AGQTP Day 6 2007

Today was a very satisfying day in many respects.
We further trialled the Final Word protocol (see previous post) and it worked much better and seemed to engage people more in what the article was trying to say. The process allows you to cover the essentials of the article but gives you different perspectives. It enriches the conversation on the topic and enables quieter members to have a say.

I would suggest that it may also be useful to sit for 2 minutes in silence to write a reflection on the main points of the discussion after going through the protocol. The other thing to consider is: Groupthink. How do you prevent like-minded individuals from agreeing with each other just so you don't rock the boat. Need an outside party to review the discussion. Also, you could have one person act as an outsider who reviews the process.

We discussed an article on the new Professionalism of teachers where the focus is now on measurable student outcomes. Part of the way that this can be achieved is through professional development that is self-directed, continuous and systematic. Excellent stuff!

Success analysis protocol
Another way to listen more professionally to what people have to say is this protocol. It goes like this:

1. Everybody think about and note down some key points about a recent professional success (5 minutes).
2. One person outlines what was successful in as much detail as possible. (5 minutes)
3. The others in the group ask clarifying questions (defined as questions that help the questioner understand the situation) as opposed to probing questions (defined as questions that help the respondent think a little more deeply about their situation). (3 minutes).
4. The rest of the group then discuss the success story. The story teller says nothing but writes notes as the rest of the group speak. (8 minutes).
5. The story teller then gives their reflections on what was said in step 4. (2 minutes)
   
6. The group then discusses the process and try to sum up together what elements of the story led to it being a success. (2minutes)

This was also interesting although it was hard to stick to the protocol properly. Once again, it allowed one person to speak at length about a topic that was important to them. The others had to listen and only ask clarifying questions. Then the storyteller was forced to listen.
This would be good with students or to debrief after a key event. We could use it in our PL teams to talk about our successes in teaching.

We then tried a Tuning protocol. Similar to the above but used when evaluating policy and fine-tuning it's contents. We did it once as a big group but I will wait until the next session in August before reporting back in detail.

We did have a long discussion about a Teaching Australia document on what it is to be a teacher. It was good that such a document is being developed and would be useful for me in my quest to develop the Professional Learning Policy for the school.

The next session: we must bring samples of student work, a policy document of some sort and should try some of the protocols before the August meeting.