Technology - Our Protocol of Collaboration

1.     Pausing 

a.     We will pause for a minimum of 5 seconds (to train ourselves to be aware of pausing).

b.     We will use this 5 second pause in exchanges of ideas or during discussions.

c.     If the pausing isn’t happening for long enough, we should feel free and comfortable to mention this and ask others to be mindful of pauses (ask for longer pausing).

2.     Paying Attention to Self and Others

We will be mindful of:

a.     Our talking time.

b.     Our reaction to others.

c.     Confusion or frustration in others.

d.     Respecting critical thinking from others.

e.     The group agenda.

3.     Paraphrasing

We will paraphrase by using an “I” statement:

            “I’m feeling/noticing/wondering/questioning (etc) ________________________________.

             Can we pause and reflect on how this relates to our understanding of ________________.”

4.     Ideas on and off the Table

a.     When ideas are brought to the table, they must be accompanied by some supporting research/data.

                                      i.     If we presume positive intentions when an idea is put on the table, this facilitates respectful discussion.

                                    ii.     The conversation that results from discussing ideas can lead to deeper understanding.

Our PLC meetings take place with a presumption of positive intentions.

Social Thinking gets going

Today was a day of discovery, learning, and exploring all of the areas one could pursue in the realm of social thinking. But of course, this could not happen successfully and positively without first determining our group norms of collaboration.  Our discussion around the norms of collaboration was very important, and we all quickly agreed on three main norms important for success.  Firstly we identified "pay attention to self and others".  With such a big working group, this one was important.  

In a PLC group it is important to give everyone a chance to share their thoughts, ideas, and hopes for the group.  We want to avoid one person providing information, while others listen.  "Paraphrase" was another norm everyone felt was of value to our group.  Again, with such a large group and such a broad topic we felt it was important to paraphrase to ensure everyone be on the same page.  Finally, we agreed on "putting ideas on the table".  Again, with such a large topic we felt it would be important to brainstorm all of our ideas, which will in turn help us to narrow in on something specific, acheivable, and measurable.  We may stay as one big group, or we may branch off into smaller working groups. 

After discussing our norms of collaboration, we explored the realm of social thinking.  For some it was review, for some it was new.  Today was just a starting off point, a day to openly discuss "what is social thinking anyways?", "where can we go with this?", "what are some of our options?"...May the discussion go on!

Morgan

ZONES is off to a great start

 ZONES of regulation group

December 11, 2013

We had some good discussion about the norms of collaboration, and realized that they are all interrelated, and that it was hard to pick one that seemed most important because they all are, and we all valued them. 

Our focus for the next while is going to be studying the Zones of Regulation – the terms and concepts underlying the program, and how the concepts are applied to self-regulation (strategies and tools).

Thorough understanding of the Zones concepts will enable us to support the students in implementing the concepts. We will know the students have learned the concepts when they can identify the zone they are in and use tools to bring themselves into the expected zone. Measurement of this can be by observation of student behaviour, questioning students, and student self-assessment.

Sheila Fairbank

Technology - Working Through the Foundation Protocol

You Are Not Alone…

We sit gathered around the table waiting to begin our journey of learning together. My thoughts are that of eagerness to get started as we continue to move forward towards our next steps. Wait I tell myself, let's do this right, after all we have been moving slowly with our progression of our PLC's for a reason. So what's next? How do we begin our journey of learning together? We go back and together as a team we work through the foundation protocol.

There we sat, taking some time to write down what was important to us regarding the Norms of Collaboration. The process was valuable and very informative. One by one we shared what we felt we needed in order to work collaboratively. As each person shared, responded to questions and listened to others responses it became very clear that we were not alone as every member in our group had the same response to what Norm of Collaboration they felt was important to them. As each of us spoke we repetitively heard Pausing and Paying Attention to Self & Others.

•     Pausing - Pausing before responding or asking a question allows time for thinking and enhances dialogue, discussion, and decision-making.

•     Paying Attention to Self and Others - Meaningful dialogue and discussion are facilitated when each group member is conscious of self and of others, and is aware of what (s)he is saying and how it is said as well as how others are responding. This includes paying attention to learning styles when planning, facilitating, and participating in group meetings and conversations.

As time came to an end for our meeting today we were working together to form our needs into a foundational protocol that we will hold one another to as we collaboratively work towards providing successful learning opportunities for all of our students. In our next meeting we will finalize our foundational protocol and move on to our next step of establishing our team focus.  

Using protocols

 Why use protocols?  The best answer I've found so far is "It's not pixie dust, it's protocol" by Tom Many.  In his article, he says that "The regular use of protocols also helps teachers develop a shared language for assessing student work and a common understanding of what quality student work looks like."  I think that protocols allow schools to do more than just hold "more meetings" because more ineffective meeting time will not improve student learning.

What is a protocol?  It's not as scary or confusing as it sounds, in fact it's just a plan of attack when you come to a meeting.  the protocol defines the goal of the meetingand the steps your group will take to get to the goal.  Depending on the goal of your meeting, you can pick an appropriate protocol using this document.  More templates will be added over time.

There are many protocols already created, and you can create your own to meet the needs of your group.  As a staff this Fall, we practiced a few protocls to get people used to using them. We have tried the foundational protocol, professional learning protocol, and problem solving protocol.  More protocols are available in my google drive here.

Protocols are crucial to the success of a PLC.  The right protocolwill get your team to the crucial questions of a PLC:

• What do you want students to leaarn
• How will you know if they have learned it
• What will you do when they have learned it
• What will you do when they haven't learned it

Defining the Norms of Collaboration

What’s important to you? It matters…

Spending the time we did discussing what the Norms of Collaboration were (pausing, paraphrasing, posing questions, putting ideas on the table, providing data, paying attention to self and others and presuming positive intentions) as well as having the opportunity to put them into practice was for me a very valuable and worthwhile experience. It opened the doors for everyone to have an opportunity to share what was important for them in order to be collaborative and create a meaningful PLC.

The Spaghetti Marshmallow Towers challenge that we participated in was not only a fun activity; it was a great reminder of how our own willingness to contribute in the collaborative process in a mindful way can impact the success of an entire teams’ focus. What made this activity so valuable was the role that each individual was secretly assigned to take on; the roles were specifically designed to portray challenges typically experienced in the collaborative process. Examples of specific roles were the competitive individual who just wanted to build the tallest tower, the let’s just get started without thinking of the end role and the mole that was given the task of having a negative attitude and sabotaging the final outcome. There was also the role of using the skill of paraphrasing to make sure that everyone was heard and an observer who kept some notes of how they saw the group using the norms of collaboration throughout the task. In the end the value was in the reminder of the importance of being mindful to what is important to everyone involved in the collaborative group.

It was the next activity where we had the opportunity to practice using the Norms of Collaboration while working through a run through of the Foundation Protocol that I really appreciated. During this process the learning environment felt mindful, non-judgmental, safe and I felt that what I had to say was valued. I also had the opportunity to learn about what was important to others in the collaborative process and knowing this allows me to be mindful of their needs so that they too feel safe sharing their ideas in a positive learning environment. However the most valuable part of the process for me was gaining a greater understanding regarding making assumptions, more specifically making the assumption that we already know and follow the Norms of Collaboration. It’s important to remind ourselves about these norms and to make sure that we take the time to go through them when working with a new group of people so that we all have the opportunity to share and learn together.

By Karla