Plg- what is collaboration ?

Alma Harris  Disciplined collaboration

The concepts that are delved into are very similar to many other researchers findings I have read and also the day spent recently with Roween Higgie at the EAAPA leadership day Leading from within

The 3 key ideas are

Implementation

Innovation

Impact

They promote 7 tests for evaluating how disciplined your collaboration is.. I wonder how well we rate against these as a team? and across teams as a school?

7 tests

Clarity of focus

Consistent and creative use of data

Collaboration with purpose

Communication of intent and outcomes

Capacity building through engagement and involvement of others

Coherent action

Change in practice


Distributed Leadership

Creating learner agency in New Entrants

Day one with a new entrant class and we set some writing goals
this is part of our junior school inquiry into increasing student ownership and agency over their writing goals...an area I had seen as a problem for our younger students to articulate during snapshots of student voice earlier this year
Every teacher in the junior school has taken our kid speak writing goal and are trying different ways to increase ownership of their learning needs with their classes.

I have taken the kid speak goals and added visuals to each goal

In the first year writing goals

I have paired this with our MBS writing process that I posted about last year
Mbs writing process

and today with week 1 new entrants we spent a lot of time looking at their first goal
Room 1 setting writing goals

It will be exciting to see how this increases ownership and agency of their own learning needs

Juggling time

I have posted before about how hard it is to fit in everything I need to do during a normal ( is there any such thing!) teaching day.
As of this term I am in a classroom 4 days a week with 1 day a week to fit in everything else that I do for my role as AP/ elearning leader/ Maths leader/ SENCO.
It must be said that during this holidays I have alternated between excitement to be spending more time teaching and worrying how to manage everything I need to do.
Today was the first day of one of my teaching roles..a class of new entrants. I have spent the past week getting ready with the teacher who will do 0.6 and I was excited to implement the amazing things we had set up. Getting to school early to allow me to finalise all the prep for todays lessons ( couldn't fit everything in last week despite spending every day in school) I was met by a server room with no power...Now luckily I work for someone with a brain who has employed a full time ICT support company...but they don't live on site...so the problem still remained that I had to get this fixed ASAP otherwise the teachers would not be happy bunnies. I eventually found the issue and handed it over to the IT contract guy to fix remotely. However this took the hour I had allowed  before school to get set up...which then meant running behind all day trying to get resourced for the next section of the day.
Toughen up..is what I usually say to myself in situations like this...but I am not sure how much tougher I can be and I absolutely dislike not performing to the best of my abilities...especially when it comes to being in class...The lessons went well and we achieved all I set out...and more..but the only way to ensure this was to not stp all day and to run like mad during my breaks. I know feel like I have been back at school for a week already..which I know isn't good for me or my family.
So how to juggle is my big question to myself...How will I manage to ensure that everything I need to do is done to my rather exacting standards?

still the staff meeting I ran after school on elearning went well and so did the class programme...could be I am worrying before the horse has even bolted...guess we will see.

Leading from within

Day away from craziness of daily work focusing on leading change from within, facilitated by the awesome Roween higgie from education group... So I know there will be lots to think about.

Competences for leaders

Centre for creative leadership calls our role "middle leaders- we operate up and down the organisational hierarchy, as well as across functions and silos. To achieve results we must effectively manage people and processes "

http://www.ccl.org/leadership/CCLSearchResults.aspx?q=educational%20leadership%20research#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=educational%20leadership%20research&gsc.page=1

Our leadership roles are highly complex

Who are the senior/ middle leaders in our school?

Principal, DP and AP form the SLT

DP and AP have teams of teachers they work closely with to support.

Specifically within my team structure I believe that we have a strong PLCommunity which supports , extends and pushes each other.

What are similarities and differences between the two?

Our school is very small so the amount of middle leaders is small on paper. But in practice we have experts who step up and share and support each other

Our definition of a middle leader is ?

Leadership that gets results by dan goleman

http://www.slideshare.net/mobile/BagusWahyudi/leadership-that-get-result

I currently utilise affiliative, democratic and coaching most naturally. Authoritative is an area I am trying to build on in my leadership and pacesetting is something I have previously has to work on in order to ensure I don't run ahead

Authoritative leaders are clear about the bigger picture, stand firm in face of challenge but these leaders need to ensure they have people on the bus

Coercive leadership is appropriate when there is a process and accountability to be complied with- this is not the time to ask if people want to do things a different way.

Democratic gets buy in

Coaching helps change

Affiliative keeps everyone working in the same direction and keeps the passion running

Pacesetting can be positive or negative

Jan hill - leadership competencies

 This is about self awareness- my feelings, thoughts, actions. Knowing how people respond to this, then being able to manage this. For instance a couple of weeks ago I was feeling very stressed, I knew this and I knew it couldn't get out as my team need me to be strong for them...so I made sure to stay calm and keep my mouth shut if I was feeling a bit off so I wouldn't reveal impatience....this ended up being futile as my team knew instantly that I was not ok...as my quietness gave me away...since this I have been pondering how to handle the fact that if I seem off it freaks my team out...yet I'm still human 

Social competence is about how well I know and can facilitate the supports around my team to be there for them and know when each person may need support and what is the best way to offer this support

Relationships are fundamental to a string healthy school. Our role as middle leaders is to build these relationships, which can be very complex

Responsive leaders are reflective continual, adaptive leaders.  On this aspect I am always pushing the edge of research and seeking ideas that have a high proven impact that will enhance and support our students to achieve

We have to be good at evaluating new ideas and research to our context and seeing how this might impact and be integrated into our school.

The multiplier leader has influence. If we as leaders are influencers we are at the wave leading the change. Then there are people climbing the wave. They want to make the pedagogical shift, they believe and they are trying. Then there is the people who are under the wave or even in a tree at the side who really do not want to do this...the naysayers. Our role as leaders is to know how and when to use our influence..or that of others in order to help everyone to get up the wave...providing the wave is going in a direction that has been agreed on as a place we wish to go as we believe in it for our learners

In my practice as a leader this year I am working lots within how I use my influence and adapt this to people at such varying points on the wave.

Timperley says there are 3 key ways to create dissonance...which is the trigger for change

Theory...use research to prompt challenge to thinking

Alternative practice...observing others who are doing this already

Data...data is no negotiable....it is a blunt trigger for a conversation 

Taking a stand

Managers do things right and leaders do the right thing...having a moral compass

But this can be very difficult to align with how others perceive the same issue...so as leaders we need to do double checks on our thinking around these issues...go to the code of ethics...check with fellow leader to ensure we have our thinking around a situation...and always make sure we have evidence to support our thinking on an issue

Using a coaching model to see how we could extend our ability to take a stand

Resilience

What skills, knowledge, and habits do it have to support this?

What can I let go off that is holding this back?

How can I use my and other peoples talents more effectively?

Resilience as a leader, teachers, person?

Thinking and acting systematically

Whenever we think of a change, how we think and act is important 

Seeing the big picture

Adapting to meet needs

Being a systems player and maker in terms of generating systems

Carrying out review

Giving up the need to constantly please

During review how methodical are we, do we create dissonance around it? In numeracy review it is being very methodical...looking at what we have in place, what works, what doesn't and what innovations we have that are showing good data

Look at the work 'the principal' by Michael full an 

You look at how to seed a germ in your school:) the germ takes and spreads 

Facilitation

What we do in our roles as leaders is either directive or self directive 

The key to success is the building of self directed learning skills in our teachers

Ask the right question

Build capability and evaluative skills in our teachers

Fronting issues is a key part of this role of facilitator...using a range of tools to front issues as they come along

Use either of these frameworks to use as a frame to address issues

Desc script

Describe, effect, specify, consequences 

DQAP

Describe, question, articulate, problem solve

With either of these

Ask permission to talk first, make sure you have the time for the conversation, be careful of body language and tone of voice, don't make assumptions or blame

These conversations are not about blame but rather about change 

Use a solutions focused approach to timing issues so people take control

Rowen calls this flipping

Instead of totally empty sympathy

Flip the negative conversation into a positive e.g how would you feel tomorrow if you could tick of some of these

Then ensure you use their words in the conversations

Thinking about all the competencies, choose one you feel you need to work on first

Facilitation is the one that aligns with one of my goals for this year and is an area I struggle with sometimes. I need to use the DQAP frame and pre script for addressing certain issues in the school

A leaders role in team development

The leadership experience, Richard daft 2001

Forming

Storming

Norming

Performing

A norm is a custom, a rule, a pattern or a habit of a team

Positive norms

Ask questions that challenge and promote discussion ( strictly data and achievement focused). 

Support each other

Share and build our expertise and capabilities 

High trust that allow us to be more open to growth

Fun and work together

Negative norms

Quieter members not actively encouraged to participate in team, more dominant voices occasionally carried away

When tired sometimes edge towards blame which is negative

Two small steps I can take to strengthen or change one of these norms ?

Characteristic of an effective team

The team is clear about what it wants to achieve- student achievement is central focus

Ground rules are established for how the group works together- clear expectations for how we will all work together

Job descriptions, roles should be up to date and transparent

Trus or personal trustworthiness?

Onora oneill ted talk https://www.ted.com/talks/onora_o_neill_what_we_don_t_understand_about_trust?language=en

We can't make people trust us we have to focus on building our own personal trustworthiness

Honesty

Transparency

Reliability

Competence 

As a leader I need to ensure I am addressing issues for team members in a fair way that builds trust

ELN collaboration

Problem solving is the most highly rated skill required in the job market

How are we creating this and other skills to support our students as they progress towards their future careers

How are we using technology?

Diversity of teaching strategies

Multiple opportunities to learn , practice and apply

Student centric learning- ownership and agency

Peer learning is optimised through devices as this has the greatest effect size

Opportunities for feedback are maximised

Digital behaviours

Is the learning making students passive recipients

Or are the tasks rich creation based tasks

What does each of these look like- put ideas as a staff

Interacting- 

Meandering- looking but not really purposeful.

Distributing - sharing work via Google docs

Transacting- 

Researching- Google research tools and search terms . Copyright and plagerism 

Filtering the gold from the dross!

What do we use most?

In my daily life I probay most use distributing, researching, creating, interacting and transacting

In my classroom I lean heavily towards creation, transacting, researching, 

In the junior school there is a reluctance to use some of these tools. 

I need to work out how I can support teachers to become braver  

The getting ideas for how to use these us maybe the biggest

Teacher Talk

Look at the teacher talk frame and come back with ideas for how this can support what we can use it for to improve our leadership practice?

Determinants of relational trust

Taking the personal out of the conversation so that all conversations are based around the data
Entails asking open to learning conversations