“When teams of educators believe they have the ability to make a difference, exciting things can happen in a school.”
~ J. Donohoo, J. Hattie, & R. Eells
A staff with a collective belief that what they do CAN and WILL make a difference in student achievement provides the greatest chance of student success. As with any busy group of talented people, we can often find ourselves living in our own silos based on our roles, on our assigned projects, or just our own interests. We have to make the effort to seek out the perspective of others and we need to be systematic about the resources, professional learning, and tools we create for our students.
As you think about professional learning communities, what connections might you make to Teacher Collaborative Routines? Teacher Collaborative Routines are rooted in three concepts:
- teachers collaborate to build a clear and common understanding of the pedagogy, content, alignment, and instruction for a guaranteed and viable curriculum;
- teachers collaborate to gain an understanding of student knowledge and learning to adjust adult actions to support student success; and,
- teachers engage in collaborative inquiry and reflective collaboration around their instruction through informal feedback from colleagues.
In order for Teacher Collaborative Routines to be successful, it is important that Collective Teacher Efficacy is alive in the school and district. “Collective teacher efficacy (CTE) is the collective belief of the staff of the school/faculty in their ability to positively affect students. CTE has been found to be strongly, positively correlated with student achievement. A school staff that believes it can collectively accomplish great things is vital for the health of a school and if they believe they can make a positive difference then they very likely will” (Hattie, 2016).
As your teacher teams continue to plan for and implement high-quality instruction and student support whether in a face-to-face, virtual, or hybrid learning environment, how might you positively contribute to collective teacher efficacy? How might you need to be intentional about communicating, collaborating, coordinating, and cooperating with each other to ensure each student is successful?
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