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Game plan

Teaching teams need specific support from the sidelines to reach top performance

by Rick DuFour
Journal of Staff Development, Spring 1999 (Vol. 20, No. 2)

Creating teams is an important, but insufficient, step in overcoming the tradition of professional isolation that prevents schools from functioning as professional learning communities. Educators must do more than organize people into teams and hope for the best. They must be attentive to providing the structure and support that enhance "group I.Q." and foster high-performance teams.

Here are some issues to keep in mind when looking for ways to enhance the effectiveness of teaching teams.

Schools that are serious about becoming professional learning communities will provide time for teams to collaborate. Unlike most countries, the American notion of teaching has traditionally called for teachers to instruct large groups of students for virtually the entire school day. In many schools, time spent working with colleagues on issues of teaching and learning is viewed as unproductive time because it means less time with students. But calls for a collaborative culture ring hollow when time for collaboration is not provided or is viewed as an add-on (after school or on Saturdays).

Providing time for collaboration does not require shutting down the school. For example, Adlai Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois adjusts its schedule to provide staff with time for collaboration for 45 minutes on the morning of the first school day of each week. While the teaching teams meet, students choose from a variety of options such as eating breakfast in the cafeteria, receiving tutoring in resource centers, meeting with counselors in individual or small groups, making up tests in the testing center, convening club meetings, or using school facilities such as a quiet study hall, the library, open gyms, weight room, computer labs, or college resource centers. There are a number of creative ways to solve the time issue, and schools committed to creating a collaborative culture will find one that works for them.

A group does not become a team until its members work together to accomplish an objective. Teams are most effective when they’re clear about the results they want to achieve. Telling teachers who are accustomed to working in isolation to "go collaborate" is a recipe for disaster. Particularly in the early stages of moving to a more collaborative model, teams benefit when they have explicit expectations about what they should produce or accomplish. For example, over two or three years, teams might be given the following tasks to be completed:

• Identify common course or grade-level objectives;
• Develop common, comprehensive assessments of student learning;
• Review samples of student work and clarify the criteria by which that work will be assessed;
• Analyze student performance on a comprehensive assessment, identify areas of concern, and specify strategies for improving their performance;
• Review and react to a research article and summarize your conclusions.

Collaboration is not a natural act in the traditional culture of teacher isolation. Thus, providing teachers with explicit questions to consider and tasks to accomplish will give them the sense of direction and the confidence they need as they move into the unfamiliar territory of a school built on the assumption that people work best when they work together.

Ask teams to clarify their operating procedures and protocols.

Teams can help minimize unnecessary ambiguity and conflict if they clarify the procedures and protocols that will guide their work together. Teams should consider and reach agreement on the following questions:

What are our expectations for how our team will operate? How will we define consensus? What indicators will we use to assess our team’s effectiveness? What process will we use to resolve conflict?

For example, one teaching team agreed to the following norms:

• We will start and end meetings on time.
• We will solicit, consider, and value the input of each team member. No individual will be allowed to dominate the discussion, nor will one individual be expected to carry the work load of the team.
• We will be candid, will seek to understand one another by articulating and investigating the reasoning behind our respective positions, and will assume the good intentions of our colleagues even if we disagree.
• We will attend all meetings.
• We will work to reach consensus and will support a decision once it is clear that it represents the will of the group.

Once the team has been operational for a while, its members should be asked to reflect on the way the team is functioning.

A demanding performance challenge is essential to the development of high-performance teams. Organizations that focus on team-building exercises are not nearly as effective as those that help teams identify and pursue specific, measurable goals (Katzenbach and Smith, 1993). As they write, "a common set of demanding performance goals that a group considers important to achieve will lead, most of the time, to both performance and a team. Performance, however, is the primary objective, while a team remains the means, not the end."

Many schools confuse this issue. They focus on the creation of teams rather than improved results. They demonstrate a reluctance to articulate measurable goals, opting instead for a listing of morally impeccable affirmations such as "It is our goal to help all students become lifelong learners." Or they focus on projects and activities such as "We will review options and recommend a new math textbook." Such goals are unlikely to create the focus on results and commitment to continuous improvement that are essential to a professional learning community. Clear, explicit, concrete goals help move a school from a broad vision and good intentions to specific commitments. They are fundamental to the focus and feedback that are critical to a learning community.

Katzenbach, J. and Smith, D. (1993). The wisdom of teams: Creating the high performance organization. New York: Harper Business.

Rick DuFour is superintendent of Adlai Stevenson High School District 125, Two Stevenson Drive, Lincolnshire, IL 60069, (847) 634-4000, ext. 268, fax (847) 634-0239, e-mail: rdufour@district125.k12.il.us