Collective Efficacy

First, I want to wish everyone a Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!!! Thanks for all you do!

For the past two weeks, I have come across this term “collective efficacy.” Since this term is new to me, I wonder, what does that mean?

I like the definition Stephanie Hirsh shared in her blog post about Michael Fullan’s announcement of the power of collective efficacy. “Collective efficacy is educators’ beliefs that in working together, they have the capability to improve significant challenges in school” (Hirsh, 2016, April 7, para. 2). All in all, it is very similar to collaborative inquiry, which is “stakeholders working together to uncover and understand problems and to test out solutions together through rigorous data use and reflective dialogue” (N. Love, K.E. Stiles, S. Mundry, and K. DiRanna, 2009).

Given these two definitions, what do you think are the similarities and differences?

With that in mind, I have to share how excited I am to have all of you part of our community of practice. I truly believe that working together we can have so much more impact on our students’ success. However, developing this type of culture does NOT happen overnight. It takes time and support. Please remember that I am always an email away from providing any type of support you may need.

Finally, I want to share a new resource added to the Collaborative Inquiry Toolkit about trust: http://www.mnpscollaboration.org/component-c-culture-of-trust.html (last link on the page).

Next week's article is going to feature some collaborative meetings Haynes Middle Design Center have been having and how they are leveraging their collective efficacy to address a challenge.

If you have a best practice, success story, or lessons learned to share, please contact Margie Johnson at margie.johnson@mnps.org.

Reference:
Hirsh, S. (2016, April 7). Michael Fullan affirms the power of collective efficacy. Education Week Teacher's Learning Forward's PD Watch blog post. Retrieved from http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/learning_forwards_pd_watch/2016/04/michael_fullan_affirms_the_power_of_collective_efficacy.html (If you can't access the article, please access a pdf version at this LINK.

Love, N., Stiles, K. E., Mundry, S., and DiRanna, K. (2009). Using data to improve learning for all: A collaborative inquiry approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, Inc.

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