1. Step 0: Building a Collaborative Culture
PLCs are more than just schedules and meetings.
Do people actually want to participate?

2. Building a Collaborative Culture: Expert Jigsaw Resources
Scan the resources for “Building a Collaborative Culture” in your module.
Decide as a team which resources you will select to review and discuss. You do not have to review all resources.
For resources selected, as a team summarize and share out key points and any helpful PLC tools/resources.
Please include information on the stages of teaming and different ways to build a collaborative culture.
Remember Roles and Norms

3. What is collaboration?
A systematic process in which we work together interdependently to analyze and impact professional practice in order to improve our individual and collective results
(DuFour, DuFour, & Eaker, Getting Started: Reculturing Schools to Become Professional Learning Communities, 2002)

4. The Four Stages of Teams (Bruce Tuckman, Developmental Sequence in Small Groups,” Psychological Bulletin , 1965)
Stage 1: Forming
Eager, polite, watchful, guarded, anxious, questioning
Needs of Team:
Clarity of purpose, goals and structures, build trust, define the group
Stage 2: Storming
Conflicts emerge, confrontations are not handled well, feeling stuck, emotions run high
Refocus the work, break down tasks; identify team roles.
Recognize individual strengths.
Stage 3: Norming
Well-established structures, comfort expressing ideas, risk-free environment; deeper conversations, issues confronted appropriately
Evaluate process and productivity; assess goal progress
Stage 4: Performing
Resourceful; free sharing of ideas and opinions; confidence in self and team synergy
Celebrate successes; think “outside the box”; present challenges; look for opportunities for growth.

5. The Focus of Collaboration
“Collaborative cultures, which by definition have close relationships, are indeed powerful, but unless they are focusing on the right things, they may end up being powerfully wrong.”
-Fullan, Leading in a Culture of Change (2001)

6. Simultaneous Loose AND Tight School Cultures
Simultaneous loose and tight cultures establish clear parameters and priorities that enable individuals to work within established boundaries in a creative and autonomous way. They are characterized by “defined empowerment” or what Marzano and Walters refer to as “defined autonomy”-freedom to act and lead within clearly articulated boundaries.
(Marzano & Walters, District Leadership That Works: Striking the Right Balance, 2009)

7. Cultural Shifts in a PLC

8. Norms of High Performing Teams
Willingness to consider matters from another’s perspective
Accurate understanding of spoken and unspoken feelings and concerns of team members.
Willingness to confront a team member who violates norms
Communicating positive regard, caring, and respect
Willingness and ability to evaluate the team’s effectiveness
Seeking feedback about and evidence of team effectiveness from internal and external sources
Maintaining a positive outlook and attitude
Proactive problem solving
Awareness of how the group contributes to the purpose and goals of the larger organization
(Goleman, Working With Emotional Intelligence, 1998)

9. Guiding Questions for Team Norms
Are we clear on the commitments we have made to each other regarding how we will work together as a team?
Have we established our commitments as explicit behaviors?
Have we discussed how to address the issue if we feel someone if not honoring our norms?

10. Criteria for Team Norms
The norms have clarified our expectations of one another
All members of the team participants in creating the norms. All voices were heard.
The norms are stated as commitments to act in certain ways.
All members have committed to honoring the norms.

11. Tips for Team Norms Each teams establishes its own norms.
Norms are stated as commitments to act or behave in certain ways.
Norms are reviewed at the beginning and end of each meeting until they are internalized.
One norm requires a team to assess its effectiveness every six months. This assessment should include a review of adherence to norms and the need to identify new norms,.
Less is more. A few key norms are better than a laundry list.
Establish a process for addressing violations of norms.

12. Importance of Team Norms
“Social psychologists learned long ago that if you make a commitment and then share it with others, you are far more likely to follow through than if you simply make the commitment to yourself.” -Patterson, Grenny, Maxfield, & McMillan, Influencers: The Power to Change Anything (2007), p. 152

13. Step 0 and PLC Routine Events: A Year at a Glance
Time of Year Potential PLC Processes and Routine Events
Beginning of the Year
Establish Norms
Establish Roles
Support for New Members
Develop SMART Goals for the PLC
Middle of the Year
Reflect on Process
Reflect on Norms and Roles
Monitor, Reflect, and Revise as needed
End of the Year

14. Activity for Practice: A year at a Glance and Step 0
Month
PLC Activities and Focus
August
September
November
December
January
February
March
April
May
Norms?, Roles?, New Team Members?
You have just discussed planning for the beginning of the year, steps for bringing new members up to speed, now take some time to plan for August
DQ 3: Practicing Skills, Strategies and Processes

15. Why have past initiatives failed?
Failure to achieve consensus
School culture is ignored
Purpose unclear
Lack of ongoing communication
Unrealistic expectations of initial success
Failure to measure and analyze progress
Participants not involved in planning…
Emphasize the need for a consistent and well communicated vision which will facilitate consensus. As well, when individuals are part of the planning process and are able to have input over how the initiative is implemented, buy in is enhanced.

16. Over Time necessary to participate in a Problem Solving/
None of Beliefs, Skills, Knowledge
All of Beliefs, Skills, Knowledge
necessary to participate in a Problem Solving/
Response to Intervention Model

17. Goal necessary to participate in a Problem Solving/
None of Beliefs, Skills, Knowledge
All of Beliefs, Skills, Knowledge
necessary to participate in a Problem Solving/
Response to Intervention Model 17