Leading for Transformation in Teaching, Learning, and Relationships

1. Leading for Transformation in Teaching, Learning, and Relationships Dennis Sparks Executive Director of the National Staff Development Council

2. Staff Development for the last 10-25 years has caused feelings of discontent among educators. • Why?

3. The positive side of frustration with staff development is that it creates a desire for significant change.

4. Successful PLCs demonstrate that high-quality learning takes place when teachers learn and collaborate within their school environment.

5. 4 Knowledge Arts • Creating Knowledge • Communicating Knowledge • Organizing Knowledge • Acting on Knowledge

6. Leaders matter because they have the authority to shape conversation. They decide what is talked about and how it is talked about.

7. Profound change in schools begins with a profound change in leaders. This change occurs as leaders gain a deeper understanding of complex issues.

8. Sparks believes that profound professional learning produces educators who • Say what they have not said, • Believe what they have not believed, • Understand what they have not understood, and • Do what they have not done • In ways that are observable to others.

9. The Final Two Percent “…That cluster of experiences that literally changes the brains of teachers.”

10. What can produce complex, intelligent behavior? “When we read, write, observe, use various thinking strategies, listen, speak, and practice new behaviors in ways that…”

11. “…deepens understanding, affects beliefs, produces new habits of mind and behavior, and are combined in ways that alter practice.”

12. Learning within the workplace • Action research • Designing/evaluating student assessment • Classroom walk-throughs • Study/support groups • Peer coaching • Student shadowing • Curriculum design • Portfolios/Journal writing

13. Learning in the workplace is powerful because it comes from and returns to the classroom.

14. At your table, discuss the characteristics of previous staff development efforts as compared to characteristics of staff development using Sparks model of learning in the workplace.

15. Three Fundamental Barriers

16. 1. Clarity A lack of clarity regarding values, intentions, and beliefs.

17. 2. Dependence A dependence on those outside of the school for solutions.

18. 3. Resignation A sense of resignation that robs educators of the energy needed for continuous improvement of teaching, learning, and relationships.

19. Virtuous Teaching Cycle • A continuous cycle of learning where everyone is a teacher and everyone is a learner and learning flows in and out in various directions.

20. Teachable Point of View (TPOV) • A TPOV is a “cohesive set of ideas and concepts that a person is able to articulate clearly to others.” Noel Tichy (2002)

21. Tichy believes that it is critical that leaders have TPOVs about an “urgent need that is clear and palpable to everyone, a mission that is inspiring and clearly worth achieving, goals that stretch people’s abilities, and a spirit of teamwork.”

22. When professional learning in the workplace occurs, it is the leader’s TPOVs that determine the content, while interactive teaching and study provides the means for learning.

23. Creating a TPOV TPOVs are best as simple, declarative sentences and paragraphs.

24. 1. Intellectually figure out what our point of view is on a subject. • 2. Creatively put our POV in a form that makes it clear, accessible, and interesting to others. Tichy believes this is best done through writing.

25. Leaders convey their TPOVs through interactive teaching. Stories and dialogues are both effective means for creating Virtuous Teaching Cycles.

26. Stories Stories can be used to explain, illustrate, and understand TPOVs in human terms. They are used to tell: • Who am I? • Who are we? • Where are we going?

27. Dialogue The discipline of dialogue includes: • Equality among participants. • An absence of coercive influences. • Listening with empathy. • Bringing assumptions into the open while suspending judgment.

28. High-Quality Professional Learning • The Final Two-Percent • Virtuous Teaching Cycles • Teachable Points of View