Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud

PLCs as Achievement Teams

Steve Ventura, co-author of "Achievement Teams: How a Better Approach to PLCs Can Improve Student Outcomes and Teacher Efficacy," identifies Achievement Teams as a structured, collaborative model that helps educators improve teaching practices and student outcomes through data-driven decision-making.  Collective Teacher Efficacy supports that working together can have a greater impact on student achievement than working individually. The role of instructional coaches and principals in support of Achievement Teams is also explored.

Visit Steve's website here.

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Teacher Leaders Building Trust

If teachers in PLCs are to function as teams, taking shared responsibility for student success, vulnerability is critical. A teacher needs to place his students’ work and his instructional practices on display for colleagues to share in structuring a plan to increase student success.  Teaching needs to be a public act for the trust of teams to be developed. Peer coaching among PLC members can provide the opportunity for vulnerability and trust building to occur.

Read "Can You have Trust Without Being Vulnerable?" here.

Read "The Connection Between Vulnerability and Trust in Teams" here.

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Teachers Teaming - Sharing Workflow

Teaming and sharing workflow allow teachers to leverage each other's strengths, reduce redundancy, and build a supportive community, all of which contribute to lower stress levels. Teaming can increase a sense autonomy by providing teachers with a collaborative environment that supports shared decision-making, allows for flexibility in implementation, and fosters professional growth.

Find Dr. Chris Jensen's book, "Triage Your School: A Physician’s Guide to Preventing Burnout" here.

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Coaches Supporting Teachers’ Focus on Goals

Whether you are an instructional coach, administrator, or teacher leader planning and supporting the growth of colleagues or designing your own personal improvement plan consider how to maintain momentum and push through the learning dips with implementation intentions, connections to beliefs and values, and a network of colleagues who provide reminders

Visit John Cambell's website & find his book, "3 Ways to Help Sustain Commitment Towards Goals" here.  

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Coaching New Teachers

How do instructional coaches address the mentoring concerns and needs of new teachers? Joellen Killion, senior advisor to LearningForward and international consultant to educational leaders addressing professional learning for student success, joins Steve to explore the mentoring elements of instructional coaching. They examine how instructional coaches and administrators can plan for novice teachers’ transitions from learning the “ways of the school through mentoring” to seeking “personal growth for increased student success” through coaching.

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Messages You Want Students to Hear Early & Have Reinforced Throughout the Year

Teacher messages are foundational to building strong, positive relationships with students. These relationships are critical for creating an environment where students feel supported, motivated, and capable of achieving success. When students trust and feel connected to their teachers, they are more likely to engage deeply in their learning, take academic risks, and ultimately achieve success.

Read Moments of Genuine Connection (MGCs) – DSJR Student Motivation Guide from Dave Stuart here. 

Watch Dave's video, "What are Moments of Genuine Connection?" here. 

Read Daniel Yeager's "Wise Critiques Help Students Succeed" here.  

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Guiding Through Change: Yourself, Teachers, and Teams

Dr. Kim Richardson describes that change is inevitable and manageable. As coaches and school leaders we need to be competent in guiding ourselves and others during change. Kim describes the need for emotional intelligence and resilient leadership. Knowing people are unpredictable requires coaches to observe and communicate. Change is a process not an event.

Contact Kim https://drkimleadership.com/

Subscribe to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast on iTunes or visit BarkleyPD.com to find new episodes!

Coaching That Explores a Web of Causality

The term "web of causality" refers to a conceptual framework used to understand the interconnected and complex relationships among various factors that contribute to a particular outcome. The term "web" emphasizes that causes tend not to be linear or singular but are instead interwoven. How do coaches encourage multi-valent thinking that acknowledges the complexity of situations, considering multiple perspectives and factors rather than bivalent thinking that simplifies issues into two opposing categories, which can be efficient but may miss important nuances?

Read "3 Ways to More 'Aha Moments in Coaching" here.

Check out The Cabrera Lab Podcast with Drs. Derek and Laura Cabrera from Cornell University here.

 

Consistency in Classroom Management Could Imply That One Size Fits All

"While teachers use interventions to allow students to catch up with their learning results and use differentiation to make sure that learning tasks are appropriate, when it comes to behavior we often default to consistency as a panacea." -(Dave Whitaker)

Consistency is built when students sense the teacher’s usual, expected teacher behavior. Flexibility emerges when the teacher changes from that approach in response to a situation or individual student’s needs. Explore verbal structures teachers can use across a continuum of giving, sharing, or keeping the decision-making voice in a classroom.

Read "Consistency – or maybe a bit of flexible consistency?" by Dave Whitaker here.

Subscribe to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast on iTunes or visit BarkleyPD.com to find new episodes!

 

An AI Summit for Schools and Community

St. Cloud School Superintendent, Laurie Putnam and director of Research, Evaluation, and Assessment, Donna Roper, share their experience hosting an AI Summit that included about 200 local and national educators, business leaders, community partners and state legislators. They considered how we should respond to make our education systems relevant to the workforce and future needs and how a cross-section of stakeholders together can improve education policy.

Read the article on the Summit here. 

Connect with Laurie and Donna here.  

Subscribe to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast on iTunes or visit BarkleyPD.com to find new episodes!