Effective PBS Team Development

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Effective PBS Team Development

• Robin Galloway,
• Iowa Behavioral Alliance
• RISE
• Iowa State University
• Iowa PBS Conference
• Ames, Iowa
• September 18, 2006

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Objectives of Session

• Why Develop Effective Teams
• What Makes an Effective Team
• Resources to help Develop your Team

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Why develop effective PBS teams?

• Professional Development through Learning
  Communities
• Individual Growth - A teacher can never truly
  teach unless she is learning herself. A lamp can
  never light another flame unless it continues to
  burn its own flame. Rabindranath Tragore
  (1861-1941), Nobel Prize Laureate for Literature
• Organizational Growth collaborative learning
  demands the recognition of each members value,
  knowledge and expertise

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Team Meetings . . . ?
No, Thursdays out. How about never--is never
good for you!
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5 Elements of Teachers Professional Community
that Produce a Collective Sense of Responsibility
for Student Learning(Louis, Marks, Kruse ,
1996)

• Shared Norms and Values
• Collective Focus on Student Learning
• Collaboration
• Deprivatized Practice
• Reflective Dialogue

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Shared Norms and Values

• This is hard work not soft work
• Self-understanding - must understand your own
  beliefs, values and assumptions first and how
  they influence your personal worldview
• Must develop a collaborative learning environment
  that encourages people to voice different
  perspectives TRUST

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Environments with high levels of TRUST reflect

• Openness
• Sharing
• Acceptance
• Support
• Cooperative intention

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What behaviors occur in meetings that do not work
for you?
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Negative Behaviors.

• Engage in side conversations
• Be chronically late to the meeting
• Interrupt the meeting
• Dominate the conversation
• No agenda to follow
• ..
• ..
• ..

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Develop the Ground Rules or Your Way of
Being!!!
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Sample Group Way of Being

• Start and end on time
• Participate in no side conversations
• Minimize interruptions
• Offer everyone an equal voice
• Honor promises and commitments
• Avoid dominating the conversation
• Listen for understanding
• Right to pass

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The Keys to Developing your Groups Way of Being

• Let the group develop the norms collectively and
  agree to follow them collectively
• Remind the group of the norms at each meeting
• Check periodically to allow people to reflect on
  how the group is doing with following the norms
  do we need to add any?

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5 Elements of Teachers Professional Community
that Produce a Collective Sense of Responsibility
for Student Learning(Louis, Marks, Kruse,
1996)

• Shared Norms and Values
• Collective Focus on
• Student Learning
• Collaboration
• Deprivatized Practice
• Reflective Dialogue

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Beliefs and Values

• Determine shared values and beliefs about student
  learning that provides the foundation for
  dialogue around
• Sharing expertise and perspectives around
  teaching and learning processes
• Examining data about students
• Developing a sense of mutual support and shared
  responsibility for effective instruction
• Some Questions to Consider
• Do all students have ample opportunities to meet
  important standards?
• How can instruction be differentiated to meet the
  needs of diverse learners?
• How should the school partner with parents to
  improve student learning?
• What is my responsibility as an educator to
  mentor/mentee with my colleagues?

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5 Elements of Teachers Professional Community
that Produce a Collective Sense of Responsibility
for Student Learning(Louis, Marks, Kruse,
1996)

• Shared Norms and Values
• Collective Focus on Student Learning
• Collaboration
• Deprivatized Practice
• Reflective Dialogue

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Collaboration and Deprivatized Practice

• A developmental process that becomes easier once
  Norms, Values and Beliefs are recognized and are
  the foundation of the teams work!!
• The TEMPTATION is to skip the work of developing
  the norms, beliefs and values and go straight to
  task completion often resulting in the teams
  inability to dialogue effectively

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5 Elements of Teachers Professional Community
that Produce a Collective Sense of Responsibility
for Student Learning(Louis, Marks, Kruse,
1996)

• Shared Norms and Values
• Collective Focus on Student Learning
• Collaboration
• Deprivatized Practice
• Reflective Dialogue

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Reflective Dialogue

• Facilitator/Coach/Leader Responsibilities
• Before each meeting
• Members know the purpose of the group and what
  their role is as a member
• There is a clear purpose for each meeting
• Regular meetings are scheduled
• Team members have input into the agenda
• Design the meeting environment
• Arrange the physical space of the room
  avoid hierarchies
• Provide charts of the tasks, objectives,
  norms etc

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Continued Facilitator Responsibilities

• At each meeting
• Provide an agenda for each meeting
• Review the norms at the start of the meeting
• Review the objectives at the start of the meeting
• Assign the following roles to group members at
  each meeting Recorder, Taskmaster or Gatekeeper
• View CONFLICT as normal
• Acknowledge that group development includes
  storming, norming, performing stages
• Work to facilitate an environment where it is
  safe to address the undiscussable or the elephant
  in the living room
• Allow the group to reflect on its commitments to
  the norms, beliefs, values and goals
• Use an opening and closing activity to support
  adult learning needs

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What opening activities have worked for you as a
facilitator?
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What closing activities have worked for you as a
facilitator?
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Tips for Recorders

• Charting/Public Recording
• The Adaptive School A handbook for developing
  collaborative groups, Garmston and Wellman
• Hand out The Benefits of Public Recording
• Hand out The Basics of Public Recording

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Member Participation

• How to Listen in Skillful Discussion The Fifth
  Discipline Fieldbook, Peter Senge
• Handout
• Stop Talking!
• Imagine the other persons viewpoint
• Look, act, and be interested
• Listen between the lines
• Speak only affirmatively while listening
• Rephrase what the other person has just told you
• Stop Talking!

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Group Development Resources

• The Adaptive School A sourcebook for developing
  collaborative groups, Garmston and Wellman
• Educators as Learners Creating a professional
  learning community in your school, Wald and
  Castleberry
• The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook Strategies and
  tools for building a learning community, Senge

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Questions

• Deb Thomas
• Staff Development Coordinator
• Iowa Behavioral Alliance
• Drake University
• debra.thomas_at_DRAKE.EDU
• Keli Tallman
• State 4-H Youth Extension Specialist
• Iowa Behavioral Alliance
• Iowa State University
• ktallman_at_iastate.edu
• Robin Galloway
• Evaluation Coordinator
• Iowa Behavioral Alliance
• RISE, College of Education
• Iowa State University
• rgal_at_iastate.edu