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CHAPTER 1

Creating Habits of Professional Practice

The question is not do our teams have habits; the question is, “Do our teams’ habits of professional practice promote high levels of learning for all?”

—THOMAS W. MANY

If the goal is to improve teaching and learning in our schools, and if the PLC process is the strategy school and district leaders choose to reach that goal, then leaders must help teacher teams improve their PLC practices. Highly effective collaborative teams have been called the foundation, the fundamental building block, and the engine that drives a PLC (Eaker & Dillard, 2017). Bob Eaker and Heather Dillard (2017) suggest that, “Just as it is generally recognized that districts must work to close learning gaps between subgroups of students, it is also district leaders’ responsibility to close the effectiveness gap between collaborative teams within each school” (p. 47). Collaboration is not a new idea in schools; The PLC process—“an ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve” (DuFour et al., 2016, p. 10)—creates learning environments in which learning is constant, and innovation and experimentation flourish.

Likewise, research has established that coaching is the most effective way to deliver job-embedded professional development to teachers. Matthew Kraft, David Blazer, and Dylan Hogan (2017) believe coaching is a “key lever for improving teachers’ classroom instruction and for translating knowledge into classroom practices” (p. 7). The combination of coaching and collaboration represents our best opportunity to improve schools.

To ensure that collaborative teams within PLCs are functioning at the highest level, we contend that schools should commit to coaching collaborative teams. It may sound simple, but, to paraphrase Senge (1990), a school’s commitment to, and capacity for, coaching can be no greater than that of its members. So, before deciding coaching is the way to go, principals, coaches, and teacher leaders should pause, reflect, and determine if they are truly ready to make such a significant commitment.

• Commitment is a big deal. It means going all in, no excuses or half-hearted efforts. Being committed means that you are willing to do whatever it takes. It means taking personal responsibility, and it requires looking in the mirror.

• Commitment is long term. It is pushing through the occasional ups and downs that are part of any improvement effort and choosing to create a vision for the future. It necessitates a persistent and ongoing effort to achieve a goal.

• Commitment is emotional. It is about engaging in the work with your head and heart; it compels us to care about each other both personally and professionally. Nothing meaningful is ever accomplished without embracing both the emotional and intellectual dimensions of the work.

• Commitment is relentless. It requires acting with a sense of urgency, and it demands an unshakable dedication to the success of an idea; it requires a willingness to reject other initiatives and continue “working on the work” until you get results.

• Commitment is purposeful. It means devoting sufficient resources and making necessary changes, even if they are hard. It requires aligning all of your policies, practices, procedures, and planning efforts to the singular goal of ensuring high levels of learning for all.

Those who commit to coaching collaborative teams create the conditions that expand the capacity of coaches to help teams get better at getting better. In these schools, the most effective principals and teacher leaders understand that coaching is not about having all the answers or simply telling people how to improve their practice; they also understand that coaching is not reserved for the select few who have the word coach in their job description or job title.

Leaders who commit to coaching embrace it as the primary way to deliver professional development to teachers. They are confident that, given the right opportunity, everyone will benefit from having the opportunity to be a coach and the most effective leaders will strive to create a school culture where everyone is willing to coach and be coached in an effort to improve their practice.

Schools committed to coaching believe that coaching should not be limited to new or struggling teachers but that everyone, even the most effective teams and individual teachers, can continue to learn and improve. In these schools there is a belief that everyone has something important to share with others, and thus, everyone is encouraged, even expected, to engage with colleagues to improve.

Five beliefs are present in schools where teacher leaders, coaches, and principals have committed to coaching as the vehicle for developing high-performing collaborative teams.

1. Belief in the power of learning together through a process of collaboration and collective exploration: In schools committed to coaching, everyone is willing to coach and be coached in the name of improving their collective practice.

2. Belief that together we create better solutions than any of us do by ourselves: Said another way, the smartest person in the room is the room. No one person has all the answers, but by working through a process of collective inquiry together, we create better solutions to new challenges than we can by thinking and working alone.

3. Belief in other people and their potential to continuously learn and grow: There is always room for improvement; in fact, it is the biggest room in the school. We can only improve our collective performance through continuous learning and improvement with a real focus on helping both individuals and teams realize their collective potential.

4. Belief that challenges are opportunities for new learning, and that problems are best addressed through careful study and reflection: If you’re too busy to reflect, you’re too busy to improve. We get the most out of people, not by telling, explaining, or even demonstrating what to do, but through engaging people in a process of action research and problem solving that helps them think through choices and options.

5. Belief that we do the work we do to help us achieve the results we seek: The best reason to engage in the intentional coaching of collaborative teams is to help teams get better at getting better, and, ultimately, achieve the results of higher levels of learning for all.

These beliefs are closely linked to the essential elements of a PLC as outlined in the definition of PLC: “an ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve” (DuFour et al., 2016, p. 10). They serve as the foundation of coaching collaborative teams. In a PLC, teams must develop a certain degree of mastery over essential elements of the PLC process, which include collective inquiry, continuous improvement, action orientation, and a focus on results (which are the topics of the chapters in part II of this book). In schools committed to coaching, collaborative teams incorporate these elements—as well as the specific tasks, routines, and habits that support them—into their professional practice every day. PLC leaders must recognize that in order to ensure high levels of learning for all, it is not enough for teams in their schools merely to survive; teams must thrive.

Take a moment to think about how teams in your school develop habits of practice. Are their habits the result of a conscious, purposeful, and intentional process grounded in what research tells us about best practice, or have they evolved haphazardly in a random and arbitrary fashion over an extended period of time? And, to what are their habits of practice aligned? Have teams identified the mission-critical habits of practice they aspire to see in their school? Do the team’s habits reflect the values, beliefs, and commitments of the school, or are they based on history, past precedent, and personal preference?

When teams have established the right habits for the right reasons, they can overcome any obstacle in their path. It matters not if they are challenged by a new set of standards, implementation of new curricula, or changes in student demographics; they will consistently respond in ways that promote high levels of learning for all.

Productivity and Collaborative Teams

It is the combination of effectiveness and efficiency that creates higher levels of productivity on collaborative teams. Teams become more effective when individual tasks are combined in routines and more efficient when the routines become habits of professional practice. The goal of those in coaching roles is to make the work of collaborative teams as productive as possible, and teams become more productive when they create positive habits around their professional practice. Coaches recognize that productive habits don’t happen by chance; they develop as coaches and leaders support teams with ongoing clarity, feedback, and support.

As an example of the symbiotic relationship between effectiveness and efficiency, consider the activities or tasks associated with PLC critical question one, What do we want students to know and be able to do? (DuFour et al., 2016). Responding to question one requires teams to accomplish a number of individual tasks including prioritizing and unwrapping the standards, identifying high-leverage learning targets, developing learning progressions, and drafting student-friendly “I can” statements. Each of these individual tasks is beneficial in and of itself, but when a number of tasks or activities are combined into a single routine, teams amplify the impact of their efforts; said another way, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. As these routines become ingrained in the everyday working environment, they become habits of practice. Teams that develop habits of practice complete their work faster, with greater confidence, and more ownership of the outcome. In this case, when the way teams respond to question one becomes a habit, they no longer think about the individual steps associated with the task; they just do the work!

Oftentimes, teams new to the PLC process are given time to meet in collaborative teams without direction on how they should spend their time. Without guidance from someone in a coaching role, these teams may end up discussing topics like tardy policies, field trips, or discipline issues, which have nothing to do with responding to the four PLC critical questions or ensuring that all students learn to high levels. Unfortunately, when teams do not receive the kind of support and guidance that coaching can provide, the result is the development of unproductive habits that do not move teacher teams or student achievement forward. Therefore, it is imperative that leaders provide teams with differentiated coaching that helps them identify the tasks and routines that they must develop in order to create new habits consistent with the premises of the PLC process.

It is not uncommon for teams to develop inefficient and ineffective habits that are harmful to teaching and learning. These bad habits often develop precisely because teams have little or no coaching. Teams may be doing the best they can with what they know at the time, but simply lack the knowledge and leadership needed to move forward in a productive way. One of the key responsibilities of those in coaching roles is to help teams become more productive.

The Causes of Unproductive Habits

Teams become unproductive when members are unwilling or unable to do what must be done to ensure all students learn to high levels. Figuring out what is causing a team’s lack of productivity is one of the hardest tasks school leaders must tackle. Principals, coaches, and teacher leaders often feel they are left with a binary choice: either the problem is a lack of will or a lack of skill. We think there is another possibility. Maybe the problem isn’t a lack of will or skill; maybe the problem is a lack of coaching.

Some teams are not willing to commit to the views and values necessary for all their students to learn to high levels. For them, the why is not clear and their beliefs are not yet aligned with those of the PLC process. When a team is not committed to the idea that all students can learn, when teachers are struggling with their belief about student learning or their own ability to influence student success, when a team is having problems with the cultural elements of the PLC process, it manifests itself as a lack of will. Coaches respond to a lack of will by guiding the team through a series of reflective conversations that help teachers examine the impact their current values and beliefs are having on student learning.

Other teams may not have enough experience or a deep enough understanding of what must be done to ensure high levels of learning. These teams just don’t know how to do the right work and have yet to develop the habits necessary to successfully implement the PLC process. When teams are not confident they can do the work and teachers are struggling with the structural elements of the PLC process—identifying learning targets, creating common assessments, using data to drive instruction, or creating opportunities for students to receive additional time and support—it manifests itself as a lack of skill. Coaches respond to the lack of skill by creating a specific set of learning opportunities designed to promote mastery of the activities and tasks necessary to be successful.

When the team does not have a sense of efficacy and the team is wrestling with both commitment and confidence, it manifests as resistance. Coaches can respond to resistance by supporting the team’s efforts to set attainable goals and celebrate short-term wins.

What is clear is that whether the team’s lack of productivity is due to the lack of will, skill, or some combination of both, those in coaching roles are in the best position to diagnose, differentiate, and deliver the clarity, feedback, and support teams need to increase their productivity by developing the right habits of professional practice.

How Habits of Professional Practice Are Formed

Without realizing it, we all practice a number of habits throughout the course of each and every day. For example, think about your morning wake-up routine. If you’re like us, your alarm rings and you immediately press the snooze button (sometimes more than once), but you eventually swing your feet onto the floor and walk to the bathroom. You brush your teeth, take a shower, and dress for the day before heading to the kitchen for your coffee. You have developed each of these habits over time. They have become second nature. You don’t have to think about them; they are a normal part of your everyday life. However, these habits were not always in place.

At some point in your life, you developed each of these habits individually. You learned that you would be late for school if you didn’t set an alarm, so you started setting your alarm each night before bed. You learned the benefits of good hygiene, so you began taking daily showers and brushing your teeth. You also learned that caffeine helps provide the extra energy you needed to get your brain moving, so you bought a coffee machine to brew your morning java. One by one, you integrated each of these individual habits into your morning routine. You engaged in habit stacking (Clear, 2015; Kruse, 2017).

Similar to the development of morning habits, teams begin developing habits by engaging in small, individual tasks that provide opportunities for quick, short-term successes. Teams then turn these tasks into routines that members repeat over and over until eventually, the routines become habit. Those in coaching positions play an important role in monitoring the work and redirecting teams back to their routines when the team begins to veer off course. The graphic in figure 1.1 illustrates how habit stacking works.

Figure 1.1: The process of habit stacking.

Anyone who has attempted PLC transformation knows it can be an overwhelming process requiring a large number of cultural and structural changes. However, implementing the PLC process is far more manageable when we break it down into bite-sized chunks instead of trying to eat the entire PLC elephant in one big bite. As coaches of collaborative teams in a PLC, we can help teams engage in habit stacking as a means of improving their PLC practice.

Individual tasks are the foundation of routine, and routines are at the heart of every habit. Habits form when people incorporate specific tasks into routines that they repeat regularly over an extended period of time. In a PLC, principals and coaches help collaborative teams identify the individual tasks that turn into routines that eventually develop into habits of professional practice.

The Role of Clarity, Feedback, and Support

Best practice can be habit forming if the right professional practices are present within a culture of collaboration; but without the right amount of clarity, feedback, and support, teams may never know which kind of habits they are developing—productive or unproductive.

Clarity: Creating Routines Around the Right Work

To bring greater clarity to the PLC process, principals and coaches should ask, “Are our collaborative teams clear about which practices deserve more time and attention?” If the mission is to ensure that all students learn at high levels, the first step in the process is to clarify which practices are critical to accomplishing that mission. Those mission-critical best practices are the tasks teams identify that turn into routines and eventually become habits.

Team meetings are filled with routines. Simply convening the weekly team meeting is a routine that becomes so commonplace teachers notice when they miss a meeting. Within the meeting there are other routines like reviewing the norms, stating the meeting’s purpose, using an agenda, assigning roles and responsibilities, and relying on a consensus decision-making process. All of these routines help promote more productive team meetings.

More importantly, teams establish routines in response to the four critical questions of learning. They routinely begin the unit planning process by identifying and unwrapping the highest priority standards, drafting a common assessment, analyzing data and evidence of learning, and creating opportunities for students to access more time and support when they do or do not learn.

It is the role of the coach to help teams become clear and stay clear on what a team’s “right work” truly is. The most effective teams have a clear understanding of the work they are being asked to do and engage in habits that help them accomplish their goals.

Feedback: Reinforcing Routines Around the Right Work

The right kind of differentiated feedback can ensure that a team’s individual tasks, routines, and habits align with what we know is best practice. Effective feedback can do wonders when coaching collaborative teams around their routines and habits. Intentional feedback can reduce the risk teachers feel when trying new classroom strategies, it can encourage teachers to engage in deep self-reflection, and it can challenge team members to step out of their comfort zones. If coaches and principals focus on reinforcing the right work with the right feedback at the right time, the likelihood that teams will replicate that behavior increases.

Feedback from those in coaching roles can also confront behaviors that are counterproductive to the habits teams are trying to create and redirect routines when teams fail to engage in the right work. The goal should be to provide feedback that reinforces behaviors aligned with best practice, create routines that are repeated over an extended period of time, and encourage the development of productive habits of professional practice.

Support: Building Capacity Around the Right Work

The most effective principals and coaches view their role as one of building the capacity of teams to do the right work. Coaches should never do for teams what teams can do themselves, but coaches can help teams identify what practices are most important, create routines that support those practices, and guide the development of habits around each team’s professional practice.

The support teams receive is invaluable; however, when a principal or coach sets the team’s goals, analyzes their assessment data, or determines their next steps, they are not building the team’s capacity. In fact, when those who coach start doing the work instead of supporting the work, they actually diminish the team’s capacity.

Coaches should also be careful not to impose their own personal or preferred routines on teams. People support that which they help create, and so coaching is much more effective when the coaching focuses on helping teams identify the specific tasks that lead to the creation of routines and ultimately become habits of professional practice.

The Best Habits for Stacking: The Fundamentals

As in any athletic, artistic, or commercial endeavor, the PLC process can be broken down into a set of fundamentals that can be taught and improved upon with practice. Fundamentals are the basic, simplest, most important elements, ideas, or principles of what we are trying to accomplish. While it might seem like an oversimplification of the work we do to improve schools, it’s true: fundamentals are fundamental. If you find you or your staff struggling with some aspect of the PLC process, go back to the fundamentals.

The good news is that educators have identified the fundamentals. There has never been a clearer consensus or greater agreement on what schools must do to positively impact student learning. The importance of a guaranteed and viable curriculum, common formative assessments, and systems of intervention are not up for debate. Neither is the idea that teachers should work together interdependently on collaborative teams. These are the fundamentals of high-achieving schools. Whatever teams are trying to accomplish, they must master the fundamentals to succeed.

In the early stages of becoming a PLC, many teachers can name the fundamental elements of the PLC process. They know there are three big ideas, and they can recite the four critical questions. But from time to time, they will confuse or conflate the meaning or application of each element with other initiatives. As teams progress in implementation, teachers begin to identify the individual tasks associated with each of the fundamental elements, recognize what must be done, and describe how the work is accomplished. When teacher teams fully transition into a PLC, they incorporate the fundamentals into their daily routines and apply them when working with new students, new materials, and new situations. For these teams, the fundamentals become habits of professional practice.

As an example of this progression, consider a focus on learning (the first of the big ideas). A focus on learning consists of four critical questions that teachers must respond to on a regular basis: What do we want students to know and be able to do? How do we know they have learned it? What do we do if they do not learn what is expected? What do we do if they do learn what is expected? In the early stages, most teachers can recite the four questions and may even be able to define the meaning of each, but principals should not assume that because teachers “know” these fundamentals of the PLC process they can do what it takes to be successful. This condition (consciously not doing what aligns with best practice) is what Jeffery Pfeffer and Robert Sutton (2000) describe as the knowing-doing gap.