1. Building a Culture that Creates Capacity for Leadership and Learning
Anthony Muhammad, PhD

2. The Task at Hand
“If schools are to be transformed into learning communities, educators must be prepared first of all to acknowledge that the traditional guiding model of education is no longer relevant in a post-industrial, knowledge-based society. Second, they must embrace ideas and assumptions that are radically different than those that have guided schools in the past.”
—DuFour & Eaker, Professional Learning Communities
at Work (1998), p. 34

3. Two Forms of Change
Technical–structural (skill)
Cultural (will)

4. Healthy School Culture
“Educators have an unwavering belief in the ability of all of their students to achieve success, and they pass that belief on to others in overt and covert ways. Educators create policies and procedures and adopt practices that support their belief in the ability of every student.”
—Peterson (in Cromwell, 2002)

5. The Will to Lead Aligning the philosophy Managing frustration
Creating a culture of collaboration
Institutionalizing cultural health
—Hollie & Muhammad, 2011

6. School goals guide behavior.
Prescriptive
Commitment
Belief in all students
School goals guide behavior.
Reflection
Analyze data.
Confront brutal facts.
Prescription
Collaborative
Disciplined practice

7. Aligning the Philosophy Developing Shared Purpose
“The mission question challenges members of a group to reflect on the fundamental purpose of the organization, the very reason for its existence. The question asks, ‘Why do we exist?’ ‘What are we here to do together?’ and ‘What is the business of our business?’”
—DuFour & Eaker, 1998

9. Crucial Conversations
Conflicting opinions
Potential to become highly emotional
Stakes are high
Patterson, et.al, Crucial Conversations: Tools for
Talking When the Stakes are High (2011)

10. 3 Big “Ideas” of a PLC Ensure high levels of learning for all students
Create of a culture of collaboration
Focus on Results

11. Starting a Movement
Align, clarify, and build consensus to improve practice
Identify impediments to collaboration and address them aggressively
Create a plan that improves our collective effectiveness
-Hierck and Williams, Starting a Movement: Building Culture From the Inside Out in Professional Learning Communities (2015)

12. Pause to Think
What are you planning to do when you return to school to stimulate dialogue about shared purpose and addressing philosophical conflict?
Are you prepared to respond to attitudes and belief systems that contradict the PLC philosophy?

13. Managing Frustration

14. Toxic School Culture
“Educators believe that student success is based on students’ level of concern, attentiveness, prior knowledge, and willingness to comply with the demands of the school, and they articulate that belief in overt and covert ways. Educators create policies and procedures and adopt practices that support their belief in the impossibility of universal achievement.”
—Peterson (in Cromwell, 2002)

15. Descriptive and Deflective

16. The Real Difference Descriptive Deflective Reflective Prescriptive
Toxic
Healthy
Descriptive
Deflective
Reflective
Prescriptive

17. Frustration The Root of a Toxic Culture
Frustration: The feeling of being upset or annoyed because of inability to change or achieve something
A mismatch between skill set and task
Causes people to deflect blame onto others and create covert alliances with people experiencing similar struggles

18. Inappropriate preparation Poor support system Task overload
Recipe for Disaster
Inappropriate preparation
Poor support system
Task overload

19. The Culture of Complaint Two Vs
Venting
Validation

20. Time Out!
“To be a good teammate, your responsibilities must be more important than your rights”
—John Wooden

21. Good to Great, Jim Collins
What do great corporations or organizations do differently than good or average organizations?
They seek and confront the brutal facts.
They get the right people on the bus and sit them in the right seats.

22. Adult Drama
Dysfunctional social interactions between adult professionals within a school environment that interfere with the proper implementation of important policies, practices, and procedures that support the proper education of students

23. The Quandary (Muhammad, 2009) Tweeners Believers Survivors
Fundamentalists
(Muhammad, 2009)

24. Pause to Think
How do people in your work environment typically respond when they get frustrated (Reflective and Prescriptive or Descriptive and Deflective?
Do you have an active group of Fundamentalists? If so, how do they affect your culture?

25. Collaborative Culture
Team: A systematic process in which we work interdependently to analyze and impact professional practice to improve individual and collective results

26. Macro and Micro Collaboration
Systemic
Teachers

27. Coherence
“Leaders in PLCs must focus on building collective coherence and a shared mindset among individuals and across the whole system. They must focus on transforming culture. Coherence making is a critical process”
DuFour, R and Fullan, M., Cultures Built to Last: Systemic PLC at Work (2013), pg. 23

28. Guiding Coalition
Establish a coalition of people who will guide your PLC journey
Ensure that membership represents a diverse cross-section of staff members
Levey Guiding Coalition (Administrators, Guidance Counselors, and Department Chairpersons)
This team met twice every summer (full days) and two times per month (two hours) throughout the school year

29. Developing a Shared Focus
Shared mission
Shared vision
Shared values
Shared goals

30. Shared Mission
We will work collaboratively to ensure that each student is prepared for post-secondary education.

31. SMART Goals
“One of the most powerful strategies for building the capacity of the staff to work effectively in collaborative teams is to create the conditions that require them to work together to accomplish a specific goal”
—DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, Many & Mattos, Learning by Doing:
A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities at Work (2016), pg. 159

32. Shared Vision School Improvement Teams
Character Education
And
Community Service
Connection to
Public and
Private Sectors
Parental
Partnership
University Partnerships
Academic
Skills
Professional Learning Community

33. Core Beliefs
Schools are places for children’s education, not for adult employment.
Schools play a major role in the life success of students and their communities.
Education is a profession, and educators should conduct themselves as professionals.
Education is a mission, and educators should conduct themselves as missionaries.
Schools are a community’s most precious institution, and they have the power to transform it.

34. Core Beliefs
Children are the center of everything we do, and our practice should reflect their best interests.
Schools must partner with other community members for optimal educational experiences.
Character is important, and schools can help shape a child’s character.
Community service is important and essential in democratic society.

35. Reflection
What is your written school mission? Do you have a comprehensive vision plan? Are they aligned with the goals of a PLC?
Are your core values aligned or is your staff a group of “independent contractors”?
Do you need to revisit them? Why or why not?

36. Leadership at Every Level
Healthy School Culture
Teacher
Building
Leadership
District
State and Federal

37. Hard Fact
We are very flawed individually, but we are nearly perfect collectively!

38. The Most Critical Cultural Relationship
School Leadership
Teachers

39. The Most Critical Instructional Relationship
Teacher

40. School Administration
We need each other!
School Administration
Teachers
Teacher cooperation and commitment to school vision
Teacher commitment to focus on 4 PLC Questions
Interpretation of student data and adjustments to instructional practice
Commitment of resources to make the PLC process work
Manipulating the master schedule in order to provide adequate collaborative time
Resources to provide training and systems support the PLC process

41. 4 Stages of a Collaborative Culture (Tuckman)
Forming
Storming
Norming
Performing
Tuckman, Bruce (1965). "Developmental sequence in small groups". Psychological Bulletin. 63 (6): 384–99

42. Reflection How effective is your current system of collaboration?
Which stage best describes the current state of your collaborative teams?

43. Keyword -Dr. Anthony Muhammad
Contact Information
Website:
Twitter:
@newfrontier21
Facebook:
Keyword -Dr. Anthony Muhammad

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