Category: Mission

Collaboration Spotlights: JE Moss Elementary, Goodlettsville Middle, CTE Cohort, and Joelton Middle

8/4/2017

Beginning the School Year with Collaborative Inquiry

According to John Hattie (2015), “the largest barrier to student learning is within-school variability” (p. 1). He recommends that what works best in education is empowering schools to leverage the collaborative expertise of the educators within a building. If often tell teams that I work with that if we had the answer, then we would have implemented it already. However, education faces complex issues today.

Therefore, MNPS’ Collaborative Inquiry process, developed by the MNPS Community of Practice (Haynes Middle, Margaret Allen Middle, Two Rivers Middle, West End Middle, and Wright Middle), is about empowering MNPS educators to use data and educator expertise for addressing a variety of complex issues in order to ensure all MNPS students are successful.

I am excited to share that three schools started the 2017-2018 school year off by engaging in collaborative inquiry to have deep conversations about a variety of topics.

In JE Moss Elementary’s session, they reviewed last year’s vision and mission statements. Then, they reviewed multiple sources of data to establish SMART goals for literacy and numeracy for 2017-2018. To read about their collaborative inquiry meeting, click http://www.mnpscollaboration.org/je-moss-elementary-leadership-team-meeting--2017.html
Ms. Beatriz Salgado is new to Goodlettsville Middle, so she wanted to leverage educator expertise in developing new vision and mission statements for the 2017-2018 school year. The leadership team convened on Monday, July 24th. To read about their use of the collaborative inquiry process, click http://www.mnpscollaboration.org/goodlettsville-middle-vision-and-mission.html
A cohort of CTE teachers learned how the MNPS Data Warehouse can help them support student success. The collaborative inquiry process was modeled while teaching them about the most common data warehouse reports. To see their work, click http://www.mnpscollaboration.org/cte-cohort--july-26-2017.html
Mr. Todd Irving, also being new to Joelton Middle, wanted to leverage educator expertise to develop new vision and mission statements for the 2017-2018 school year. On Friday, July 28th, Joelton Middle’s leadership team convened and used the collaborative inquiry process to develop vision and mission statements. To read about their collaborative inquiry journey, click http://www.mnpscollaboration.org/joelton-middle-vision-and-mission.html

If you have a collaborative inquiry story to share and/or need support with the collaborative inquiry process, please feel free to contact…

References:
Hattie, J. (2015). What works best in education: The politics of collaborative expertise. London, UK: Pearson.

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Collaboration Spotlight: Parent Ambassador Annual Meeting

7/26/2017

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In June 2017, Mariana Merritt, MNPS Coordinator of Family and Community Engagement, Pre-K, attended the Leading Collaborative Inquiry Teams workshop. A challenge at the end of the workshop was to use some of the structures, strategies, and principles at your next meeting. Mrs. Merritt was up to the challenge and is willing to share with us strategies she used and how it affected her meeting.

On July 15, 2017, Mariana Merritt facilitated the Parent Ambassador Annual Meeting. Since this group just formed, their first task was to develop a vision and mission statement to guide their work for the 2017-2018 school year. During her reflection, she shared three strategies that helped her effectively lead this collaborative team.

Collaborative Inquiry Process

Currently, MNPS defines collaborative inquiry as “Collaborative Inquiry is a data-based team process that consciously uses the collaborative learning cycle (activating and engaging, exploring and discovering, and organizing and integrating) and the qualities of effective teams (fostering a culture of trust, maintaining a clear focus, taking collective responsibility and data-informed decision making” (MNPS Collaborative Inquiry Community of Practice, 2017).

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Mrs. Merritt used the collaborative learning cycle to plan her session and then used group dynamics strategies to successfully facilitate the group.
- Activating and Engaging: Mrs. Merritt used a visual synectic to start the meeting, which helped generate ideas and foster psychological safety at the beginning of the meeting.

Exploring and Discovering: Mrs. Merritt provided some information about mission and vision statements, including examples.
Organizing and Integrating: Now that everyone had a working knowledge of vision and mission, the team created mission and vision statements.

Vision

Mission

The vision of the MNPS parent ambassadors is for all new Non-English language background families at every school to have access, support and resources to be empowered and engaged in their child's educational success.

We are welcoming parents, helping Non-English language background families that are new to Metro Nashville Public Schools to understand and navigate the school system.

Third Point

“The third point is an inanimate object in the room that becomes the focus of attention” (Lipton & Wellman, 2015, p. 44). The premise of using a third point is two fold--“to focus a conversation and create the appropriate level of emotional protection” (Lipton & Wellman, 2015, p. 44) so honest dialogue can occur.

While Mrs. Merritt stated that the third point was not used explicitly during the one hour session, she did use the participants’ membership applications to help refocus the conversation. “This helped everyone focus on individual reasons they wanted to participate along with the stated information in the application form of what membership meant” (M. Merritt, personal communication, July 24, 2017).

Diamond Pattern of Interaction

A diamond pattern of interaction is “a sequence of individual work, followed by structured sharing, ending with an opportunity for individual integration of new ideas” (Wellman & Lipton, 2017, p. 86).

Mrs. Merritt (personal communication, July 24, 2017) observed when using this group dynamic principle that it helped participants have a vested interest and personal connection to the dialogue and the outcome of the meeting.

Thanks to Mariana Merritt for allowing us to learn with her.

If you have a collaborative inquiry story and/or need support with collaborative inquiry, please email Margie Johnson at [email protected].

References:
Lipton, L. & Wellman, B. (2015). Leading groups: Effective strategies for building professional community. Charlotte, VT: MiraVia, LLC.
MNPS Community of Practice. (2017). MNPS collaborative inquiry toolkit website. Retrieved from http://www.mnpscollaboration.org/
Wellman, B. & Lipton, L. (2017). Data-driven dialogue: A facilitator’s guide to collaborative inquiry. Charlotte, VT: MiraVia, LLC.

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School Spotlight: John Early Museum Middle Magnet

11/10/2016

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The culture and climate work at John Early Museum Middle continued on November 2, 2016. Dr. Margie Johnson used the collaborative inquiry process with grade level teams to develop draft vision and mission statements. These statements will be used by the leadership team to revise, edit, and finalize the vision and mission statements.