Improve collective efficacy in schools through meaningful professional conversations
As technology substitutes for face-to-face connections, educators can feel like they’re practicing their craft in isolation. Nine Professional Conversations to Change Our Schools is a framework for revitalizing the art of the professional conversation. It guides educators through structures for collaboration, offers access to vast storehouses of applied wisdom, and facilitates a coherent knowledge base for standards of excellence. Readers will find
- nine conversational strategies designed to promote collective teacher efficacy
- learning scenarios that demonstrate the effectiveness of these conversations in action
- accessible Conversational Dashboard that assists in analyzing conditions for success
Face-to-face conversational skill is a fundamental foundation for establishing effective relationships and collaboration. Drawing from their rich careers with coaching and facilitation, the authors of this book offer strategies that will expand your conversational repertoire and provide insight into how to respond meaningfully in an ever-changing environment.
Table of Content
Foreword
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Dedication
Epigraphs
Introduction
Part I: The Foundation—Conversational Competence
Chapter 1: A Crisis in Our Midst—No Coherent Knowledge Base
Chapter 2: The Disadvantage of Being Left Behind— A Knowing–Doing–Learning Gap
Chapter 3: Emotional Blocks to Collective Efficacy— How Stress Shuts Down Communication
Part II: Conversations Designed to Build Knowledge Coherence From the Inside Out
Chapter 4: Reflective Conversations—The Fundamental Professional Act
Chapter 5: Humble Inquiry—Exploring Needs Instead of Helping
Chapter 6: Cognitive Coaching—Lingering in Conversations to Learn
Chapter 7: SCARF—Open to Diverse Viewpoints
Part III: Calibrating Conversations—Conversations at the Tipping Point From Outside In
Chapter 8: Stakeholder Centered Coaching— Expanding Consciousness
Part IV: Conversations Designed to Build Knowledge From the Outside In
Chapter 9: Positive Deviance—Mining for Group Gold
Chapter 10: From Conflict to Consensus— The Chadwick Process
Chapter 11: FRISK—Making Expectations Clear
Chapter 12: MOVE—Time to Move On
Part V: Final Musings—Making Unrealized Dreams Come True
Chapter 13: Leaving Knowledge Legacies
Appendix
References
Index
About the author
DIANE P. ZIMMERMAN, Ph.D. is a writer and consultant focusing on entrepreneurial learning and schools that make a difference. She obtained her Ph.D. in Human and Organizational Development from the Fielding Graduate Institute. She recently retired as a superintendent of schools after a 36-year career in education that was rich in leadership, facilitation and conflict management. Trained originally as a speech therapist, Diane worked early in her career as a teacher, speech therapist, program manager, and Assistant Director of Special Education in Fairfield, California. She subsequently became a principal in Davis, California and served consecutively in two schools over 13 years before being promoted to Assistant Superintendent for Personnel. In 2002, she began a nine-year journey as a superintendent of Old Adobe School Union School District, a small suburban elementary school district in Petaluma, California. She prides herself in moving the district’s teachers from contentious union interactions to cooperative collaborations as productive, interest-based educators who collectively set the highest standards possible for their school district.Diane has been an active in professional development all of her career. While obtaining her administrative credential, Diane was assigned to Bob Garmston as her intern coach. This early career interaction turned into a life-long intellectual partnership and Diane joined the Cognitive Coaching consulting consortium founded by Bob Garmston and Art Costa. Diane has taught in administrative training programs at several northern California universities and over the past 20 years has written and consulted in the areas of Cognitive Coaching, teacher supervision and evaluation, facilitation, stages of adult development, assessment of leadership skills, and constructivist leadership.Leadership and mediation of conflict has always been a part of Diane’s life. She was encouraged to assume leadership roles throughout her career, from early work supervising in a family restaurant business, to her first teaching job in a new special education program, through her years as a principal. Throughout her career, she has been involved in handling divergent opinions and mediating conflict. She gained a substantive reputation as the “in house” expert in facilitation and her staff valued her ability to create learning communities long before “professional learning communities” were popularized
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