Standards 6 & 7 Meta-Reflection: Communication & Collaboration

Standard 6 Communication: Communicates regularly and effectively with colleagues, parents and students through a variety of mediums.

Standard 7 Collaboration: Cooperates with other professionals to bridge gaps between schools and community and between departments/disciplines within schools.

The first artifact for these standards are two action plans I developed to increase communication and collaboration. The first action plan is to institute a quarterly email newsletter to be sent out to parents and guardians. Information such as important due dates, descriptions of projects and assignments, how to contact the teacher and how the parent can help their student succeed will all be included in the newsletter. The goal is to include parents in the daily activities of the clasrsoom so they can ask informed questions at night and assist students with their work. Paper newsletters and translated versions will be offered to those households who do not speak English or have access to the internet.

Artifact: Parent Email Action Plan

The second action plan focuses on collaboration within and between departments. Many teachers and departments teach in isolation and best practices are rarely shared. As a physics teacher, I could benefit from problem story strategies from the math department and vocabulary strategies from the English department. Critical Friends Groups (CFGs) seeks to provide a place and protocol for teachers to have difficult discussions in a safe environment. In our high school, 9th and 10th graders are put into smaller learning communities called PODs which consist of an English teacher, social studies teacher and science teacher. These three teachers would meet on a regular basis to discuss student work with the goal of improving the quality while promoting communication and collaboration between departments.

Artifact: CFG Action Plan

The third and final artifact is another way to seek communication and input from parents regarding their students. I developed a parent and student survey to gain information about students and open the lines of communication. This survey is sent home with students the first week of school and they are awarded points for returning it. I work hard to make sure I receive a survey back from every student and follow up on questions I may have. These surveys influence how I group students for projects and seating arrangements, how I differentiate instruction and how to interact with them in the classroom. They also provide me with information about how their parents see the student.

Artifact: Parent/Student Survey

I analyzed the context of my school given the community it is in. Using state published data on test scores, demographics and other information, I provided a snapshot of the school’s student population. Utilizing OSPI’s nine characteristics of good schools, I evaluated the school pointing out areas where it excelled and areas it was deficient. This analysis determined the focus for my two action plans.

Artifact: Action Plan Context

Action Plan

These are two action  I created for Kentridge High School to address areas of need in communication and collaboration. Some context is given about the school and it is evaluated using OSPI’s 9 Characteristics of Effective Schools. This is the culminating assignment for a class on collaboration and communication.

Ryan West- Action Plan

One School’s Action Plan Process

As I’ve mentioned before in this blog, the school I teach at is currently in the process of re-evaluating our school-wide action plans due to the accreditation process. To provide some background, Kentridge High School is located in suburban Kent. It has 2400 students and 110 teachers. There is strong community and parent support although from a smaller population as our school becomes more diverse and transient.

Our principal recently conducted a staff meeting where a large amount of data was presented to provide a snapshot of our school. The goal was to look for trends in the data which we could relate to our action plans for the next seven years. Teachers were then asked to develop one or two action plans using the SMART goals criteria. It was not referred to specifically as a SMART goal but the criteria was all there. Teachers were then randomly grouped into fours and picked a goal everyone thought best met the criteria of a SMART goal. A member from each group then went wrote their goal on a large piece of paper and those were collected. Certain committees were already in place to determine SMART goals for areas of the school but a few needed to be created. The principal asked for volunteers and choose about 10 teachers to look at the school’s mission statement. In two weeks, the principal announced the SMART goals and asked for feedback from the teachers in a large group setting. After questions had been answered and feedback received, the goals were accepted by the staff.

As evidenced from a few discussions (see “Annnnnnd ACTION” by Erin Power Kozloff) in the class this week, there are inherent difficulties in a large school such as Kentridge. The most formidable one is to get all the staff members to “buy in” to a goal they did not have a direct hand in creating. Many times, these action plans or goals are created in small sub committees and the end product is only seen. Staff members accept the action plan but feel no ownership. The way Kentridge created the goals by including everyone in the data and idea process, incorporates more people into the process. It simply isn’t wise to have all 110 teachers write an action plan. A smaller group of teachers representing and getting feedback from others is a good way to approach it.

Action plans provide a common, focus way for schools small and large to impact student learning and the learning environment. It is important for everyone to be included in the creation of an action plan but concessions need to be made in the case of a large school or a specific area such as Special Education or English Language Learners. Using the SMART goal steps, these action plans can bring a school together and enable students to learn.