As defined by Richard & Rebecca DuFour, collaboration is “a systematic process in which we work together, INTERDEPENDENTLY to analyze and impact professional practice in order to improve our individual and collective results”. Technology tools can serve to accelerate the collaborative process, breaking down geographical barriers, easing time-bound restraints, and encouraging collaborative systems that extend past grade level professional learning communities (PLCs). Digitize your collaborative culture – a noble goal to bring educational institutions into the 21st century, thereby modeling technology integration for stakeholders. Yet just as technology itself must be led by learning goals rather than novelty, using tech to accelerate your collaborative culture must be rooted in clear objectives. Vision must precede implementation.
What is Your Why?
If your why does not include the word “students”, I challenge you to rethink your vision. All we do must be focused on what is best for students. I have seen the power of collaborative cultures in impacting schools and communities. I had the great privilege of working in Sanger Unified School District, a district featured in work by Jane L. David & Joan E. Talbert in coordination with the S.H. Cowell Foundation. Read the report.
This school district and others have significantly bettered their schools and surrounding communities, led by a unifying compelling vision, a clear why. Their vision revolves around students. This why continually focuses and refocuses stakeholders toward student needs. Successful districts always put students first.
Why start with why in a blog about using technology as a driver for improvement of culture? Every task you digitize, every technological tool you implement, must always support the why. If digitizing the task does not further your vision, resist the temptation to implement it. Digitizing your PLC minutes on Google Docs?
Ensure your vision and DuFour’s 4 PLC Questions are directly on the template, lest the focus turns from student learning. The power of Google Docs is not in the ability of PLC members to collaborate on a single document simultaneously, but in the formative feedback they can receive from stakeholders beyond their PLC. Minutes can be placed in a folder in Google Drive that is shared with the entire staff. This facilitates collaboration that extends beyond grade levels and or departments.
Digital learning walls helps ensure instructional decisions are based on the most current student evidence available. A key component of a collaborative culture is the analysis of professional practice, to drive planning for continuous improvement. When administrators digitize walkthrough forms they not only gather observations regarding instructional practices taking place in classrooms, but can also provide instant formative feedback to teachers. In creating these walkthrough forms however, alignment to the vision is key. The form itself, the measures it contains, must match the shared vision. Why are you conducting walkthroughs in classrooms? Why are you documenting observations? The form elements must be focused on educational strategies that serve to improve student learning.
To increase educator ownership of the work, overall school-wide trends can be shared with all teachers at a collaborative staff meeting, during which they analyze results and create action plans to further their implementation of the vision. Digitize your collaborative culture further with shared digital calendars, campus-wide blogs, virtual meetings, and more. But don’t forget your why. Even great systems will prove unsuccessful when not aligned to a compelling vision that focuses on students. It is purpose that leads to success and sustainability. Remember your why.