Saturday, September 21, 2019

The Language of Collaborative Reflection


Coaches support collaborative reflection when they offer opportunities for teachers to share their work and problem-solve together.  Last week’s post talked about the “5 P’s” for productive conversations. When these characteristics are the norm, we listen to and understand each other better.

Of course, listening only works when someone is talking!  So teachers need to balance listening with sharing during collaborative reflection.  As each member of the group puts his or her own ideas on the table, using phrases such as, “Here is one idea…” or “Another consideration might be…” helps to keep the conversation open.  Both inquiring into the ideas of others and advocating for one’s own ideas are important to productive dialogue.

As the conversation unfolds, asking one another questions helps us stay open to new ideas.  Teachers can ask, “What if…?”  Would it be possible to…?” or, “If we (did this), then could students…?   To assure that conclusions are well-founded, member of the team can ask clarifying questions.  Asking a colleague to “say more about that” or to respond to the query, “Why do you think that?” helps us to make meaning and recognize best practices.

As a coach, you can model this kind of language and also have an explicit conversation about its benefits.  Including sentence stems like these in a box on the agenda can be a good reminder to everyone.

Reflecting collaboratively increases collective efficacy – the belief that what we do as teachers makes a difference for student outcomes.  Research by John Hattie shows that collective teacher efficacy is strongly correlated with increased student achievement – three times more powerful and predictive of achievement than student motivation, socio-economic status, or home environment and parental involvement!  When teachers get smarter together, so do their students.  That’s why the language of collaborative refection deserves special attention. 

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Teacher collaboration and reflection are things I’m passionate about!  You can read more about it in my book, Collaborative Lesson Study, which is now two weeks old.  J  It’s available here (20% discount code is TCP2019).  If you’d like to join the free Facebook book club for the book, click hereDiscussion begins Sept. 27 with Chapter 1.
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This week, you might want to take a look at:

Research book clubs for “pretend” readers:



A teacher talks about learning from coaching feedback:



Layering texts with Padlet to build background knowledge:



A good description of the “Stop & Think” comprehension strategy:


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