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Are you feeling swamped by the demands of being a principal? From juggling emails, calls, and decisions to boosting test scores and wading through endless paperwork, the pressure is real.
But imagine a scenario where you no longer feel this overwhelming stress. Picture yourself as a more resilient leader, concentrating on enhancing your school rather than merely coping with the daily tasks that currently consume your time.
I‘m Barb Flowers. Drawing upon my eight-year experience as an elementary principal, with a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and certification as a life coach, Along the way, I've mentored and coached school leaders, guiding them to change their mindset, set boundaries and focus on their own well-being while navigating their roles.
Each episode offers practical insights on time management, communication, overcoming overwhelm, boosting confidence, and fostering a positive mindset. We'll also discuss topics like working with stakeholders, implementing new initiatives, and managing discipline. Let's set boundaries, focus on well-being, and reignite your passion for being a principal. Welcome to "The Principal's Handbook."
I firmly believe that to be an impactful educator, you must first become a confident and well-rounded individual. Join us in this journey to empower and enhance your confidence as a school leader.
Collaborative Teams with Kurtis Hewson
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[00:00:00]
Audio Only - All Participants: Well, welcome everyone to the podcast. It's so great having you here and today I am excited. We have a guest with us. We have Curtis Houston, who's here, and he is going to be talking a little bit about collaborative teams. But I'm going to start by just having Curtis, , introduce himself and talk about his path in education and how he got where he is today.
Well, thanks so much, Barb. Super excited to join you again for conversation. I've been an educator for nearly 30 years now and it's interesting. I had an experience as a young educator. Where our school division was trying to grow their own leadership pool in a sense. And so they were determining sites that were typically too small to have a second administrator, but had an experienced principal there, and they decided that they would de or .
Assign assistant principal roles, , pretty small, FTE amounts, but just as a chance to get some people into experience. So I was in my second [00:01:00] full year of teaching when someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, I think you should consider this. I, it wasn't on my plate. I had not given it a thought, but with a bit of reflection went, sure, I'd like to try that.
I love the school and if I can impact, , others, then great. And so, uh, within my second year of teaching, I was into an admin role and it was fascinating, Barb, from that to understand that the way I had seen or envisioned. A school being led was not gonna work for me. Mm-hmm. , I had less experience than virtually everybody in the building thinking I was going to have the answers, or the solutions was foolhardy.
So I learned really early that I need to lean on the expertise around me. How can I create the systems that develop the solutions or the responses, and as I move through administration. , The last school that I was in as a principal, , we were really looking at how could we create highly collaborative structures and processes [00:02:00] and ensure that no student was slipping through the cracks, but doing it in a way that was.
Leveraging the centuries of experience working with children in our building and as we were putting things in place and seeing success for students and staff, really re-envisioning what it was to support students, , we began to have other people come to visit the school. I started to get requests to come and share how we're doing this, and it just organically emerged into the work that I do now.
We, we named the, the framework that we were putting in place, collaborative response. This was nearly 20 years ago, and now today it's what I do full-time. I work with schools and districts to help create really sustainable and high impact collaborative structures that merge some of the understanding around MTSS work.
Some of the early response to intervention work and the, , longstanding literature around professional learning communities. How can we take [00:03:00] some of those systems and really create a robust framework for how we support kids? So that was a long, , way to get to the point of I work now with schools and districts across North America and beyond to put in place highly responsive, , structures through what we call collaborative response.
And I love that because when I always think about the most, , efficient teams, the most effective teams, they're collaborative, right? When I think about in the last building I was in, the most collaborative teams got the best results for kids, even myself as a teacher, you know, when I collaborated more with my colleagues, I was such a better teacher than when I was trying to figure out things on my own.
So I love that you're doing this work around collaborative. Um, responses with teachers. So talk to us a little bit, um, about your book. I know you have a new book Yeah. That came out related to it. So talk to us about that and what you can expect to find in it. Yeah, so we released, well we self-published way [00:04:00] back in 2015 when people were continuing to ask the same questions and we.
We should be writing this down and we were writing things in blogs and whatnot, but then decided we need to put this all into one space. , Then we, in engaging with so many different schools and districts, we started to see the, the framework evolve. , I often say now I would love to go back. To where this first began and implement what we know now because it would've been a hundred times more effective than what we were seeing at the time, which was still pretty good at the time.
, So we. Took all of that learning and in 2022 rereleased, and I'll make sure to get you a copy, Barb. , Our book collaborative Response, , our publishers Corwin helped us out with that. So that was a few years ago. And then we've just recently finished writing and it's going through some edits. , A new book focused on a structure we refer to as a collaborative team meeting.
It's a part of our collaborative response work. It [00:05:00] talks about it within the book, but it is such a powerful structure. That we consistently get more and more questions about how do we set it up, how do we establish it, and what we've learned through the process. So we decided, , my wife and I, that we need to dedicate a entire book just to this one structure.
It's one piece of a greater overall framework, but we've often said it's the linchpin, it's the engine that's driving the whole vehicle, , for us. Well, and I love the idea of collaborative team meetings because when I think about teams, I think about there are so many dynamics to teams, right?
Yeah. And you know, I can think of all the different teams and grade levels that I've worked with, and they each have their own little culture. Yeah. Based on how many years of experience teachers have different personality. So what tips do you have for principals for creating those collaborative teams?
If maybe they have a group of teachers who aren't collaborative for whatever reason? No. Absolutely. [00:06:00] So I'm actually going to come about this in two, two ways here, Barb. The first is I'm, I want to talk about just some general structures that we've seen become really effective in whatever type of meeting you're engaging in when we're trying to leverage the expertise in the room.
There's some strategies that can apply in any situation, but then I would love. To break down what we've found over time that we see in the most highly impactful schools through this collaborative response work, we see four layers of teams happening, and I'd love to talk about those because I am certain, as I described them, you're gonna go, ah, we have that in our building.
I know clearly what that is. So when it comes to meeting structures. I really, really believe, , wholeheartedly in a statement that came from Andy Hargreaves and his associate, um, Michael O'Connor a few years ago. , They stated that , the literature, the research is irrefutable at this point.
That teacher collaboration leads to success for students. [00:07:00] Like we should not be asking should we collaborate anymore. What they argue is we should be asking how. How and how well are we collaborating? Not if we should, , the evidence is too clear that we should, it's just how we do it. So I'm a big believer that if we can leverage the power of the room, we can, , get to places that no one person in the room could get to on their own.
So, some simple things that we want to put in place, and , I smile with this because they're all things I did not understand early on. , I took them for granted and then realized over time, and especially working in other schools, they were not nice to haves. They were critical. The first one is establishing norms.
I've had some schools call it their collective commitments, their, , core rules of engagement. I like to refer to 'em as norms. And Richard Dufour years ago was talking about this in the PLC literature. When I first heard about it, I thought those must be for schools that where people don't get along or they don't know each other really well.[00:08:00]
I don't need norms in my building. Everyone loves one another. We get along great. And I found that was true as long as our conversation stayed surface level. When we are in a space of sharing and helping one another, we didn't need norms. But when we got to places of questioning one another of challenging, of pushing, , I often like to say good collaboration should have a small sliver of discomfort for everyone.
, And what I mean by that is we should be comfortable. Being uncomfortable and one of the things that helps that is co-creating norms. Being able to say out loud things like We agree, we will arrive on time and prepared. And then talk about what does that look like when it's done well? What are things that would get in the way of that?
Making it really clear, saying things out loud, like we believe everyone's voice is important, and we will leverage each person's insights. And then we're, anytime we meet, we're going to be able to just say, alright, here's our norms. What's one that we're gonna focus on today? What's one that we're going [00:09:00] to practice?
, Doing that over and over and over again is just reinforcing this is how we agree to interact in this space. Really, really powerful. The second thing that I learned through, well, through I guess not failure, but through, it not going very well for myself, is I believed as a principal, if I took control of the meeting and then said to everyone else.
You worry about engaging in the conversation. I'll do the heavy lifting, meaning I'll facilitate the conversation, I'll take notes for it. I feel comfortable taking notes, , for us. , I will keep track of time. What I found is a, I was not building capacity of anyone else in the team. B, the success of the conversation was on one person's shoulders and CI wasn't doing any of those roles well, it was hard to listen when I was taking notes.
I was missing things, and then you go, oh my goodness, we're five minutes over where we were supposed to be. Setting up roles becomes [00:10:00] critically important for us. When we come in. Let's identify who's our recorder today, , or who's our timekeeper. I've seen schools where they say, we've introduced the role of the interrupter.
And it's this person's job to knock on a table , , when somebody's going off on a tangent and they're not doing it to be rude. We've agreed we need that role for us to be effective. So then the next piece that I think is always critically important is, do we have a clear and predictable agenda? And when we're taking notes, I've often found it most effective when they're projected on a monitor or a screen in front of us so that it gives us a focal point for the conversation, , rather than each person having their own laptop out.
And even if we had a shared document that we're all in. You know as well as I do, you still see the ping of an email come up. There's something about having that note stock up in front of us. That's important. And in that agenda, then making it clear and consistent, what are the times that we're going to put for each one of [00:11:00] these when we come to regular occurring meetings?
Is there a predictable structure, predictable cadence that is going to remain. The same each time. What this does is it releases that cognitive load that people have when they're saying, how much longer are we gonna take for this? , Is someone writing this down? , Am I gonna get assigned some actions here?
What's we take that away? 'cause it's predictable and people can really focus on creativity and innovation. . Those are some of the things that we've found really effective. And I often have schools say, it feels a little awkward when we put these things in place. When we start, and there's even table displays of who's the facilitator, who's the note taker, and we hand these around.
It feels a little weird, but in time it becomes powerful. So powerful. And people just. They don't even notice, don't even recognize it. And what we're trying to do is if we have 40 minutes to meet, let's make the best possible use of this 40 minutes. I never want to be in a meeting [00:12:00] space, and I hope this is the same for yourself or any listener where people leave going, that's an hour of my life.
I'll never get back. Yeah. I love, I just wanna comment on a few things you said. I loved all of that because it's. Simple, basic things for meetings, but I'm guilty of like even the norms. You know? I love how you said, create the norms. Discuss what does that look like? Because I'm guilty of, , we all know what it looks like to be on time, but what does that really look like?
What time, what? What do they need to come prepared with? So I love that of really spelling it out and then. Also, you know, making sure, I always tell principals it's part of the leadership work to make sure when you have committees or any kind of meetings that you are taking the time to create a good, clear agenda for teams.
Yes. Or the team member, whoever's in charge, that there's an agenda. Because I joke with my teachers now, you know, we only have 25 to 30 minutes for our committee meetings, so I always say they're fast and furious and we need to make them as productive as [00:13:00] possible. Absolutely. And so we, yeah, we have to have a clear agenda.
, We have to have those rules. We have to have the norm. So I love that you were talking about too, that predictable structure. I think that helps so much and it makes it easier to make that agenda. It makes that process go quicker. And people know what to expect in the meeting to be more productive.
Barb. The interesting thing with this is we're establishing the groundwork for building a really robust culture of collaboration. Mm-hmm. Through this, we start to develop high, high levels of psychological safety, and when we have that in place, and there was a study done by Google a number of years ago, it was called Project Aristotle.
If anyone's listening, go search that out on YouTube. There's a researcher, Charles Duhig, who has a great video. That describes it. And what they were doing is they were investigating what makes a team highly impactful. 'cause they had some teams that were more effective than others and wanted to find out why.
And they started with the premise of, it must be the composition of the team. We should be looking at [00:14:00] who's on the team. And they found no correlation between team success. And team membership. And then they started to look at how is the team operating? And that's where all the difference was made. It didn't matter who was on the team, how they were operating was important.
And there were two things they noted, , most. The first was what they called equality and turn-taking meaning virtually every person is speaking the same amount. And so we can set structures. To be able to do that in our meetings through identifying it in the norms. Everyone has a role as a facilitator.
I'm being very intentional of noting who's there. , I might even make a role that this person is our turn taker monitor and it's their job to just be noting who's talking and at different points saying We haven't heard from Barb yet. Mm-hmm. So that was one. The other was, . How people are engaging with one another.
Things like eye contact. , So we can make norms that say we agree, our phones will be put away and our monitors will [00:15:00] be closed during this meeting. And then I've even seen schools, Barb, where, , and you're gonna giggle at this, where they'll even have a conversation around if someone breaks the norm, how do we agree to respond?
Oh, I love that. And we don't have to be punitive. In one school, I was at their, one norm is arrive on time and prepared. If anyone broke that, they would first make sure the person's okay If they came in late, just, are you okay? Is everything all right? But then it was that person's job to bring snacks the next time the team met.
, That's how they honored that norm. So putting these kinds of things in place increases the psychological safety, which allows us. To get deeper into the collaboration, to question one another. , Like I said, to be comfortable being uncomfortable, knowing someone might challenge my ideas and they're not doing that to be, , prickly or questioning who I am as a professional.
They're doing it because we agree. We get to better places when we debate with one another. I saw one school where they. Introduced the role of the advocate [00:16:00] of the devil's advocate, and their job was to always pose a counter, , perspective, even if they were agreeing with what was being said because they wanted to have somebody who would be pushing back on the group's ideas to challenge, to then make sure, can we defend what this person is challenging us on?
Again, they're simple, simple strategies, but they have huge impacts on how teams operate. Yeah, I love that. I have to say my secretary would lead our Spirit committee, and it was funny, if you were late, she'd turn on music and you had to dance. Well, nobody wanted to dance, so I love it. That was probably the best, like everybody was on time to that meeting.
So simple things like that. But also what you said about roles, you know, I'm thinking about my last BLT. It was funny because we had roles and we just called out. Kind of the dynamics of the team that we had talkers in that group. Yeah. Like you said, a disruptor that we know this. BLT, this building leadership team is a group of talkers.
So just knowing the [00:17:00] dynamics of that team, addressing that and calling it out for, and I love having the different types of roles for those different dynamics. So, you know, some teams might not have that problem. They might be more quiet. , Yeah. And so it's just interesting the different roles that people can create.
What the roles do is they create shared ownership for the success of this conversation. It's not purely on the person leading the meeting. And I often say to leaders, if you're leading the meeting, think of yourself as a facilitator and not a chairperson. A facilitator is looking for engagement in the room.
They're drawing people in, they're asking questions. They're paraphrasing back. So what I think you said, Barb, was this. Tammy, what's your perspective, , on this? They're engaging the group and to facilitate, well, I can't be taking notes at the same time. , I want to be listening, , deeply. , Here for us.
So this shared ownership becomes so important because , the success of our conversation is not resting on one person's shoulder. , [00:18:00] Even, , one school, , part of their onboarding when they would have new staff is that person would get a role in a meeting of the observer. And it was their job to contribute as they want, but as an observer, at the end, we're gonna ask them, what did you notice happening in the meeting?
And do you have any questions? To just be, I love that, especially when it comes to this collaborative team meeting because it has a very intentional and purposeful structure that is very different than how we normally talk about kids in our building. Yeah. So what, what do you suggest to a principal, let's say they're, they have these norms, , they're making sure there's roles, there's a clear agenda, and.
They're trying to, you know, have this happen for a team and they're just struggling still. They're still tr struggling to get the team on board, or maybe they're trying these things and they're not getting buy-in. What do you suggest for them? What I would suggest is to really. Reflect deeply on what is the purpose and make sure that's clearly communicated.[00:19:00]
So within our collaborative response work, we talk about four layers of team that we wanna see in every school, and each layer has a different purpose and a different outcome that we're trying to attend to. We've found for schools that are struggling with meetings, when you can start identifying. The clear purpose and then how it connects and aligns to the other things that we're doing.
And within our collaborative response framework, we then start to align data and evidence to these conversations. So it's not just talk, it's based on some data and evidence that we are collecting and looking at. And then they start to align with our third component, which is continuums of support, being able to clearly articulate how do we respond in this building
, through a tiered manner. And then each one of these meeting layers aligns to one of , those tiers. And you're probably thinking or listening that I mentioned, four layers of team. Does that mean there's four tiers of response? And there is, but this is [00:20:00] not about taking a traditional tiered perspective.
Usually as on a three, , tier model. Most of the frameworks that I see are based on three. It's not about adding one more on top. It's about taking universal and breaking it apart to get really clear on, in universal what are the. Tier one non-negotiables that we agree we will see in every class. These are not things you could do.
It's things that we say in our building, we will all do. So in your K to two school, you might have literacy, non-negotiables that we agree we will see in every classroom. And then tier two becomes the differentiated approaches that we could see the ideas. Have you tried this in your room? Have you utilized this?
, Have you tried using whisper phones? With your students. Now we're not saying that's a tier one practice. You don't have to do that, but it's something that we found that is effective that you could, before we ever look beyond the classroom. So taking that tiered approach becomes really important.
And then each one of our meetings [00:21:00] starts to align to. Referring to that tiered level of support. So in those four layers, , and Barbara, I'd love for you to just respond if you can recognize this within your own building. Our first layer that connects then to that, the tier one non-negotiables. We refer to it as collaborative planning, but think of these as broad categories.
Rather than individual meeting names. In the collaborative planning, this is where we want primarily teachers coming together, maybe with some leads or some support that are looking at data that are determining what our, approaches that we want to be able to take. But for all students, we're not in these conversations talking about individual students.
We're talking about. What could we do as a team that will impact all? So you mentioned your BLT, your building leadership team. Mm-hmm. This is probably a structure that fits in that layer. Yes. Because I'd assume in that conversation you're looking at things that we're doing that are impacting all and Yeah.
I'd say the [00:22:00] biggest thing we talk about and have conversations around is. Are we implementing our tier one, core curriculums with fidelity. Yeah. And I, 'cause I know teachers hate that word fidelity because we use it so often, but really with consistency and congruency, are we taking what we've bought and said works and utilizing it?
Well, because I think over time it's easy for things to get taken out, like you said. Yeah. So what are those non-negotiables? So we have a lot of conversations about what that looks like in both math and reading. Well, and when we, whenever we first introduce the collaborative response work to a school, we always say, this is not about ditching everything you do and adopting a new approach.
It's about connecting what you already have in place and then seeing gaps. Most schools, when we talk about that first layer, go, ah, I think we call those PLCs. And we say absolutely. The reason we didn't name it PLC is we saw some schools that had versions of what I'm talking about that weren't necessarily aligned with [00:23:00] consistency to the PLC framework focused on those four questions, but they were still really impactful.
So we thought, okay, lots of schools call this PLCs, but some don't. And they're still seeing, the same impact. So that's that first layer. I'm gonna skip the second layer, which is the collaborative team meeting, which to me makes all the difference. In fact, , the title of , our, or the subtitle of our upcoming book is going to be something along the lines.
We're still playing with it a little bit, but. That, , collaborative team meetings, the missing piece, connecting PLCs and MTSS. And so this third layer is what we refer to as the school support team. And , I'll just share what it looked like in, in my own school. So my school principal, the assistant principal, we had a learning support coordinator who was responsible for, taking the lead on,
alternative programs for students, for, , developing and helping staff create the individualized education plans [00:24:00] for students. That was her role. And then we had a family school liaison that we shared with the high school that was really about supporting, , student wellbeing and lots of family supports.
Every Thursday, the four of us came together and talked about who are the students who need support beyond or in addition to the classroom. , Lots of times, or we eventually reached a place where kids landed on that agenda through a referral process, but it was consistent and we did all the things.
Even though there's only four of us. We eventually started to do all the things I described earlier. We had norms when we met. There was a predictable agenda. , We would communicate out afterwards who are the students? We talked about, who needs to know this particular information about this? We were the ones who were deciding, , or helping to determine do we need to escalate support or do we maybe need to go back and help support.
Some of the conversations back at the collaborative planning layer, or do we need some further PD around this? So , I worked with a large high school where they didn't have one school support team layer. They [00:25:00] had multiple, there was a grade 10 team, a grade 11 team, a grade 12 team. Each one had a counselor, a learning assistant teacher, and an administrator.
And again, , they traveled with the kids. So the grade 10 team became the grade 11 team the next year. And so on, and then would loop back to after their group had graduated to pick up a new group grade tens. But again, the purpose of this team is really being focused on students needing support in addition to or beyond.
Well, I love what you said and yeah, your title, connecting PLCs to MTSS, because I think that's when you get like the biggest bang for your buck, right? Is Yeah, because I always say we had PLCs in my last school. We're working on them in this school, but, , and we're talking about what if kids aren't making progress and then we go and have another meeting about kids who aren't making progress.
And so as good as it is to have time to dig into it deeper at the same time, I felt like. Okay, are we having meetings just to have meetings or to separate [00:26:00] things out? How do we streamline the process? So I love this idea of connecting the two and how do we bring them together better? So , I'm gonna come to the connecting piece here in just a moment.
That fourth layer, we call it case consult. It's the broadest category of all, but the easiest to understand. It's anytime we meet with one kid. On the agenda. Mm-hmm. Usually those are in relation to complexity or crisis. Oftentimes they're involving external partners, parents, guardians, perhaps. , But it's with the idea that when we are meeting with one student or maybe one family on the agenda, we're getting the right players around the table for that conversation.
And I would argue that if we don't have these other layers in place. Everything falls into that more extreme, which is no way to run a school. It's you're now living in reactive mode. You're trying to do this one student at a time, and in any school, I don't care how many students you have in the building, doing it one kid at a time is really, really difficult.
, I had one high school of about 1200 [00:27:00] students when we held up these layers and they. Identified the different ways they were meeting to support kids. They found out most of the things were falling in that case consult layer, and they went, oh my goodness. This totally explains why we are feeling reactive.
They said, this explains our whack-A-mole process in the school of an issue pops up and we just try and , hit them as mm-hmm. As often as we can. So. What we were finding within this, and it took us many, many years, , Barb, to reflect and understand that when we introduced this collaborative team meeting, it changed everything.
And so we would just, when schools would say, what is it that you're doing that's leading to some of the success, we'd say, we are doing a collaborative team meeting. And then we would share it. Other schools would adopt, some would see impact, some would not. And the reason was. Upon reflection years later was to be able to say, oh, it's because there were these other layers in place that contributed to this success.
Each one had a definitive purpose because schools [00:28:00] that were introducing this collaborative team meeting, they were trying to stuff every conversation. They weren't clear on the purpose, and then it became really overwhelming. , For them. So the reason that we went to this is sometimes it felt like when a kid arrived on the school support team agenda, it sometimes felt like a handoff.
Like a teacher would say, I've done everything. You take them. Mm-hmm. Yes. Okay. , Sometimes we were frustrated because, uh, we were getting more referrals. Some from some places than in others. Sometimes we will go, oh boy, the solution to this concern. Is three doors down the hallway. There's somebody who has strategies and ideas that would help this person.
How could we connect and bridge, and how could we be having a more proactive conversation before students ever landed? To us it, it felt like. Yeah, we were responding to the kids, but we weren't doing it in a way that we're building other people's capacity and it wasn't sustainable. Mm-hmm. , For us long term.
[00:29:00] So we started this collaborative team meeting, and I'm gonna describe what it looks like now. So all of those structures that I talked about before are present, but each person comes in already, , ready with a pre-meeting organizer with a student to celebrate and a student with a key issue. And this is what it looks like.
Barb. We start off, we review our norms. Pick one that we'll practice and then we say, alright, today the focus is literacy. Okay? Or the focus is student engagement. , We define the overarching focus and in time we want these connected to our school improvement plan. If we said we're trying to move the needle on numeracy, , success for students, awesome.
We're having a numeracy focus. Collaborative team meeting. And so we start, lets with this Barb, we say, alright Barb, , first off, set the timer for 10 minutes and we're gonna go around and share celebrations to start. Barb, who's a student to celebrate, , share with us and you go, alright, for literacy, I have Alicia.
And my celebration is she's recognizing, , [00:30:00] letters and sounds. She's starting to make those connections. And years ago we would go, oh, that's great. And we put it in our notes, yay, Alicia. And then we go, who else has a celebration? Now what we do is really important. We say, that's great. What did you do?
That led to that success. What do you think you did that led to that impact? That question is powerful and it's doing a few things. First, it's getting the teacher to reflect on their own practice and what's having impact, and when the person says that's a miracle, I don't know what happened. It just a light bulb went on.
Then we're gonna press, we're gonna say, that's great. What do you think you did that led to that miracle? What do you think you did that might've. Turned on that light bulb for Alicia. The other thing is that when you say, well, I started to utilize , a song that I found on YouTube that connected letters to sounds, someone else in the room is going to go, I'd love to hear a copy of that.
Can you, can we write down where you what that song is? Other people are going to hear strategies [00:31:00] for one another, and as teachers, we don't often get the chance to watch each other teach. This allows us a chance to peer into somebody else's toolbox, , to be able to see that. And then what we're doing here is we're creating high levels of collective efficacy overall as teams start to really identify what am I doing that's having impact and can I describe it?
Can I name it? This is really powerful. It has huge impact. , All of John Hattie and Jenny Donahue's work around collective efficacy tells us that when teachers can do that. We see high, high levels of student success follow. So , that's the first part, is that celebrations really important. And then we come to what I feel is the game changer in the conversation.
We move into key issues, so we say, alright, timekeeper, set a 10 minute timer. Barb, I know you've come with a student ready. Don't share their name, please. What's a key issue that you're experiencing? Okay, now in time, this is really hard for teachers to do. When we first start, [00:32:00] it gets better with practice because we want you to be succinct.
In fact, sometimes we'll even put right on the pre-meeting organizer, eight words or less. Hmm. And in time we start to say, who is the student that the data suggests? And what's a key issue? And we start in time color coding our data so that if we used a simple color code system of red, meaning students that are far away from where we want 'em to be, yellow is their approaching expectations.
Green is meeting and blue is exceeding. We in time want to focus on the yellow. The kids who are close. And it may just take an adjustment in the classroom for it. So we go, alright, Barb, don't say the student's name. What's a key issue you're experiencing? And this one comes from a real example, , that we have.
And I'm gonna direct people to a place where they can go and get some of these, , video clips or whatnot. Teacher said, , I have a student that just cannot get started on writing projects. Okay, so then we might ask a couple questions of what do you mean that looks [00:33:00] like? , And the teacher in this scenario had said, it's just, I give exemplars.
I do, , I set up some different strategies, but I, the kid just cannot get a start on the writing. We go, okay, so difficulty to get started when writing is that issue. Have we got it right, Barb? Yep. And in time this gets quicker and quicker. Mm-hmm. And in this, we don't want the person to share the a hundred things that they've already tried or done.
Just what's an issue that you're seeing. Yeah. Then we say to everyone else in the room, alright, everyone else, think of your students, write down the name of someone else you're seeing. What we're trying to do with this is to spread it a little bit and to understand this is not Barb's issue, it's a shared one.
Mm-hmm. Now I've seen sometimes where other people in the room might go, I don't really have anyone with that. And we go, okay, no problem. Because now we want to get to, what could we do? Everyone? Let's go Tracy, what do you do in your classroom when you're seeing that? And as people are sharing strategies, there's no judgment.
, You're not allowed, and this is why a [00:34:00] facilitator is so important in the conversation when you jump in and say, oh, I've already tried that. We go, no, , we're just brainstorming. We're not evaluating any ideas and we're putting up ideas. But this becomes really powerful, Barb. People start saying, oh, I like Curtis' idea, but what if we are to do this?
When I start hearing what ifs, and I wonder if. I know this process is really working because now people are stretching. They're thinking of maybe some innovative solutions. And the fascinating thing is I've been in hundreds of these meetings, either as an observer or facilitator or a participant. I walk away from everyone.
I was in one yesterday. I walk away from everyone. Learning something new every time. Yeah. I'm in my 30th year of education and every time I hear a new website, a new strategy, a new way of thinking that I had not considered before in my instructional practice. And then as we get, okay, one minute warning.
Okay. Let's end our brainstorm. Barb, what's one thing that you would like [00:35:00] to try and who for? Tell us the student. Just the name. No story. And what's one thing that you want to try and you, when you say. I have Carly. Now, other people in the room might go, oh, I'm not surprised. Yeah. Yeah, Carly, but we're trying to get the attention off the kid.
Yeah. To say, I've brought, okay, so Carly was my kid and here's the one thing I'm willing to try. Now in the room we might be saying, do you need help with that? And lots of times when we first start, teachers will pick things they're very comfortable with. Sometimes we hear, well, I was planning to maybe do this anyway, so put me down for that, for an action.
, And we always say. , What's the timeline for that? Is that, I know you got a busy week by next Friday. Is that fair? We write it down, but we see through this process, especially as people get safety, they start stretching. Mm-hmm. They start trying things out of their wheelhouse. We hear things like, I really like.
Barb's idea, but I don't know exactly how to do that. Okay, great. How could we free Barb up to come and show you that? Or can I cover your kids for phys ed tomorrow so that you [00:36:00] can go and watch Barb do this? And then we go to the next person and say, alright, who's the student you were thinking of and what's one thing you want to try?
So through this, we're actualizing Universal Design for Learning. We're saying that it's intended for one, but good for all. Yeah, and we're building everyone's toolbox. , And then once we go around and people have said, well, I was thinking of this kid that's also reluctant to get started and here's the one thing I'm gonna try.
And the next person said, I have two and I'm actually gonna do the same thing as Curtis is doing. And then we go, okay, great. Set another 10 minute timer. And Darcy, who's the student you've brought, don't say the name and what's a key issue you'd like to discuss. And in this meeting, if we had, let's say you go back to your 35 minute meeting, we might, in that conversation, get through two key issues, potentially.
Mm-hmm. What we're doing is everyone's toolbox is growing. , Just little bits through these conversations. We often joke that by adding [00:37:00] the collaborative team meeting, we're gonna reduce the number of meetings in your building. , Yeah, , we have a little tagline of, we'll reduce the number of meetings in your building by adding one more.
And what we mean by that is we see in time less and less students. Getting to the school support team layer and the case consult layer because capacity is growing. And we also see conversations in the hallways, in the staff room after school start sounding different. , They start in the, I have this going on.
Anyone have an idea? Something I could try. Like it, it changes the way we talk in a building all through this, one structure. But again, understanding its purpose. Its purpose is not to. Talk about individual students. It looks like we're talking about kids, but we're not. We're just using the student to leverage a conversation about practice over and over.
Well, and I love that because as you were talking about this, I thought of meetings that we had where we talk about the student's name and then it becomes a venting [00:38:00] session, right? And so 20 minutes later, we're trying to get to the key issue in how we support the teacher. And, uh, you know, the idea of the timer, the idea that, you know, we're just coming up with strategies.
We're not gonna, , think about, you know, this is a shared problem is the big piece. Yeah, I love that. Like you said, it, it really brings everybody together and become more collaborative. And the part of the process that becomes really powerful is when we say, all right, everyone, you see the key issue.
Who's a student you have and just quietly jot down the name. Yeah. Because now we're not in this meeting saying, Hey Barb, you should do this. You should do this. Right. You should do this. And then we used to have meetings like that until we figured out this. A strategy or this process, because we would have teachers who would say, I've come to the meeting, admitting to people I'm drowning, or it feels like that way, and everyone's throwing me dumbbells.
Mm-hmm. They're throwing weight onto me. I'm now feeling more overwhelmed than when I first started [00:39:00] because everyone's saying, you should, you should, you should. And sometimes this becomes really ineffective when you've got a teacher going, oh, I've tried that. Let me tell you more about what's going on for the student.
Oh, I don't think that would work as soon as. If I'm offering ideas and I hear that a couple times, I've shut down, I'm not sharing anything else because Right. This, the person's not open. But when we're saying this is a shared issue, what could we do? , And when it comes back to Barb, what's one thing you want to try?
Teachers in control. We're not. Yeah. We're empowering our educators through this process. That's exactly what came to mind for me too. I talked to a lot of people about it's easy to not empower others and just share the ideas and this is what to try and, or as a principal, you take on a lot of. Extra duties because you want to lift the load for teachers.
But this puts everybody like on an equal playing field where we're all going to support each other and it's not you taking on the load as the principal and you're not, like you said, adding more to the teacher's plate. You're [00:40:00] all helping and sharing that capacity. The teacher's determining what they're going to try to add.
And Barb, I off and say. As a principal, your role in the collaborative team meeting is to unlock everybody else's toolboxes. It's not to walk away with the actions. Yeah. You need to walk away with actions from the school support team layer. Mm-hmm. That's when your, your to-do list will grow from that and from the case consult, but in the collaborative team meeting.
I'm there to offer strategies, to offer ideas. Sometimes it's to plant seeds. , Sometimes it's, Hey, knowing what I know about Alicia, Barb, I really think it would be valuable for us to try what Shelly's suggesting. How can we help you with that? So by that, I'm helping to try some new ideas or strategies for teachers, but it's done in a way that doesn't feel like.
I mean, adequate as a teacher or that you're judging my work? It's, no, I think this is something we could try together. For Alicia, , the focus is on the student, [00:41:00] even though we're not really spending a lot of time around the student. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, and I love it. Like I said, all of this I think is so helpful and I love how you walk through the exact example that principals can really use and think about.
I think the key that you said was the timer, you know, as far as the norm and like a role is keeping everybody on track with it, making sure everybody's being collaborative and part of the process. So I think that is huge and, and this is where, as a facilitator, I want to be really. Um, careful to be able to say, alright everyone, let's start sharing ideas.
Tracy, I haven't heard from you. What's one thing that you're thinking mm-hmm. Around this? Like, I'm doing all of those strategies. We started the conversation with here today, Barb, within this to create high degrees of psychological safety, I was with a school yesterday. I observed two different collaborative team meetings that were happening.
The vulnerability in the room was off the charts. Yeah. A person saying, I've got this issue and I'm tapped, like they, they admitted to a [00:42:00] group of colleagues and their principal right there and an observer that's coming in from the outside able to have the safety to say, I'm tapped out on this. I don't know what else to do for this key issue.
And then we said, alright, anyone else having a suit? And as soon as somebody else said, I got a kid in mind for this, or you could see them writing down the name. It was almost like this person just went, oh, it's not just me. Mm-hmm. Good. And then we started to share ideas and then one person opens up AI and says, what are 20 strategies we could try?
And we were popping up things. And then when we said, alright, teacher, what's one thing that you want to try? Her response back was. Oh boy, there, there's probably about three things outta this that I'm gonna try, but put me down for this one. But you could see her in the conversation jotting furiously on her own notes.
Mm-hmm. Because of some of the ideas that , were coming up. And again, no one is saying, you should do this. It's, it started from a person being so vulnerable, but trusting the process that no one's gonna judge. [00:43:00] No one's gonna say, you should do this. Yeah. And, and we all have, I often say in the collaborative team meeting, we come at it from a mindset that everyone is an expert and everyone is a learner.
Yeah, we all have expertise. We all have toolboxes. I don't care if you're a first year teacher, a paraprofessional in the room, or a special education coordinator with a master's degree behind your name. We all have expertise to contribute, but we're all learners as well. Nobody has this all figured out.
There's, and like I said. I walk away 30 years into education, every meeting, walking away with something I've never heard before. A strategy, a website, a resource, something that I go, oh, okay, I've added one more thing to my toolbox. Or sometimes it's, I used to do that. Why haven't I thought about it? Well, 'cause yeah, classrooms are complex.
You sometimes you forget all the things that you've learned to be able to do. Yeah, and I love, a big thing you talked about was that idea of psychological [00:44:00] safety. And so as principals are listening to this, you know, I think as the principal, that's something you really have to work to create, that people can be vulnerable because like you said, it's all about that vulnerability and people feeling like they can share not only with their team, but in front of the principal when they're there.
So I think that piece is huge. Absolutely. So Barb, if anyone's interested in this, , we have a website. It's collaborative team meeting.com. And on there we have, eventually we'll have access to the book and some materials, but there is a starter kit we call there right now that has, uh, access to some video clips of a team meeting, an agenda that's ready for you to make a copy of roll cards.
, There's a facilitator's. Cheat sheet of questions. You could be asking everything you need to start a collaborative team meeting tomorrow is. On that toolkit. So that may be a resource for people to be able to access if they're listening. That's collaborative team [00:45:00] meeting.com. And when the book is released in May, we'll make sure that it's linked there too.
Yeah, and I will make sure to put that website in the show notes as well. So if you're listening to this while you're driving, just go back to the show notes. You can get that link. Curtis, is there any last thoughts or, , places that other places people can find you? Yeah, you bet. , Our main website that has all of our collaborative response work resources, links to our podcast as well.
, If you go to jigsaw learning.ca, that's the hub to, , reach out to anything. We have a YouTube channel. My contact information is there. , Just go to jigsaw learning.ca. That's where you can find me. My last piece of advice that I would share with people if they're listening and going, oh, I don't think I can start that meeting yet until I have a stronger team culture.
My advice is live by the, the mantra of ready, fire, aim. Mm-hmm. Meaning, mm-hmm. Ready Yourself. Maybe readying yourself is listening to this podcast and then fire. [00:46:00] Just try. You learn so much through the. Trying , the firing period, you can always come back and aim. Mm-hmm. And letting your staff know that we're gonna, we're going to be start.
And this I think, is a powerful mantra in any part of your school, is, , we're gonna be trying things that might not work when we first start, but we're gonna adjust. We're gonna learn, it's gonna evolve, , for us. So just start. Yeah. I love that. I love that. I think if you wait for it to be perfect, it'll never happen.
So Great advice. No, , don't sit in the ready phase for too long. Yes. , Spend a bit of time there getting things ready and then fire you'll, you will learn so much through the fire that, through the firing phase that you would've never anticipated in the planning. Yeah, I think that's great. Well, thank you so much, Curtis for being here.
It was great, a great conversation and I appreciate you being on the podcast. Thanks, Barb. I really appreciate the opportunity to come on and appreciate all that you're doing for your school and community as well.