California’s Educational Reform & the Role of Collaborative Communities

1. Unit 5 California’s Educational Reform & the Role of Collaborative Communities

2. REFLECTION • This course has given you general concepts, understandings, and background necessary for leadership. • Of all of the ideas you have experienced over this program so far, which have been the most important or meaningful to you?

3. Course Assignments Debrief

4. Cultural Proficiency 2 • Debrief assignment & completed Cultural Proficiency Chart

5. On Common Ground • Discussion on key concepts from Chapters 1-5: • Recurring Themes • What is a PLC? • Standards, Assessment & Accountability • Assessment FOR Learning • Masters of Motivation

6. Organizational Learning

7. Definition: Learning Organization • Definition from The Fifth Discipline (1990) by Peter Senge. Learning organizations are… “…organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning how to learn together.”

8. Definition: Learning Organization “A learning organization is an organization skilled at creating, acquiring, interpreting, transferring, and retaining knowledge, and at purposely modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights.” - David Garvin, Learning in Action (2000):

9. Organizational Learning • “Organizational learning is a process of detecting and correcting error.” - Chris Argyris (a theorist & teacher of Senge). • Error is the mismatch between what we intend an action to produce and what happens as a result of our action.

10. Single Loop Learning DECIDE ACT OBSERVE REFLECT Single loop learning - When the error is detected and corrected it permits the organization to carry on its present policies or achieve its present objectives. Example: A thermostat senses temperature and turns heat on or off Senge, Schools That Learn, pp. 93-98

11. Double Loop Learning DECIDE ACT OBSERVE REFLECT RECONSIDER Double-loop learning - when the error is detected and corrected in ways that involve the modificationof an organization’s underlying norms, policies and objectives. REFRAME RECONNECT Senge, Schools That Learn, pp. 93-98

12. Activity • Read the Questions on the Double Loop Learning handout. Write a reflection: - How would the use of “reflect, reconnect and reframe” in the double loop learning process improve our outcomes as teachers, leaders, schools, or as a professional community? Share out.

13. Change Moving from Traditional Systems to Current Systems of Education

14. Systems Change • A system is like a spider web, when one part of the web is touched, all parts are affected.

15. Wagner on Change • Reaction Purpose & Focus • Compliance Engagement • Isolation Collaboration “Infusing a system with [these ways of working] challenges individual and organizational beliefs and behaviors.” - Wagner, p. 74

16. Wagner on Change • Systems thinking is about trying to keep the ‘whole’ in mind, even while working on the various parts…. today’s effect may in turn be tomorrow’s cause, influencing some other part of the system. • This shift in thinking, and the need to understand the interrelationships among the various components of the work, presents an enormous learning challenge for change leaders. - Wagner, Change Leadership, p. 97

17. Wagner on Change • Wagner’s systemic approach to change is contained in the “4 C’s” - • Competencies • Conditions • Culture • Context

18. Wagner on Change • Competencies: • The repertoire of skills and knowledge that influences student learning • Built through professional development that is job-embedded, continuous, constructed and collaborative

19. Wagner on Change • Conditions: • The external architecture surrounding student learning, the tangible arrangements of time, space, and resources • The conditions of work imposed through culture, policies, and resources affect the system.

20. Wagner on Change • Culture: • The shared values, beliefs, assumptions, expectations, and behaviors related to students and learning, teachers and teaching, instructional leadership, and the quality of relationships within and beyond the school • Culture refers to the invisible but powerful meanings and mindsets held individually and collectively throughout the system.

21. Wagner on Change • Context: • The “skill demands” all students must meet to succeed as providers, learners, and citizens and the particular aspirations, needs, and concerns of the families and community that the school or district serves. • “Understanding context means knowing more about the worlds from which students come and those for which they must be prepared….[and] to the larger organizational systems within we work, and their demands and expectations, formal and informal.”

22. Interdependencies of the 4 C’s Competencies of adults Culture of classrooms, schools, districts Conditions of learning and teaching for students and adults Contexts Contexts Improving teaching and learning

23. “Your system–any system–is perfectly designed to produce the results you’re getting.” - Wagner, p. 106

24. 3 Phases of Whole System Change • Preparing • Data for leadership understanding and urgency • Accountability for solving a common problem • Building trusting relationships with colleagues and community

25. 3 Phases of Whole System Change 2.Envisioning • Data for community-wide understanding and urgency • Laying the foundation for reciprocal, relational accountability • Developing more trusting, respectful relationships To accomplish the first two phases, “data are employed creatively, compellingly, and strategically to focus the community’s attention on the children who are at the heart of the work.”

26. 3 Phases of Whole System Change • Enacting • Data for continuous improvement of teaching and learning • Shared accountability for continuous improvement of teaching and learning • Trusting relationships for working in new ways • This phase implements #1-6 of the “7 Disciplines”

27. Collaboration Promotes Organizational Learning • Individual, isolated practice keeps effective practice out of the organizational memory. • Collaboration builds organizational effectiveness. More “heads” mean: • The generation of more possible solutions • Multiple solutions and perspectives lead to better understanding • Better understanding leads to more effective support of teachers and students

28. Team Development Cycle • Forming • Norming • Storming • Reforming • …Performing

29. Reading:Schools That Learn • School and the change process: • Read Entering School, p. 271-275 • Have a table discussion about Senge’s principles for successful change. • What are the pieces you agree with? • Where are the points with which you may disagree because of your experience (mental models)? • How might this inform your actions as a leader?

30. Orders of Change

31. Technical & Adaptive Challenges First Order Change “A technical challenge is one for which a solution is already known—the knowledge and capacity exist to solve the problem…. Second Order Change An ‘adaptive challenge,’…is one for which the necessary knowledge to solve the problem does not yet exist. It requires creating the knowledge and the tools to solve the problem in the act of working on it. - Tony Wagner, Change Leadership, pgs. 10-11

32. Second order change is building the plane while flying it

33. Technical & Adaptive Challenges …Meeting technical challenges often involves changes within an existing paradigm, …whereas meeting adaptive challenges involves the reconception of the very paradigm in which one is working… - Tony Wagner, Change Leadership, pgs. 10-11

34. Activity: Orders of Change • Use the Orders of Change T-chart in your binder to list examples from your own practice. • Pair-share your examples • Have a table discussion:How do adaptive challenges and second order change influence your practice as a teacher and leader?

35. Collaborative Learning • “… we find that the greatest challenge for leaders of schools and districts may be to move their systems away from the highly autonomous work habits that can result only in random acts of excellence and toward accountable communities of practice.” • Change Leadership, p. 16

36. “In a way, it seems to be a statement of the obvious… …our core business is teaching, and our product is student learning. The only way we can improve our product is to get better at our core business.” - Change Leadership, p. 23

37. Barriers to Cultural Proficiency Keith Myatt

38. Governance in California A look at the organizational structure of education in our state

39. “Governance”: • Institutions that are part of the educational decision-making and delivery system • Constituencies that interact with these institutions • Ways the parts of the system interrelate

40. Governance • Reflected in the actions and behaviors of the system participants involved in governance are its: • Policies • Laws • Regulations • Informal practices

41. Schools Districts County, state and federal agencies Governor’s Office Legislators and other policy makers CA Commission on Teacher Credentialing Board members Superintendents Principals Teachers Bargaining units and others California’s Governance System Includes…

42. Responsibilities • In CA, responsibilities overlap between executive and legislative bodies, and judicial jurisdictions • This adds complexity to the system • In short, who’s in charge?

43. CCTC

44. California’s Reform Model • Research based (WestEd) • Focused on student learning & intervention Key goal is effective implementation of adopted materials and teacher instructional improvement (CDE) • Prescribed course of action for schools and districts in PI or state improvement grants (NCLB/PSAA)

45. New NCLB Reauth.Proposal • College and career-ready students • Great Teachers and Leaders in Every School • Equity and Opportunity for All Students • Raise the Bar and Reward Excellence • Promote Innovation & Continuous Improvement Google “Obama Reauthorization Proposal”

46. Closing the Gap:Student Intervention

48. Intervention Programs Entry-Level Tests Determine: • How well students have mastered prerequisite skills and knowledge needed for the year • To what degree students have an understanding of concepts that will be taught during the year • Placement should NOT be made solely using STAR or CELDT data.

49. Benchmark Group Strategic Group Intensive Group State Terms for Instructional Grouping

50. Instructional Grouping:Benchmark Group Students who are making good progress toward the standards but may be experiencing temporary or minor difficulties