Leadership Cycle 2

Part I: Reflective Narrative Template

Step 4: Reflect
Part I: Reflective Narrative Template
Directions: Reflect on your learning and equitable leadership development throughout Leadership Cycle 2 by
responding to the following prompts (no more than 4 pages) in terms of your leadership capacity to co-
facilitate collaborative professional learning and implementation of an evidence-based strategy. Type your
responses within the brackets following each prompt. Do not delete or alter the prompts.

1. Cite evidence (including the agendas and minutes, group work products and initial
implementation results, videos and annotations, and/or group feedback on the process) of
how your actions affected members and influenced progress toward meeting the group’s
goals to address a problem of practice and monitor initial impact on student learning and/or
well-being.
[ The agreed-upon strategy to remediate the challenges in our problem of practice is to
create an English Language Arts (ELA) Vertical Articulation Map to communicate
standards/learning targets not addressed typically that could prevent gaps in learning (Step 2,
Pre-Planning Meeting Minutes). While the established Professional Learning Community (PLC)
came to the strategy for the problem of practice together, the team realized in the first
implementation meeting, that this ELA Vertical Articulation Map would take a while for us to see
progress in our work. We all realized that our goals were too broad to see positive or negative
results of our work in the time we needed to inform our conversations. As I could see this
coming, I was able to provide research and support to help guide us in some potential early
monitoring strategies. By including a reading of “Priority Standards: The Power of Focus:” A
Conversation between Peter DeWitt and Larry Ainsworth in Implementation Meeting 1, I was
able to provide reasoning for a potential tool for early monitoring. Teacher B was able to pick up
on this and brought it to the group without my prompting. This is evident in the meeting minutes
for Implementation Meeting 1 as described; “the article discusses the importance of early
monitoring/assessment to inform guidance. Teacher B expressed that this should be our team’s
first priority. Create a tool for early monitoring” (Step 3, Implementation Meeting Minutes
1). With this reflection, the team was able to move toward creating concrete tools for putting a
strategy into practice as noted by Teacher C when he provided feedback that “[he] appreciated
that [the candidate] brought in researched evidence to help make progress in our conversations”
(Teacher C, 2021). Because this was a priority, I made sure to include work time in the agenda
to promote its value. Work time was provided in both Implementation Meeting 2 and 3 in
creating the agreed upon early monitoring strategy: a student self-assessment. An example of
this student self-assessment and data collected from students on this self-assessment can be
found in our key collaborative work. Unfortunately, that data gained from this self-assessment
does not inform our team whether or not we have begun remediating higher than average D/F
rates, but it does provide us with data to strategize priority standards given lost instructional
time: our problem of practice. With data from this self-assessment tool, teachers can
immediately begin prioritizing standards and maximizing instructional minutes, providing more
opportunities for students to master prioritized standards. Because of the conversations
facilitated, research-based evidence provided, and time allotted, I was able to support our team
members’ creation of grade-level student self-assessments that all teachers in our department
can utilize to guide curriculum pacing.]

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 Leadership Cycle 2
Part I: Reflective Narrative Template

2. Cite evidence (including the agendas and minutes, group work products and initial
implementation results, videos and annotations, and/or group feedback on the process) of
how effectively you maintained a high standard of professionalism, integrity, and equity
(e.g., respect for diverse viewpoints) as you worked with members of the community of
practice. Include how you established and maintained the same expectations of others.
[ In an effort to ensure professionalism structures embedded into the agendas to promote
an effective professional learning community were integral in establishing that initial sense of
collaboration and trust needed to make progress towards goals. Teacher D expressed in her
meeting feedback survey that she appreciated being included in the creation of agendas stating
that she was “empowered to take ownership” of the goals and intent of the team (Teacher D,
2021). In an effort to value the time of each of the members, work time was established in the
implementation meetings so that when we left each meeting a goal was accomplished and the
work product was tangible. This work time can be seen in the meeting minutes for
Implementation Meetings 2 and 3. Creating norms as a team and committing to these norms
each week established common expectations for engaging in conversations with our team and
creating a space of equity and integrity. In an effort to ensure all teachers felt like equal
contributors, roles (ie: minute taker and timekeeper) were delegated to different teachers during
different meetings as evident in our agendas and meeting minutes (Steps 2 and 3). Outside of
roles, members were encouraged to take ownership in the work through verbal and work
contributions. At times, members other than myself facilitated certain aspects of the meeting.
For instance, in Implementation Meeting #1 Teacher B presented to the team her conversation
with district support staff. When members were quiet or removed from a conversation, I was
able to bring them gently back into focus through a direct question as evident in Video Clip 2.
Meeting minutes are crucial to the credibility of our work to educator stakeholders outside of our
PLC team. Meeting Minutes are clear and thorough to allow for various administrators or other
support staff to track the progress of our time together without actually being there. These
meeting minutes along with our Action Items/Next Step document also created a sense of
accountability for not only me, as the facilitator, but for all team members (Key Collaborative
Work). In order to create an environment of professionalism and fidelity, my preparation and
timeliness were crucial. As seen in the Meeting Minutes start and end times are consistent as I
wanted to value the time of all team members involved. I also spent time before each meeting
hyperlinking documents into agenda items and creating Google slide decks to assure our
resources and pacing of our time together ran smoothly. Evidence to these Google slide decks
can be seen in Video Clips one through three and hyperlinked documents can be found in
Agendas and Meeting Minutes indicated in blue, underlined text. In the end, all of the measures
listed above were used to establish a standard of professionalism, integrity, and equity in our
PLC team to create an environment to support our process of facilitating student success.]

3. What aspects of school culture and context influenced the co-facilitation of a community of
practice at your school, and what actions did you take to respond to these contextually
based challenges or supports?
[ Public High School A focuses all PLC training around The Learning Cycle. The Learning
Cycle consists of five stages from “elicit” to “clarify” that support teams in focusing PLC work on
student success. This ELA Vertical Articulation PLC is following the stages of The Learning
Cycle that all teachers in the district are trained in. Because of this, stakeholders engaged in
this team knew the process for monitoring and reflection needed to create our strategy for our
problem of practice. This is evident in Teacher A’s survey feedback when he wrote “these
meetings effectively used similar processes that I have been used to in other collaborative
teams” (Teacher A, 2021). This consistency and efficiency in the process of PLC teams at the
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 Leadership Cycle 2
Part I: Reflective Narrative Template

district and site level ultimately aim to support student success in providing a process to meet
team goals or outcomes. PLC time is valuable at Public High School A and all school sites have
weekly time dedicated to collaboration. Because of this, our ELA Vertical Articulation PLC could
consistently meet each Friday without interference from other PLC meetings or asking teachers
to meet outside of contracted hours. While the ELA Vertical Articulation team was newly
created to focus on the English department’s strategies to remediate high student D/F rates,
these teachers are not unfamiliar with working with each other. Some team members work with
others in various other teams, and all members collaborate during whole-department
meetings. Due to the familiarity of the members of the PLC team, a level of trust and comfort
was established even before meetings started. One aspect of the culture of our department and
this PLC team that limits growth is the limited challenges or disagreements that stakeholders
bring to conversations. This complacency or willingness to agree with the status quo can be
seen throughout video clips. Educator Robert Evans, in his article “Getting to No” believes that
“A culture of niceness limits growth if teachers don’t also agree to give each other appropriate
moments — and degrees — of candor” (Evans, 2012). Overall, in co-facilitating this meeting
with my team members it was integral that I followed protocols and standards that stakeholders
were already familiar with. By modeling this team after previously established collaborative
teams I was able to give our work together more credibility which will ultimately produce more
successful outcomes.]

4. Reflect on initial implementation results, the group’s feedback to you, and research related
to equitable leadership development, adult learning, or group co-facilitation.

a. Analyze your strengths and areas for growth in co-facilitating a community of practice to
address an instructional problem.
[ Outside of my personal reflection on the success of our PLC team, I was also able to
elicit feedback from team members on the progress of the team and my contributions as a
facilitator. This was done in meetings during the review of the meeting minutes and closing
comments, but I also provided my team members a feedback survey on two separate
occasions. This feedback survey was provided to the team members after Implementation
Meeting 1 and after Implementation Meeting 3. The first feedback survey allowed for me to
make adjustments to subsequent meetings, while the second survey helped to guide the
direction to continued meeting needs.
Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayner note that effective “communities of practice enable
practitioners to take collective responsibility for manage the knowledge they need” (Wenger-
Trayner, 2015). Creating an environment of “collective responsibility” as described above is a
strength in my facilitation of this PLC. All four English teachers commented to some degree
about feeling they were involved “in a true collaborative effort” (Teacher D, 2021) and that their
“opinion mattered” (Teacher C, 2021). I believe I was able to accomplish this by including all
members in the rationale for the process while also providing opportunities for team members to
create and guide the process. Members were able to contribute to agenda items or goals for
the meetings,
Some challenges prevented our team from meeting our maximum potential. As stated
earlier, being too agreeable did not allow for diverse points of view or opportunities to grow from
discomfort. But overall, it was the isolation of our conversations, not the agreeability of our
conversations, that was a challenge. While the educational focus presented to us by our
principal impacted students throughout the school, there are no clear processes embedded in
our PLC culture to work with and/or share knowledge with other departments or curricular

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 Leadership Cycle 2
Part I: Reflective Narrative Template

teams. Selena Blankenship and Wendy Ruona bring light to the importance of knowledge
sharing and state that “researchers maintain that knowledge is shared through storytelling,
which allows workers to explicate problems and built stories together that invent a solution”
(Blankenship & Ruona, 2007). The potential for including the Social Science department - for
example - could further help us to “invent a solution” by widening the data and observations in
creating strategies to help our students. Between our PLC meetings a few team members
informally asked me about other departments and the conversations that they were having, I
regret not reaching out to these departments and I hope that I can work with the administrative
team to try to embed a culture of knowledge sharing at our school site that further supports our
students’ success.]

b. Based on the analysis of your experiences in Cycle 2, identify specific professional

learning goals and describe next steps for growth.
[ When I look at Cycle 2 as a whole, I am proud of the conversations and supports that my
team was able to have and create in order to support student success. But as seen previously,
the work of our team and my facilitation of the team was not without faults or opportunities for
growth. As I look toward future administrative experiences, I can now see the importance of
creating opportunities for teams to meet clear, measurable goals, and unfortunately, I do not
think the work produced by this PLC team is measurable in the short term.
It is evident that this ELA Vertical Articulation Map will allow for teachers to note
prioritized standards not met due to lost instructional time. It is also evident that this map will
allow teachers to be more intentional in what standards should be prioritized or scaffolded
based on vertical alignment. And while this intentionality of prioritizing and scaffolding standards
will ultimately allow for more students to achieve mastery in standards, we do not yet have
evidence to prove our efforts remediated our problem of practice. While my team seemed
accepting of the long-term journey of this effort, in reflection I think that providing opportunities
for educators to successfully meet short-term goals that are explicitly measurable empowers
stakeholders to continue this type of work in other collaborative teams. DuFour, Eaker, and
DuFour (2005) discuss that poorly designed measurement systems can be a barrier to
progress. In the readings of DuFour, Eaker, and DuFour advice is given to ensure that these
measurement systems are not a barrier; narrow the focus to only what is essential, create
formative assessments and early monitoring systems to gain feedback, and ensure that
knowledge shared is easily accessible and clear to stakeholders not involved in the
collaborative team (DuFour, Eaker, & DuFour,2005). I was able to use this advice for DuFour,
Eaker, and DuFour early on in the process in regard to early monitoring systems, but ultimately,
I can see that more backward planning - similar to a teacher planning a unit with a final
assessment - would have allowed for more opportunities for our team to see more successes
and potential challenges in our work throughout the process.
Regardless of the explicit data that was gathered from this PLC team, the important factor I was
able to take away from Cycle 2 is the importance of the accountability and trust a facilitator can
bring to the team. Creating an environment for educators to feel empowered to ask questions,
research findings, gather data, and create supports is the most important factor in promoting
collaborative teams that work effectively to positively impact student learning. Dr. Anthony
Muhammad believes that “trust transcends logic,” and that effective leaders or facilitators need
to pay attention to the emotional intelligence we bring to leadership because cognitive
intelligence is not enough to be an effective leader (Muhammad, 2020). I will continue to grow to
develop trust and accountability with my peers in the various collaborative teams I am a part of
or facilitate. Regardless of action items and statistical data focusing on empowering all
stakeholders to feel included in the work we do to support students is key.]
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