Thanks to the following middle schools and organizations that participated in the collaborative inquiry data dive.

The session began with an Activating and Engaging activity called Looking Back...Looking Ahead (Lipton & Wellman, 2011) where participants shared how family involvement in schools has changed from the past to now and then their vision for future family involvement.

We Organized and Integrated the observations using the Traffic Light protocol (Lipton & Wellman, 2011) to discuss actions to stop, continue, and start.

References:
Learning Hero. (2017, August).  Parents 2017: Unleashing their power & potential.  New York, NY: Learning Heroes.

Lipton, L. & Wellman, B. (2011).  Groups at work: Strategies and structures for professional learning.  Charlotte, VT: MiraVia, LLC.

The Department of Equity and Diversity offers a wonderful professional learning experience called the Poverty Simulation.  After participating in the poverty simulation, participants engage in a data dive during the Poverty Simulation follow-up meeting to discuss action steps for supporting student success.

For the poverty simulation follow-up meeting, participants engage in a data dive by reviewing various data warehouse reports, including Assessment Details by Subgroup for TLA, MAP, and/or ACT; Attendance Dashboards for 2017 through 2014, and Behavior Dashboards for 2017 through 2014.

To see specific details from each follow-up meeting, click on the name.

• Hull Jackson Montessori
• Central Office staff
• Jones Paideia
  

If you have a collaborative inquiry story or are interested in learning more, please contact Margie Johnson at [email protected].

Kassie Williams, a coordinator for the MNPS Exceptional Education department, is using the collaborative inquiry process to work with coaches this semester.  One session is planned for September, October, and November. 

The first session was held on September 20, 2017.  The purpose of these sessions is to foster a culture of collaboration for supporting student success.  The primary outcome for this meeting was to allow the exceptional education staff to leverage their collective expertise in addressing four focus areas:

• Data- Based Decision Making
• Instructionally Appropriate IEP’s
• Access to High Quality Core Instruction
• Effective Intensive Interventions

To learn about their work and the workshop, please go to www.mnpscollaboration.org/exceptional-education-coaches.html

If you have a collaborative inquiry story or are interested in learning more, please contact Margie Johnson at [email protected].

Drs. Erin Anderson and Craig Hammond have been part of the collaborative inquiry journey since 2014.  They were part of the initial workshops with Dr. Laura Lipton and Bruce Wellman, helped inform the IC Map, and participated in the Spring 2016 and 2016-2017 Collaborative Inquiry Community of Practice.  It has been an honor having them part of our collaborative inquiry learning experience. 

Wishing you all the best in your new leadership positions.  I look forward to see how collaborative inquiry is used to inform your work.

On Friday, May 19th, I had the honor to work with Joelton Middle Prep and the Family Engagement Department.  During the meeting, representatives from Joelton Middle Prep’s leadership team used the collaborative inquiry process to analyze various sources of family engagement data.  While I facilitated the meeting, several Family Engagement staff members observed the meeting to learn about the structures, strategies, and principles that I use to facilitate the collaborative inquiry process.  After the meeting, we discussed some of the structures, strategies, and principles that I used to lead the collaborative inquiry meeting.
 
Thanks to the Joelton Middle leadership team and Family Engagement Department for allowing me to facilitate these wonderful learning conversations.
 
To learn more about this work, check out:

• Joelton Middle Prep Family Engagement Data Dive: http://www.mnpscollaboration.org/family-engagement-data-dive.html
  
• Leading Collaborative Inquiry Discussion: http://www.mnpscollaboration.org/leading-collaborative-inquiry.html
  

--Dr. Lyn Sharratt, Fall 2016

When I was a middle school teacher and attended professional development workshops, one of my biggest complaints was the day would focus on theory, but I would never get to “see” the theory in practice.  Needless to say, I implemented very little of what I learned from those experiences. 
 
The best technique I found for changing my practice was by experiencing the strategy and collaborating with other teachers.  Also, a theme that is surfacing as a powerful principle of supporting student success is collaborative professionalism.  However, how do we foster collaborative professionalism as a way that we do work and not an additional task added to the overflowing plates of educators?
 
With these ideas in mind, it’s the main reason why the collaborative inquiry process is taught by immersing school staff in a collaborative experience with the process.
 
On January 4, 2017, Margaret Allen Middle and Head Magnet Middle had the opportunity to experience the collaborative inquiry process while reviewing the culture and climate walkthrough data.  You can read more about their experiences by clicking on their names..

Do you have a collaborative inquiry story to share?  If so, please let me know.
 
Also, If you and/or your school are interested in learning more about collaborative inquiry and how it can support student success, please feel free to reach out to Margie Johnson at [email protected].

Reference:
Sharratt, L. (Fall 2016).  Setting the table for collaborative professionalism.  Principal Connections, 20(1), 34-37.  Retrieved from http://www.lynsharratt.com/pdf/collective_professionalism.pdf

I had the honor and opportunity to represent MNPS’ Collaborative inquiry work and a Multi-State Data Use Standards working group at the International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement conference this past weekend. 
 
While following the conference hashtag, #ICSEI2017, on Twitter, one of my colleagues from Belgium shared the above quote.  Needless to say, I loved it and completely agree with it.
 
I remember June 4, 2014 when a diverse group of 41 educators and community partners across the district came together to begin discussing data use and the barriers to having effective data use practices in MNPS.  Several barriers (at least 33) were identified at this time.  Using a consensus building protocol, we narrowed the focus to the top 3, which were:

• lack of a common language
• lack of trust throughout the organization
• lack of leadership modeling (“walking the walk”)
  

After identifying these barriers, logic models were developed to create road maps for overcoming the barriers.  These roadmaps have served to inform the collaborative inquiry work for the past 3 years.

To address the common language issue, a committee was convened throughout 2015 to develop the MNPS Innovation Configuration (IC) Map for Collaborative Inquiry and was revised after 4 months of implementation where 5 middle schools (Haynes, Margaret Allen, Two Rivers, West End, and Wright Middle Preps) provided feedback to make it better.
 
Another committee was convened during 2015 to develop an evaluation plan for collaborative inquiry.  If we expected schools to use data for making informed decisions, then we needed to “walk the walk.”  A Teacher Data Use Survey, interviews, focus groups, and observations were used to collect data to answer the below questions:

• How and where is collaborative inquiry occurring in MNPS schools and with what fidelity?
• How does the culture of MNPS support collaborative inquiry and promote the integration of collaborative inquiry as essential to the work of the district?
• What preparation and support needed to implement collaborative inquiry are teachers and administrators receiving?
• Is collaborative inquiry making a difference for teaching and learning in MNPS?

Access the MNPS Collaborative Inquiry Evaluation Infographic HERE.  Read more about the complete evaluation plan HERE.
 
The MNPS Collaborative Inquiry has only been able to get as far as it has because we are doing it together.  If you have a collaborative inquiry success story to share OR need any collaborative inquiry support, please feel free to contact Margie Johnson at [email protected].

During my first year of teaching 8th grade math and science, I decided to put my students into cooperative groups for a math project.  I was trying something new and even had my university supervisor coming to observe me. (In KY new teachers are observed at least 9 times a year by principal, mentor teacher, and university supervisor.)

Dr. Maya Angelou has a quote, "When you know better you do better."  Well, let's just say that when the lesson where I used cooperative groups was observed, I had ALOT to learn.  I had basically put students together and said, "cooperate".  I lacked structures, strategies, and principles for facilitating the cooperative learning process.

Today, there's research about the importance of leveraging collaboration and social capital in schools (Hargreaves & Fullan, 2012; Hattie, 2015) for improving student success.  However, just like I did in my classroom, educational organizations are putting teachers together in common planning time and saying, "collaborate."  How well do you think this is working?

The collaborative inquiry process is a tool for providing structures, strategies, and group dynamic principles to help teams move from dialogue, to discussion, to decisions.  The best part is that voices are heard and ownership is fostered, so that the actions really occur.

Let me share with you an example last week, November 8th from Murrell School where the TELL survey data was used with faculty to make recommendations for improving culture and climate.  They made some excellent recommendations for supporting student success. 

Here's what Susan Siegel, Executive Principal of Murrell School, shared about the process: "It was wonderful!  I loved the process, and learned great strategies in working with staff.  I talked to several teachers and they really appreciated the steps taken, and felt all voices were heard. Many also said they were pleased that we had a plan to ensure changes.  All said you did a terrific job and thought the entire PD was exciting and energizing."

You can read more about Murrell's work at http://www.mnpscollaboration.org/murrell--culture-and-climate-2016-2017.html.

Thanks Murrell for inviting me to be part of the conversation.  I look forward to continued collaboration.

If you and/or your school is interested in learning more about the collaborative inquiry process for fostering data conversations, please feel free to contact Margie Johnson at [email protected].

References:
Hargreaves, A. & Fullan, M. (2012).  Professional capital: Transforming teaching in every school.  New York City, NY: Teachers College Press.

Hattie, J. (2015).  What works best in education: The politics of collaborative expertise.  Retrieved from https://www.pearson.com/content/dam/corporate/global/pearson-dot-com/files/hattie/150526_ExpertiseWEB_V1.pdf

If you have been part of this journey since Summer 2014, one of the barriers identified for implementing collaborative inquiry was the lack of leadership modeling.  I refer to this barrier as “walking the walk.”  People raised concerned about leadership, particularly from central office supporting the implementation of collaborative inquiry practices.
 
Since we have the collaborative inquiry community of practice among 5 middle schools and asked them to develop an implementation plan for implementing collaborative inquiry, the need to have this discuss at central office arose.  The meeting to discuss central office’s role in supporting collaborative inquiry was held on Thursday, May 19th from 11 AM to 2 PM. 
 
Overall, it was a very productive meeting where we used collaborative inquiry practices by using the Teacher Data Use Survey data from the community of practice schools as a springboard for how to best support schools.  We had a lively conversation and some great ideas were generated. 

To learn more about the meeting, including the agenda, PowerPoint, minutes, and pictures of charts, please go to http://www.mnpscollaboration.org/collaborative-inquiry-working-group.html.

I also videotaped the session because several schools requested to see videos with collaborative inquiry  being modeled.  Once I have the videos ready, I will post them to our toolkit and notify you via a blog post.

Please note that I am always here as a support for this work and several central office staff have received training as well.  I’m happy to meet with you and your team to discuss the best way your school and/or department can foster a culture of collaborative inquiry.  Ultimately, my vision is for the expertise throughout MNPS and school community be leveraged for supporting student success.
 
Contact me, Margie Johnson, at [email protected].
 
Hope you all have a wonderful summer.