Teacher Teamwork That Gets Results

            In this article in The Learning Professional, retired superintendent/author Diane Zimmerman and James Roussin (Generative Learning) say that all too often, teacher teams have difficulty focusing on student work, learning from each other, and taking collective responsibility for student learning. Zimmerman and Roussin’s research indicates that three key elements in PLCs successfully boost student learning: psychological safety, constructive conflict, and actionable learning. 

• Psychological safety – Team members feel that they can take risks, make mistakes, and ask for help. This operates at four levels: 
• Trust in self – I feel safe speaking my personal truths. 
• Trust in relationships – I feel listened to and respected by my teammates. 
• Trust in process – There are norms for taking turns, listening to all voices, and more. 
• Trust in collective learning – Cycles of inquiry explore student successes and challenges and identify the most effective classroom practices. 

“When any of these dimensions breaks down, teams tend to bog down,” say Zimmerman and Roussin. “When teams regularly monitor the four dimensions of trust, they increase their psychological safety, capacity to self-monitor, and self-regulate (and co-regulate) to maintain and repair trust.” 

            One way to establish team norms up front is to ask team members what they don’t like about meetings and flip those into agreements on what collaboration will look like. Going forward, the norms should always be there, and any team member can speak up when there are problems – for example, “Time out. We need to balance voices in the room” or “We seem bogged down. Can someone give a summary of the key points on the floor?” 

• Constructive conflict – Avoiding conflict and always striving for harmony can lead to groupthink, say Zimmerman and Roussin, which won’t improve teaching and learning. There’s going to be conflict; the trick “is staying open, neutral, curious, and interested… seeing disagreements as opportunities to learn.” 
• Key skills include: - Summarizing a disagreement so it can be discussed with less passion;
• Getting more comfortable hearing other perspectives and points of view; 
• Intentionally drawing out differences in how colleagues think and perceive. 

Teammates need to learn to be aware of personal triggers that derail productive discourse. reframing those emotions into a neutral or positive approach to the problem. “I’m feeling anxious,” one person might say, then listen to how others react, and work together to resolve the issue. 

• Actionable learning – To get better results with students, teams need to dive into kids’ learning difficulties, identify skill and knowledge gaps, and collectively identify new teaching strategies that produce better results. Key skills:
• Regularly assessing what’s working and not working with students; 
• Challenging the status quo (for example, a mandated commercial program) and examining assumptions about current practices; 
• The team organizing around more-effective practices. 

Team members need to ask probing questions: What do we know and what don’t we know? Why is this important? What might we do next? If a teacher has learned a successful classroom technique, it needs to be shared – perhaps in a workshop, perhaps by colleagues observing that classroom. 

 “Teacher Teams That Lead to Student Learning” by Diane Zimmerman and James Roussin in The Learning Professional, December 2023 (Vol. 44, #6, pp. 66-70); the authors can be reached at dpzimmer@gmail.com and jim.roussin@gmail.com.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1018 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

Student Self-Talk and Classroom Success

            In this American Journal of Education article, Benjamin Uhrich (University of North Carolina/Charlotte) and seven colleagues say that “self-talk is ubiquitous in human beings and plays a role in virtually all learning functions… [It’s a] free-flowing internal dialogue that guides our behavior and future thoughts, for better or for worse.” 

            The researchers studied college students’ use of self-talk when faced with difficult situations, and its effect on their: 

• School satisfaction – How happy students were with their educational experience; 
• Self-efficacy – Students’ belief they were capable of successfully achieving goals; 
• Academic performance – Success at reasoning, cognitive development, planning, motivation, self-regulation, metacognition, executive function, and grades. 

            Uhrich et al. analyzed 1,092 self-talk responses from 177 undergraduates at a small liberal arts college in the southeastern U.S. Here are some examples: 

• I am thinking I can handle this. 
• I can do this if I keep trying. 
• I am so worried. But I need to focus now. 
• This is not what I was planning on, but oh well, it is what it is. I’ll have to get started studying immediately and make sure to eliminate as many distractions as I can. The key is not to stress out more than is necessary. Just keep calm and let’s take a deep breath and get to it. 
• This class is the worst. I feel like I’m going to die. I’m bored and feel like I’m wasting my time with this class. 
• Oh s---, I’m screwed. This test will ruin my grade in the class and absolutely kill my GPA. Why didn’t I study before today? I always do this to myself. I never should have taken this class. I hate this school. 
• I’m so dumb. 

            What were the results of the study? Uhrich and colleagues found that downbeat self-talk had a negative effect on students’ school satisfaction and self-efficacy, but not on their grades and GPA. As for positive inner speech, the researchers found “consistent and robust relationships between self-talk and academic satisfaction, self-efficacy, and performance.” Students can use constructive self-talk to regulate thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, which will boost school satisfaction, a growth mindset, and grades. 

            The researchers’ conclusion for K-12 as well as college settings: “Self-talk is a unique and influential construct that should be of interest to academics and practitioners across the disciplines of psychology and education… Self-talk is not a mere repackaging of personality traits, nor skills or strategies people use to optimize their performance… Interventions that promote adaptive self-talk in the context of the school setting have the potential to be transformative.” 

 “The Power of Inner Voice: Examining Self-Talk’s Relationship with Academic Outcomes” by Benjamin Uhrich, Sandra Rogelberg, Steven Rogelberg, John Kello, Eleanor Williams, Shahar Gur, Leann Caudill, and Miles Moffit in American Journal of Education, November 2023 (Vol. 130, #1, pp. 31-60); Uhrich can be reached at benjaminuhrich@hotmail.com.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1017 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.