Administrators

• Admin Forum
• Assessment
• Calendar
• Employment Opportunities
• Facts About Funding
• Legislative Updates
• PLC Forum
• State Assessment Reports
• State Improvement Plan

Home

NDE Organization

• State Board of Education
• NDE Administration
• NDE Offices
• Councils & Commissions
• NDE Staff Directory

Staff Engagement in Change

Responses to Staff Engagement in Change

1. Aaron Hansen says:
   January 30th, 2008 at 8:05 pm

   Ray,

   Tough question, but I’ll take a stab at it. I'm Aaron Hansen, Principal of White Pine Middle School in Ely.

   You asked how to keep teachers engaged in the change process. I believe first you have to involve them in the discussion. I don’t know if you have a leadership team or not, but if you do, I would sit down with them and tell them what you are thinking and feeling and have them respond while you just listen. By doing so, you will get a feel for where they really are. You will also get a good pulse on where the rest of the staff is.

   Secondly, by sharing with them your worries you’ll build a common purpose to come up with the best solution for your school. Once you have had that discussion, I would plan as a leadership team to have the same discussion with your entire staff and allow for input from them as well. I believe that part of true collaboration is real communication. Susan Scott gives some great examples of this in her book Fierce Conversations. She explains that we have to have conversations based on the “ground truth” (what people really think and believe) not based on the “official truth” (what people are supposed to think and believe). I am guessing that as a PLC you have had some of these discussions and that your team has worked through the change process before. I would be asking questions like, what are doing in regards to assessment and why are we doing it? I think it will help immensely to involve them in the discussion and the creation of a solution that is right for you.

   You’re right, January-March is a tough time to be motivated, but if people are feeling overwhelmed at the tasks at hand and not really seeing why they need to be doing what is being asked of them, this is harmful to the culture of your organization.

   With that in mind, I would suggest that once you come up with a solution to the problem, you find some ways to not only engage but re-inspire your teachers. When talking about students and teachers I have realized that those teachers who try to “motivate” students into doing their work are generally less successful than those who inspire their students. I think about those teachers I had in my education that inspired me. I was engaged! I believe that the Principal/Teacher relationship is very similar. Once your team has come up with a solution that is best for your kids, your teachers need to see the vision of what you are trying to accomplish. They need to be re-inspired. One of my favorite quotes is, “If you scratch a cynic, you will find an idealist.” I believe that when people, especially teachers, see a clear vision for why they are called upon to change what they are doing , they will rise to the occasion. I am sure you and your leadership team can come up with a viable solution and that you will be able to inspire people to see the vision of it. I’d be happy to share some ideas with you too. Let me know if I can help. Good luck! Aaron

2. Leslie James says:
   January 30th, 2008 at 9:41 pm

   Thanks for posting your inquiry, Ray. You are concerned that AFL (assessment FOR learning)/formative assessment (including quarterly assessments) and "best practices" are getting pushed aside by CRTs/MAPS (?) Assessment OF Learning... and the impact on teacher engagement in best practice...

   You are a PLC pro (5 years of implementation), so I'll just throw out some of my thinking and see if it spurs any of yours.

   So - where is the disconnect in the theory of change/action breaking down? Too much to do and too little time? Too much of doing things that aren't providing the benefit needed?... Once you are clear on that, you can move forward with your theory of change/action... Is there some thinking outside the box that can help resolve any disconnects?

   Having just gotten off WestEd's Schools Moving Up webinar (www.schoolsmovingup.net/events/datause) featuring the focus, alignment and success of Morse Elementary School and Cosumnes River Elementary School, and knowing that Nevada principals who don't focus on "standardized accountability measures" per se get big results on these accountability measures... it strikes me again that it's necessary to keep the lazer-like focus on what's "sacred" as all these administrators discussed ("sacred" being the word used on the webinar today).

   What was "sacred", as mentioned on the webinar by Michael Gulden, principal of Cosumnes River Elementary School is instruction - and the "functional unit of the school" - the learning teams. These are necessary to draw from everyone's experience and focus all resources to monitoring and improving instruction in order to keep the lazer-like focus on learning - What do we want them to learn? (standards/curriculum), Are they learning? (assessment for learning - real time assessment so adjustments can be made) and "What do we do if they aren't learning?"

   Mr. Gulden's school uses Schmoker's continuous cycle of inquiry and improvement which I've talked a lot about before. So if assessment "FOR" learning is helping students use metacognitive skills to self-monitor their progress and provide progress monitoring data to help teachers reach student performance targets, making instructional adjustments where necessary - then the cycle of inquiry and improvement will yield the accountability results desired. The more schools fine tune this process - the less they need to worry about assessment of learning accountability measures. The theory of change is - teach well and we'll get student achievement.

   I saw Aaron's comments just get posted as I was writing this post. Thanks Aaron for sharing your thoughts and work on reinspiring teachers so they can inspire kids (that works). Having those honest conversations about beliefs and really connecting to what works - certainly gets rid of the disconnects and helps remain in the flow of alignment. Otherwise unresolved cognitive dissonance will keep knawing on everyone. So - if any of that thinking helps or doesn't help with your context... we'd love to hear your "think aloud" like I just did! We'd like to know what makes sense and doesn't make sense to you out of all of this thinking. That grappling is important to model because it springboards into possible good results. (Attached is the powerpoint from the webinar.)

   BCM_SMU_powerpoint_1.30.08.ppt
3. Ray Parks says:
   February 1st, 2008 at 5:09 pm
   After hearing back from several administrators I realize that after 5 years of working under and hopefully improving on our PLC program I need to remind myself and my staff of what "sacred" time really means. In my eyes it means providing my teachers with as much uninterupted teaching time as possible. I really do believe that too many meetings are detrimental to the success of any program that one may be working with. Keeping this I mind, I always try to provide my teachers and staff with very specific data that is important to them in terms of what they are doing in their own classrooms. I guess I really just need to reaffirm to our staff, parents and students that what we are doing is working and try to keep the outside forces at bey whenever possible.
4. Leslie James says:
   February 1st, 2008 at 5:20 pm
   Ray - Your inquiry probably resonates with other school administrators who sometimes have to reaffirm what the work/focus is all about. The data you provide is key to helping staff keep that focus.
5. Gary Obermeyer says:
   February 3rd, 2008 at 7:57 pm

   Ray, I'm glad to hear that you are hearing from members of this forum.  I'd like to remind the "bashful ones" that we'd love to see your comments online as well (or as Leslie puts it, please think out loud).  The additional voices & perspectives add to the richness of the conversation - and the learning.
   
   For instance, I can share a little "ah ha" that occurred to me while reading and reflecting on the recent comments...  Aaron's posting reminded me of a simple but powerful strategy - include of staff in organizational/leadership questions.  And, in Leslie's account of the WestEd Webinar I was intrigued by the idea of both instruction and learning teams being "sacred."  Considering these comments together in the context of this thread caused me to wonder about a possible engagement strategy -- holding conversations about what is sacred.  I thought about how one might frame the question, then it occurred to me... that's exactly what happens when learning teams are asked to reflect on their meetings (a strategy we discussed the thread called SIP/PLC Connection).  As a result of this ah-ha, i'll be adding an update to that thread. 
   
   In the meantime, back to the invitation...
   
   As you read the comments, you are likely making other connections with your practice.  Let's hear an ah ha that occurs to you as you think about the topic of staff engagement in change.

   Gary

6. Gary Obermeyer says:
   February 5th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
   Ray, your concern about staff engagement in change, reminds me of a concern that that I've been wanting to raise... that efforts to align collaboration time around improvement priorities could result in over-managing the change process and actually reduce staff engagement.  There's already a built-in bias in the system in favor of programs and packaged solutions. This, along with the predominance of large-scale assessments as the measure of school success, tends to work against efforts to develop teacher efficacy.  That's why I believe so strongly in building reflection time into the day-to-day work of school improvement, AND providing time for staff, individually and collectively, to put their reflections in writing.

Leave a Reply