Collaborative+Culture+4

After reading pages 102 - 104, think about team norms, in our data meetings we call these meeting parameters; what do they help us accomplish as we meet and discuss student achievement and effective instruction?

Having the guidelines tends to eliminate some of the useless talk and complaints. It helps us to stay on topic. As teachers we can get bogged down in our kids and not make it to the main function of the meeting. (E Leee) Yes, parameters will be key with any meeting. Parameters keep us focused on the team norms. As mentioned in our text, "trivial conversations are safer" agree but often times we are so excited to have adult conversations we don't know how to act. :-) We have to remember when we come out of the classroom into leadership positions that those of us still in the classroom are having 8 hours of conversations/learning interactions with 7 year olds each day. I think it would be wise to treat Explicit Team Meetings much the same way you would with young children. When I am about to teach a lesson using individual white boards, I give my kids one minute at the beginning of the lesson to draw/write anything they choose. After that one minute, I want only the explicit lesson on that white board. When teachers of young children are gathered, I have to wonder if giving 3 minutes to discuss anything in an adult conversation they would like, however when the meeting officially begins we will need to stick to the identified parameters wouldn't go a long way. As far as the vulnerability issue...there is no way around it...it is human nature...nobody likes feeling vulnerable! We are just going to have to get our feet wet...move away from shying away from our weaknesses...put it all out on the line. When we truly get the sense of we ALL fail or we ALL succeed...when we truly move away from feathers in hats... then we can truly say we are doing everything we can as educators for our kids to succeed in their school careers! (C.Hagemann) We feel that what is said to one is said to all in our meetings. We are in this as a group and we respond in kins. (LWren) I do like the idea of giving the teachers a couple minutes at the beginning of the meeting to have a little teacher talk instead of going right into the data. This gives us a little bit of time to unwind since the meeting is during our only break of the day. Keeping with the parameters helps our meetings to be efficient and keeps us all on the same page.(M. Ward)I agree that parameters help keep us on track. I like the idea of a couple of minutes for visiting. As I mentioned in one of the other sections and as has been mentioned above, we tend to be and feel isolated. That data meeting is the only break we have that day. I think parameters help us feel more comfortable with whatever material is being shared because it's not personal, it's business. That's from "You've Got Mail," but it's so true. We can't help but take things personally. The one fails, we all fail sense also puts all of us in the same boat. (J. Thomas) Parameters assist in keeping us focused and on task with the business at hand, however I am all for a few minutes of social time to carry on a conversation with ADULTS. (: (P.Smith) Parameters are what keeps us on target and knowing what the goal is at all times. Just like in our classrooms, we have to have parameters and expectations that the kids are always aware of. (H. Witt) We also know that time is a big issue...there never seems to be enough time to get everything in! So having parameters in meetings also helps us be sure to use our time wisely, and to cover those items most necessary. (M. Brown)