January 11, 2006

The First Annual National School Reform Faculty Research Forum was held today in Denver, about 50 people gathered to share their research, question assumptions, dig deeper, and encourage each other. I appreciated having the time and space to make connections with other people's experiences and research.

The first talk that I went to was Do they make a difference? A review of research on the impact of Critical Friends Groups presented by Ellen, a doctoral student at Penn State University. This was a great way to start off the day because it gave me a broad overview of the research that has been done about CFG's. Ellen had looked at 16 studies and found 4 impacts of CFG's:
1) CFG's foster a culture of community and collaboration
2) They enhance teacher professionalism
3) potential changes in teacher thinking and practice
4) student learning

Ellen pointed out that the evidence for CFG's having an effect on teacher practice is very weak, and there is just not much out there at all about how or if CFG's affect student learning. That reiterated to me how important the Teacher As Researcher work that we are doing in Houston is. The teacher researchers are collecting evidence about improved teaching and learning. I really hope that we can figure out ways to get that evidence analyzed in a useful way and written up to add to the body of literature about CFG's.

Finally, Ellen also discussed the weaknesses in the studies. Most of the studies are very short. They may study a CFG or a school for only a couple of years. Also, the studies tend to study only new CFG's, and Ellen felt like there was too much teacher self-report. Some of the things that were missing from the existing studies were issues in equity and factors about sustainability.

During the second half of that session, Betty presented Using protocols to support data analysis: What are we trying and what are we learning? Betty is on the faculty at the University of Georgia. What I got from her presentation and the discussion that followed was the idea that we can have a relationship with our data and that data as well as findings should be public and shared.

The third talk that I attended at the Research Forum was Coaching the Coaches: Challenges and Possibilities of Critical Friends Groups which was presented by Angela and Pat from San Antonio. Since Tim and I have been doing some serious thinking about revamping coaches support for CFG's in Houston, I really appreciated hearing about the model being used in San Antonio.

Angela and Pat talked about the significance of context, and they shared a chart that organized the multiple layers of coaches' practice. From this chart, they lifted out challenges about the logistics, purpose, and work that CFG coaches faced in their work. All of the coaches that Angela and Pat work with are supported by being in a CFG for coaches where they can improve their facilitation skills and make their coaching work public. I would love to involve more Houston CFG coaches in CFG's just for coaches [see "Everybody Needs Two"]

These are the questions that are still resonating in my head:
"Who is responsible for providing support for new coaches?"
"How do schools take ownership of the initiative?"
"How much support is too much?"
"How do you keep the ship afloat without being the captain?"

Reflections on the Research Forum
I didn't get to attend a 4th session or the overall debrief because I had to take part in the facilitator's planning session from 3-6. I'm thankful that I got to participate as a presenter and as a listener. Both experiences helped me refine my own ideas. I wish that everybody had come with a paper, and I wish that a list of all presenters and their contact information had been available. There are several people that I'd like to stay in contact with, and I'm not sure how easy that will be.

On January 25, I presented a session about CFG's at the A+ Leadership Team Conference that was sponsored by the A+ Regional High School Redesign Project. The blurb on the agenda for my session read "Critical Friends Groups: How do Critical Friends Groups work? How are they similar and different from PLCs? What are some of the tools used by CFGs? How do CFGs affect teacher practice and student learning?" The presentation was organized around the questions "What? So What? Now What?"

WHAT I was unsure of what the experience level of the participants would be so I asked everyone to introduce themselves with their name, school or organization, and CFG experience. We then filled out a K-W-L chart so I could assess what they already knew and what they wanted to learn. Honestly, I was surprised that the groups had so little knowledge about CFG's. I guess that, by the nature of my work, I usually hang out with people who are at least knowledgeable--and usually quite skilled--in CFG practices. Some participants in the second session actually had some MISinformation about CFG's. Click on the thumbnail photos to see the K-W-L charts.

We then read Deborah Bambino's article "Critical Friends" and used the text-rendering protocol. This article helped answer many of the participants' basic questions while they experienced a simple protocol. From there, I went over the official definitions of the purpose and characteristics of Critical Friends Groups that are on the National School Reform Faculty website.

SO WHAT To address the question "How do CFG's affect teacher practice and student learning" I shared some of the data that Mary has collected as part of her Teacher As Researcher grant. At her school, the students whose teachers are in CFG's perform better than students whose teachers are not in CFG's across the board on standardized tests in all subjects and in all grade levels. Even more importantly, in my opinion, the teacher turnover rate at her school was reduced to 5% in a region where the rate hovers around 22%. I closed this section with photos of happy teachers and reflections that demonstrate increased collaboration and community at Mary's school.

NOW WHAT I was hoping to have some time for the school teams to examine the "School-level conditions that support reflective teaching practices (self-assessment tool)" that David Leo-Nyquist developed in Vermont. That document helps schools reflect about where they are on a scale that supports teachers being reflective practitioners. The conditions include items such as "principal support for teacher professional development," "opportunities for teacher leadership," "effectiveness of faculty workgroups," and "school schedule." I encouraged groups to take the tool home and start discussions about how their campus could advance on the scale with or without CFG's.

We closed by revisiting the K-W-L chart and making sure that all questions in the want to know section of the chart were answered. Excerpts from reflections are in the extended entry.