Friday, December 30, 2016

My #OneWord2017: Elevate


My first major decision leading up to each New Year is choosing "One Word" on which to focus over the course of the next 365 days.




Over the years of accepting this challenge, the sources of my inspiration tend to vary. Maybe it's because the month of December historically represents a period that ranges from professional exhaustion to personal decompression. Maybe it's because I am reflecting, growing, and evolving, facing a season of perpetual renewal. Or maybe, it's a combination of factors. Regardless, while narrowing my #OneWord2017 focus poses a significant challenge, this process - the struggle - is it's own reward. You can read my two previous entries here:

Perspective (#OneWord2015)

Stretch (#OneWord2016)

This year's post, while inspired through an extensive level of professional reading, dialogue, synthesis, and integrated application was also inspired deeply by the following (58 second) video clip: Joey's Wedding Speech .




Now I hope you're still reading. If you're a Friends fan, you've likely gone and started binge-watching the series on Netflix in the remaining hours of 2016. If you're not a fan, hang in there, so I can explain how this video clip correlates with my #OneWord2017.

Elevate.

Hearing so much about "giving" and "getting" during the holiday season always gives me pause to consider this in my own life’s work. As a proud connected learner, I've reaped the benefits of the resource sharing that occurs through steady use of tools like Twitter and Voxer. The personal friendships and professional mentorships that've been established and sustained through these communities have made me a better learner and a better leader. Undoubtedly, I have more than benefited (and continue to do so daily) from from all that I get out of these experiences.

But I often wonder: What do I give to these exchanges?

Quite honestly, it doesn't feel like it's quite enough, if ever.



The above quote, resonates deeply. In researching its origin and historical context, according to the International Churchill Society, while it's often attributed to this great historical leader, there is no documented evidence that Churchill ever uttered or wrote these words.

In these unprecedented times, where we must navigate seas of “fake news” and times when post-truth is becoming widely recognized as “the norm”, to learn that Churchill may never have uttered these words...was bothersome and upsetting.

So I started digging around a bit. And while I may still only be scratching the surface of “the truth”, according to information on the International Churchill Center's website, while there is an extensive collection of quotes falsely attributed to Churchill, the following words were spoken by Sir Winston Churchill on October 10, 1908.

"What is the use of living, if not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone? How else can we put ourselves in harmonious relation with the great verities and consolations of the infinite and the eternal? And I avow my faith that we are marching towards better days. Humanity will not be cast down. We are going on swinging bravely forward along the grand high road and already behind the distant mountains is the promise of the sun."


Wow.  

And here I am, joking around about Friends episodes.

Sir Winston Churchill’s words from over a Century ago seemed to be waiting to be discovered. In times of uncharted societal landscapes, an ever-shifting political paradigm, and an era yearning for trusted leadership, the value of a timeless pearl of reassurance may not have come at a better time.

To consider how these words apply to our schools, to our responsibilities as educational leaders, and the direct impact of of teachers’ actions on our students' futures. That's a powerful notion.



This brings me to my #OneWord2017: Elevate.

Over the last eight weeks, I’ve been involved in a book discussion, featuring Collaborative Leadership, by Dr. Peter DeWitt. Through active engagement and reflection on DeWitt’s book with a multitude of active, reflective leaders and learners, I came to have a renewed appreciation for the place research can occupy in everyday education; teaching, learning, and leadership. And while our “gut instincts” tend to reinforce our long-held beliefs of "what works" in schools, infusing healthy doses of research-based evidence into conversations and practice will serve to uphold, refute, or open us to consider how our guts tell us about "what works".

As a long-time school teacher, I must admit, there were times when I grew quite comfortable with “going with my gut”. About what works with kids, with parents, and as a member of a learning community. And every now and then, as a veteran school leader, to succumb to my gut instincts over pushing myself further to guarantee a decision is the right one, based on facts and grounded in research.

One item in particular that continues to resonate with me, long after completing the book, is the place that collective teacher efficacy occupies in leading successful schools. For anyone not yet familiar with John Hattie and the effect sizes that impact student learning, .4 is commonly known as the “hinge point”, whereby one year’s worth of focused input will yield an output equivalent to one year’s worth of growth in student learning.

So where does collective teacher efficacy fit into this?

According to DeWitt, who on page 59 cites Bandura (1997), “collective efficacy is defined as “a group’s shared belief in its conjoint capabilities to organize and to execute the courses of action required to produce given levels of attainment” (p. 477). The impact teacher collective efficacy stands to have on student learning is 1.57. When school leaders focus on teacher self-efficacy, establishing a sense of collective efficacy, and a concerted teacher collective efficacy, it will yield achievement results...for students.

How can school leaders elevate teacher collective efficacy?

DeWitt offers significant examples of how this can be done in Collaborative Leadership; a must-read for 2017.

The following three questions, based on ideas presented by DeWitt, will balance what I "give and get" in terms of my own learning, and will challenge me to be a catalyst for teacher collective efficacy in 2017.

How do I weave professional learning into daily dialogue?
Each member of a learning organization has something to contribute and something to gain from learning something new.

How do I co-construct personalized goals with teachers?
Each teacher has a focal point for an area in which each would like to get better, or even, become an expert.

How do I capitalize on time with Faculty to bring focus to professional learning?
Bringing us together makes complementing one another's qualities and supporting one another's success possible.

No doubt, choosing a #OneWord2017 may feel like an important decision this week, but there will  be many more challenging decisions to come in 2017. In these times of elevated stakes, intensifying a focus on teacher collective efficacy will most certainly help me elevate my ability to become a better leader and a better learner...for others.



26 Days of Learning Leadership
Day 1: Accountability
Day 2: BRAVO
Day 5: Evolve
Day 6: Feedback

1 comment:

  1. Dennis, I think this may be your best post yet! I love how you weave in the humor of the Friends clip with the seriousness of (and usually non-funny) data & research. I feel confident that you will elevate your own self, your research, and those around you in 2017! Happy New Year!
    Jennifer

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