Are you looking for a way to engage teacher teams in collectively improving teaching and learning? If so, Collaborative Inquiry for Educators: A Facilitator’s Guide to School Improvement by Jenni Donohoo would be a good addition to your professional library.
As Alabama educators—and, indeed educators all across the county—work to more successfully engage their students so they are well-prepared for the future, it’s important to provide them with ongoing professional learning and support. Just as students need scaffolding from time-to-time, so do teachers if they want to move their students from Depth of Knowledge 1 or Bloom’s Remembering stage.
As I read Donohoo’s bestselling book, I felt like I was getting a “two-fer.” That is, the author does a great job of synthesizing the research on both effective professional learning and effective teaching strategies.
Donohoo frequently cites John Hattie, Doug Reeves, Michael Fullan, Peter Senge and other adult learning experts. I was hooked after reading the first few pages. (You can download Chapter 1 here.)
How we can achieve collaborative inquiry
One of the most valuable elements presented in the book is the collaborative inquiry process. Accompanying the description are eleven different resources that instructional partners, administrators or others playing the role of facilitator can use.
The collaborative inquiry process invites teams of teachers to participate in a four-stage model:
Stage One: Framing the Problem—Identifying a critical learning deficit that, if addressed, could result in significant improvement in student learning. This is very similar to the problem of practice as noted in the book Instructional Rounds, by City, Elmore, et al.
Stage Two: Collective Evidence—This stage actually is a two-step process. First, participants develop a shared understanding about the identified problem and identify “additional knowledge and competencies” needed to successfully investigate it (p. 5). Next, the team identifies the evidence that should be collected along with specifics: the when, where and how.
Stage Three: Analyzing Evidence—The third stage involves a five-step approach that enables team members to effectively interpret data, look for patterns and themes, and begin to identify next steps. Throughout this process, team members are encouraged to candidly analyze the data they are collecting to ensure they are collecting information that is valid and related to the identified problem.
Stage Four: Documenting, Sharing, and Celebrating—The final step is the “So What, What’s Next?” part where, in addition to sharing impact—both on participating faculty members and students—the team identifies next steps. The next steps can include refining the student learning needs—or identifying a new learning need—discussing what has been learned, and evaluating the process itself.
Plenty of details and tools
The book is organized into chapters that provide specific details and tools to help facilitators guide teacher teams through the four-step process. Donohoo draws heavily from the National School Reform Faculty website (http://www.nsrfharmony.org).
Donohoo also provides a very useful case study that follows a school team through the collaborative inquiry process. The case study involved a group of intermediate teachers that included history, science and English teachers with common planning times. The problem identified is their students’ inability to support their opinions with relevant reasons and discussion.
This case study makes the process come alive as the author details step-by-step the actions the teacher team takes, beginning with refining the problem and inquiry question, to gathering evidence, and considering next steps. Using the descriptive process, the fictional team develops a robust inquiry question: “What is the impact of the think-aloud strategy on students’ ability to share opinions with detailed and relevant reasons accompanied by clear and sufficient support?” (p. 57)
In addition to the description of the process, the resources, and the case study, the end of each chapter in the book features reflection questions for facilitators. As an example, for Stage One—Framing the Problem, the following reflection tool is offered:
This book is very accessible and readable and it is completely aligned with the instructional partnership principles that guide our work. The text is 93 pages long, accompanied by a 19-page set of resources. Instructional partners and other facilitators of professional learning will find this to be a timely resource for work with school teams.
Also see:
• Donohoo’s Education Week post, “Fostering Teacher Leadership Through Collaborative Inquiry.”
• These slides from a Donohoo keynote on the collaborative inquiry process.
