Distributed Leadership Team

We had our first Math Council meeting of the 2014-2015 school year on Wednesday and as I began to pen a post about our time together, I realized that what first needed to be understood was the structure of our distributed leadership in our learning community and the fundamental reason that this team had assembled.

Over a decade ago when we embraced the America's Choice comprehensive school design, they met with our founding principal and asked her to put together a Leadership Team. The make up of the team was to include the school's leaders that would guide the school's vision instructionally and culturally,and make day to day decisions, together as a team, that would steer us in achieving our vision and mission. Members included the principal, vice principal, instructional coaches, guidance counselor, and our community outreach coordinators. Over the years, the make up of this team was fluid but the goal never changed, to distribute leadership throughout the school to ensure the school's goals were achieved.

In those early days, we were blessed with reading and math coaches who planned for and implemented the school's professional development and also did daily in class coaching. This meant that we were having quality discussion at our Leadership Team table about the instructional goals and plans of the school. In time, however, as our school's funding increasingly tightened, vice principal positions vanished, and multiple content coaches became non-existent, we had arrived at a different destination.

We were at a point where there was funding for the principal position and one instructional coach only. Our team had lost critical members and the focus on instruction had began to shift. We knew we needed to redefine our Leadership Team and more heavily embrace teacher leadership. We needed and wanted more of our leadership conversation to be focused on vertical articulation in each content area but we had to do it without funding to add more people.

The birth of the Curriculum Leadership Council emerged. The CLC would be comprised of an English Language Arts Council, Math Council, and Science Council. Each council would be made up of a lead teacher from each grade level in Kindergarten through Fifth Grade responsible for taking the content our council meetings and distributing the message and professional learning to each of the grade level teams during their weekly Teacher Meetings.

The principal would meet with the whole CLC Leadership Team the first Wednesday of the month, and then I would run ELA Council the second Wednesday, Math Council the third Wednesday, and Science Council the fourth Wednesday of the month. The teams would meet from 8:30-10:00 am. The principal had strategically set up the resource schedule on Wednesdays to give extra resource to the classes where teachers were involved in Council Meetings and/or have a co-teacher cover. 

In the couple of years that I planned for and ran each Council group, I was stretched incredibly thin. I did the best I could to stay one step ahead, and although the Council groups were better than what we had, they were not as good as what we needed.

We were thrilled when a Reading Coach position was added and Melanie embraced the role.  She then became the chair of the ELA Council. This allowed her to plan for and implement ELA Council, attend some of the Teacher Meetings, provide book study, and do in class coaching. The momentum had changed and the depth of the ELA work of the school had a significant, marked difference. Melanie embraced her own learning, attended national training, began implementing new ideas and curriculum tools. Our ELA instruction began showing positive signs of growth.

On the math side, although we don't have the funds to hire a math coach, the district did add an Assistant Principal position.  I assumed that AP position and continued to lead the Math Council. Although, I don't have as much time as a dedicated coach, I do my best to fulfill both roles. I study the new standards, content limits, and item specifications, explore the online resources,  read the math books in each grade level and subject area to understand the curriculum tools, manage the online math resources available to students, and do my best to provide in class coaching. I assist the math leads with training as needed.

Our fifth grade math lead, Carolyn, was charged with running our Science Council. Although she has full time teaching responsibilities, she embraced the role to lead the team. This year, she and our reading coach, have joined forces and will integrate more informational teaching strategies into the Science Council meetings. We know that it's not ideal, but without a dedicated Science Coach, it's our best solution. We are incredibly grateful that Carolyn has embraced the role and serves to support the other grade level leads as they maintain the momentum of science instruction in our building.

In a turn of events this year, we discovered that it was necessary to create a new council group- Response to Intervention Council.  So, the above diagram will now be altered to include this new council group and the CLC meeting will be replaced with the RtI C meeting.  It's another perfect example of how we don't let obstacles stand in our way, rather we figure out solutions for barriers. We are hopeful that this new RtI Council will lead their grade level teams to ensure that all students are assessed and receiving the appropriate Tier II and Tier III interventions. Our Dean of Students and  Guidance Counselor are co-chairing this council team.  

 

This is a glimpse at our Distributed Leadership Team flow chart.

 

 

 

 To keep up on our progress this year, stay tuned...

 

Curriculum Council Meetings

Each Wednesday, a dedicated group of content lead teachers meet in the Administrative Conference Room from 8:30 am to 10:00 am. The representatives consist of one classroom teacher from each grade level K-5 plus an ESE representative. They join me to have in depth vertical conversation in a content area. The schedule accommodates Math Council one week, ELA Council the next, and Science Council the week after that, and continues on a rotating basis.

The representatives are an essential part of our school's distributed leadership model because they offer professional development through weekly Teacher Meetings to their grade level colleagues. Without their vision, planning, follow through, and leadership our school design could not accommodate the level of professional learning or horizontal consistency we expect.

As the school's instructional coach, I hold the responsibility of carrying the global picture and helping each content lead as they guide learning at their grade level. I plan and deliver each Council's agenda keeping the school's long term mission and short term goals in mind. I analyze data, focus walk grade levels, work in beginning teacher's classrooms, observe model teachers in action, and have discussions with lead teachers to make sure I stay on target. The vertical discussions focus on standards, curriculum, instructional practices, student work, assessments, and professional learning.

We've just completed our first round of Council meetings and spent the majority of our time concentrating on dissecting the FCAT Specifications. This has been our focus because we are implementing our states newly adopted Math, ELA, and Science standards. Our FCAT Math and Reading assessment will also change this year, so adjusting to the new standards quickly is essential. In order for the leads and their colleagues to plan and deliver aligned instruction, they first have to know the standards and the end assessment. Once these two elements are clearly understood, then they can select curriculum tools and implement instruction to reach their desired results. I've already witnessed changes occurring within instruction based on the learning happening through Council Meetings and subsequently through Teacher Meetings.


Stay tuned for our progress...

Science Council

At my last Coaches Academy, I had the opportunity to participate, as a student, in a Fifth grade science lesson. I not only participated as a student, but throughout the process thought about the implications to teachers, and the training required to give teachers solid ground to move further into inquiry instruction. At Science Council last week, I wanted to give our six Chets Creek lead teachers who facilitate science professional development, an opportunity to experience the same thing.

I challenged them throughout our 1 1/2 hour session to keep today's essential question in mind: How will we offer teachers professional development that will prepare them for teaching the New Generation Standards with rigor in an inquiry based format?

For this Council meeting, I planned for teachers to complete an engage and explore from a 5th grade unit on weathering and erosion. I didn't want to tell them about it, or have them read about it, I wanted them to participate in the lesson just as the children would. And, throughout the process to think about the implications on teachers' professional development. So, I prepared the materials ahead of time and solicited the help of an experienced Science teacher, Rick Pinchot. We co-taught the lesson by first presenting the essential question--How does the Earth’s surface change by weathering and erosion? To read the Wind Weathering lesson, please read Day 1 of this five day inquiry.

As part of the lesson teachers participated and then later discussed the following implications.

• The engage part of the lesson is the perfect opportunity for discussion and to activate prior knowledge on a topic. Charting the student responses and posting them in the classroom allows frequent revisiting of the students' knowledge, permits the easy addition of responses as new learning occurs throughout the unit. In addition, it gives the teacher the opportunity to confer with students about misconceptions.



• Teachers must build their content knowledge to offer this depth in instruction. Having probing questions readily available after students complete their experiment is helpful in taking the conversation to the necessary depth and to make connections in the content.
  
• Teachers should post the testable question before each experiment and have students answer the testable question after completing the explore.


• Teachers should always remind students to stick to the procedures of the lab as closely as possible, focus on their observations, and record their data accurately.
  
• Students should work in small groups and record their data on chart paper for ease in posting so the class can compare data after the explore. Student dialogue is critical instead of recording data on an individual lab sheet to be put in a student's binder. Posting of large data done in small groups would make it easy for students to see if the experiment was conducted with validity and recorded consistently. If there are inconsistencies, it would be easy to launch into a discussion on which variables changed.


• During the investigation, teachers should take notes on their observations. They will use these observations during follow up questioning later in the lesson.
  
• After the explore, teachers should ask students probing questions to make sure they connect their learning between the experiment and wind weathering.
  
• Students should answer the testable question and then you should ask four questions:
  What did I change? (independent variable) What did you enter as data? (dependent) What remained the same for each set up? (constants) What did we use as the control? (control)


• After the explore and discussion of the variables, the teacher should ask students what could be done to improve the investigation. Students can then think deeply about variables and what could change to limit the variables. It allows them to reflect on good scientific procedures and gives them the opportunity to think about scientific precision.

Unfortunately, due to limited time, we did not, as the lesson called for, go back to two of the pictures from the Engage portion to discuss wind weathering. But, we could see how this would be a powerful way to conclude the day's learning.

In closing, I asked the lead teachers to consider the following questions;
--What cognitive demand expectations are teachers not teaching?
--Where do you see any misalignment in the cognitive demand expectations?
--Are teachers teaching the learning of facts or developing understanding?
--Is the emphasis on textbooks & explaining or on active scientific inquiry & discussion?

And, I asked them to reflect on our essential question of the day, How will we offer teachers professional development that will prepare them for teaching the New Generation Standards with rigor in an inquiry based format? I don't feel like we left with answers to this question, but we certainly have begun to explore the possibilities. Our next Science Council Meeting, held in a little over a month, will launch with me asking them their thoughts on this essential question.

Until next time...