"Culture eats strategy for breakfast." ~Peter Drucker

This quote summarizes the importance of culture in an organization.  On December 12, 2017, Dr. Shelly Dunaway, Executive Principal at Two Rivers Middle, and her staff used the collaborative inquiry process to analyze culture and climate data for informing culture and climate change at Two Rivers Middle.

The meeting began with a strategy called visual synectic.  In this strategy, two seemingly unalike ideas are compared.  It is  an excellent brainstorming activity and helps develop psychological safety at the beginning of the meeting.  For this meeting, staff members engaged in a conversation about "culture is like Walt Disney World because...."

After activating and engaging staff members in the conversation about culture, the staff participated in the culture and climate data dive.  During the data dive, staff members were asked to make observations of the following culture and climate data sets:

• SEL Walkthrough Data and Rubric
• Teacher Panorama Data
• Student Panorama Data

The observations were organized and integrated using the Traffic Light protocol (Lipton & Wellman, 2012) to discuss what might be some next steps to stop, continue, and start for Spring 2018.

If you'd like to learn more about their work, go here: www.mnpscollaboration.org/two-rivers-dec-2017-culture-and-climate.html

GOOD NEWS!!
A BIG SHOUT OUT and THANK YOU to everyone who has been part of the MNPS Collaborative Inquiry work as you are part of work that's being recognized nationally by others.

• Chapter 9 in the book, Data Leadership for K-12 Schools in a Time of Accountability features MNPS' Collaborative Inquiry work.  You can email me for a copy of the chapter OR access it on the MNPS Collaborative Inquiry Toolkit website on this page (scroll down a little to access it): www.mnpscollaboration.org/about.html
• Dr. Joellen Killion updated her book, Assessing Impact: Evaluating Professional Learning.  In the appendixes, you will find MNPS' Collaborative Inquiry logic models, Teacher Data Use Survey, Evaluation Plan interview protocols, and MNPS Collaborative Inquiry Innovation Configuration Map.  You can find her book here: www.amazon.com/Assessing-Impact-Evaluating-Professional-Learning-ebook/dp/B077L5VDX6

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

 You might see that acronym BHAG and be thinking......"what in the world does that mean?"  Well, Cole Elementary has brought BHAGs to their school (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) as a way of having "unrelenting focus, clarity of thought, consistent communication, alignment of resources, innovation, discipline, and teamwork" (Sparks, 2007, p. 13). 

Cole Elementary started the year with a literacy BHAG and decided to create a BHAG for math.  To create the math BHAG, they used the collaborative inquiry process during grade level team meetings to get teacher voice about the math BHAG.  Once the teachers' BHAGs were compiled, the leadership team met to finalize the math BHAG.  Then, on November 16th, grade level teams are meeting to collaboratively develop action plans for achieving their math BHAG.

To read more about their BHAG work, go here: www.mnpscollaboration.org/cole-elem-bhag-fall-2017

Cole Elementary also participated in the SEL Culture and Climate Walk-through.  On November 6th, the collaborative inquiry process was used to help them analyzed the data and discuss actions they might stop, continue, and start to continue working on the culture of the building.

To learn more about that exciting work, go here: www.mnpscollaboration.org/cole-elem-culture-and-climate--2016.html

If you have a collaborative story to share or would like to request assistance, please contact Margie Johnson at [email protected].

Reference:
Sparks, D. (2007).  Leading for results: Transforming teaching, learning, and relationships in schools.  Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

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].

On August 30, Goodlettsville Middle engaged in the follow-up meeting.  While we ran out of time for developing theories of causation, another meeting will occur to finish up the process.  These theories will then guide grade level teams' work for supporting student success.  To learn more about this meeting, including the PowerPoint presentation and data sets used, go to: Goodlettsville Middle Poverty Simulation Follow-Up Meeting  (http://www.mnpscollaboration.org/goodlettsville-middle-poverty-simulation-follow-up-meeting.html)

The Poverty Simulation is an outstanding professional learning experience.  If you are interested in learning more about it, please contact Allison Buzard at [email protected].

How are you and/or your school using the collaborative inquiry process for making data-informed decisions?  Please share stories, resources, or request support by contacting Margie Johnson at [email protected].

 
Two components of MNPS' Instructional Framework are positive culture and distributed leadership.  Danette Warren, Whites Creek High School Freshman Academy Principal, began addressing these two areas by having her team included in the development of vision and mission statements for their academy. 

Using the collaborative inquiry process, Dr. Margie Johnson facilitated the one hour meeting during their academy planning time.  Below are their current vision and mission statements and if you would like to read more about the process, go to http://www.mnpscollaboration.org/whites-creek-high-freshman-academy-vision-and-mission.html

Vision
WCHS Freshman Academy will be a bridge to success for students on their journey through high school and beyond.

Mission
Our mission is to promote a welcoming, safe, caring and supportive environment to prepare our scholars to become successful and productive citizens by providing them with educational opportunities and experiences on their journey through high school.
(While we did not get to draft the mission statement during the planning meeting, team members submitted drafts and a consensus was reached via online voting.  This statement is the current draft.  They do plan to revise it in the next meeting.)

If you have a story about collaborative inquiry to share and/or would like support with the collaborative inquiry process, please contact Dr. Margie Johnson at [email protected].

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.

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
  

On May 10, 2017, teacher teams at East Nashville Magnet Middle met to use the collaborative inquiry process to develop recommendations for their 2017-2018 Positive Behavior Plan.  The meeting began with a Generate, Sort, Category activity (Lipton and Wellman, 2011) to identify student behavior expectations.  Then, the teachers reviewed the MNPS Data Warehouse Behavior Dashboard reports for the last three years.  This data was used to inform their recommendations.   

If you are interested in learning more about the work at East Nashville, please read more at: http://www.mnpscollaboration.org/east-nashville-behavior-plan-may2017.html.

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

On February 9, 2017, Two Rivers Middle leadership team began the journey of developing their SIP goals for 2017-2018, which will be used to guide their budgeting.  After that meeting, two more meetings were held.  The next meeting occurred on February 23, 2017 to develop draft SIP goals.  The final meeting was held on March 9, 2017 to solicit feedback and finalize the 2017-2018 SIP goals.  The collaborative inquiry process was used to facilitate each meeting. 

To read more about their work, please check it out HERE.

East Nashville Magnet Middle Prep also used the collaborative inquiry process for developing their SIP goals.  However, they took a different approach by first having common planning time teams make data observations.  The East Nashville Magnet Middle leadership team then used the observations to develop SIP goals for 2017-2018.  Again, the SIP will be informing the budgeting process at East.  Read more about East Nashville Magnet Middle's journey HERE.

One great thing about the collaborative inquiry process is the fact that it can be used in different contexts and different ways to support schools.  If you want to learn more about the collaborative inquiry process or have a great example to share with us, please contact Margie Johnson at [email protected].