboratively reaches consensus on the mission, core values, and
beliefs (Lezotte
& Snyder, 2011). Thereafter, collective
inquiry is effective for building shared knowledge. This process, “in turn, allows them to make
more informed (and therefore better) decisions, and increases the likelihood
they will arrive at consensus” (DuFour,
DuFour, & Eaker, 2008, p. 17).
Despite the benefits of a collaborative professional learning community
(PLC), the authors were “convinced educators would benefit from both greater
clarity regarding the PLC concept and specific strategies for implementing the
concept” (p. 15).
Effective communication promotes collaboration,
thereby optimizing the learning organization’s ability to reach consensus. Schmoker
(1999) posited teams outperform individual efforts, therefore,
"learning not only occurs in teams but endures" (p. 12). An effective learning organization utilizes
the following three beliefs to optimize teams and the PLC concept:
1. the
team believes strongly in each member's capacity to develop practical solutions
to everyday teaching and learning problems;
2. there
is a belief that regardless of a school's social or economic circumstances,
improvement can and will occur;
3. the
team arrives at each meeting anticipating that informed trial and error will
inevitably lead to better teaching and hence to higher learning (Schmoker,
1999, p.20).
Educators
benefit in a number of ways from working together to identify a clear, shared
vision, developing a collaborative culture focusing on learning, engaging in
collective inquiry, remaining action oriented, committing to continuous
improvement, and being results oriented (Dufour et al., 2008). Those six
elements of an effective PLC promote learning by doing. As with many processes developed for
sustaining success, the six elements work most effectively if treated as an
interdependent, cyclical process.
To be successful, the PLC requires “reculturing
the traditional culture of schools and districts” (Dufour et al., 2008, p.
6). This shift needs to be systemic and
not merely structural, embedding sustained improvements in “the assumptions, beliefs, values,
expectations, and habits that constitute the norm for that organization”
(p. 90). A skillful educational leader begins
developing an effective collaborative culture by understanding the interdependency of the improvement
process rather than merely undertaking elemental processes for change. A skillful educational leader and empowered
educators trust in non-negotiable goals (NNGs) and values while embracing both
school-based and teacher autonomy.
An effective leader can create a
defined collaborative culture to optimize structured organizational learning by
utilizing strategies that encourage high levels of effectiveness. The first pursuit in this endeavor is to
mitigate learning overload. Information overload prevents stakeholders from realizing
progress and achievement of stated goals (Nguyen,
2011; Reason, 2010). Citing Kennedy (2006) and Franklin (2005),
Reason (2010) notes, “We can’t alter the brain to hold more information, but we
can change our approach to learning in ways that reduce overwhelm and prepare
us to deal with institutional challenges more effectively” (p. 99). Every
stakeholder’s reticular activating
system (RAS) impacts his or her attention and motivation. Therefore, the RAS
influences how efficiently staff addresses the organizational focal
points. The effective leader recognizes
this and seeks to “clearly identify the learning focal points that matter” (p.
100) as a way to mitigate stressors that overwhelms one’s perception and attention
to organizational focal points.
Learning organizations are expected
to attend to what Vygotsky
called scientific concepts (Blunden, 2009; Tudge & Scrimsher, 2003). Scientific concepts are psychological tools
such as language, formulas, memory techniques, concepts, rules, symbols, and
signs. Properly designed class
instruction utilizes and learns these psychological tools, thereby reducing
learning overload by optimizing metacognition (Bohlin et al., 2008)
In the pursuit of
defining a learning
culture, effective leaders also seek to optimize
structured organizational learning by utilizing a proven
system for promoting change. The
following eight-step protocol (Reason, 2010), promotes success while reducing
learning overload:
Step One: Acknowledging Learning Limits
Step Two: Lightening the Learning Load
Step Three: Identifying Learning Focal Points
Step Four: Establishing Emotional Relevance
Step Five: Establishing Inquiry
Step Six: Identifying Essential Goals and Outcomes
Step Seven: Making the Focal Points Public
Step Eight: Funneling New Ideas Into Current Focal Points (pp.
103-112)
“The
identification of learning focal points, empowering questions, and must-have
outcomes won’t reduce all the confusion in an organization” (Reason, 2010, p. 112). However,
the above protocol optimizes the learning organization’s ability to prioritize
elements essential for promoting student learning and sustaining success. Clarity and focus mitigates fear and stress,
thereby improving the organization’s culture of learning while reducing
learning overload.
The improvement to the
collaborative learning culture begins with recognizing promotion of student
learning in schools that are loosely-coupled by design must be tightly-coupled in
relation to non-negotiable goals (NNGs). Beginning with district leadership, a culture
based on “defined
autonomy” (Marzano & Waters, 2010, p. 8) communicates NNGs
to both the internal and external stakeholders. Otherwise, change can be either slow,
inconsistent, or nonexistent.
An effective educational leader
confidently handles the conveyance of more autonomy or degrees of freedom. Therefore, novice principals or leaders at
struggling schools need more guidance and direction from district-level leaders. An effective leader recognizes when and how
staff can work autonomously and collaboratively, thereby developing or removing
staff as necessary, which promotes the culture of high expectations within the school
(Eck
& Goodwin, 2010).
Purpose driven inquiry (Reason,
2010) can be utilized with either small groups or the entire school. Reason presented a six-step protocol useful
for small and systemic projects alike:
Step One: Identifying
the Question and Knowing Why We Ask It
Step Two: Igniting Collective Curiosity
Step Three: Defining
Strategic Action
Step Four: Defining Accountability
Step Five: Making the Agenda Public
Step Six: Maintaining Engagement (pp. 78-86)
Establishment of non-negotiable
goals (NNGs) are a product of earlier collaboration. Intentional invitations promote staff
empowerment (Purkey & Novak,
2016). Determination to collaborate,
time to meet, willingness to ask serious questions, creation of an action plan,
and always meeting with an agenda, promotes collaborative communication aligned
to the established NNGs. Therefore,
Reason’s (2010) six-step protocol for purpose driven inquiry mitigates learning
overload while encouraging collaborative learning organizations to focus upon sustained
improvement, efficient learning, and sustained success.
Effective accountability requirements hastened the
emergence of professional learning communities (PLC). Marzano
and Waters (2009) believe, a PLC “suggests a
group of people sharing and critically interrogating their practice in an
ongoing, reflective, collaborative, inclusive, learning oriented,
growth-promoting way; operating as a collective enterprise” (p. 56). The PLC and undertaken action research
addresses the need to develop and sustain a systemic culture of continuous
improvement that
promotes positive learning (DuFour, et al., 2008; Rentfro, 2007).
Positive change can be the outcome of innovative thinking,
willingness, humility, collaboration, and a collective vision grounded in a
clearly-defined mission. Unintended
consequences, which often fall into the pool labeled “negative change,”
typically ignore the characteristics connected with positive change. In conclusion, leaders interested in promoting
a collaborative
learning culture must embrace this reality: It is not enough to want
to change or need to change, to become enculturated within an organization, stakeholders
must experience positive change.
To cite:
Anderson,
C.J. (May 31, 2018) Developing a collaborative learning culture [Web log post]
Retrieved
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