The Success Protocol
I facilitated a protocol with my grade level teacher team and felt like this was a significant learning experience for me. Below is a report on how this event helped me grow as a leader:
I was initially very nervous about doing this exercise with my colleagues. Doing the success protocol in our class at HTH was very powerful and I came away from that experience feeling very positive about protocols in general. I was however unsure of whether or not I could replicate this when I was in charge of actually facilitating a protocol. I choose the success protocol for a few reasons. Firstly, I was impressed with the positives that it brought to our small cohort when we did it at HTH. I felt like everyone involved really felt better about the group and about their involvement in this masters program as a result of participating in the protocol. I was also impressed with how easily the protocol seemed to be to administer to the group. It just sort of “flowed” beautifully and needed very little direction from the person responsible for administering the protocol. I also liked the success protocol because it really only focuses on positives and this was important to me because there are some colleagues within my grade level team who can be a bit confrontational when challenged or questioned about their practice.
As mentioned earlier I was apprehensive before the experience. I choose to engage my entire grade level teacher team in this protocol. This was a difficult decision to make because the success protocol recommends that the practice take place with small groups. We were a group of 7 teachers and although this seemed a bit big, it was also too small to be broken up into 2 small groups. I also knew that no one on my teacher team was familiar with the protocol and would have had trouble administrating it to a second group. In our group we had a science, chemistry, math, art, Spanish, Chinese, English, and history teacher. The protocol was initially scheduled for earlier in the month but my teacher team leader forgot that we had it scheduled, and as a result we had to postpone it by over a week. The fact that he forgot made me feel sad and angry, but also even more determined to show the group that this was something that was going to be beneficial.
On the morning of the event we all arrived at the meeting table and after a few announcements from my team leader we began. The team knew what we were going to be doing because I had earlier sent them a copy of the success protocol and briefly explained how it was going to work. I was disappointed to see that two teachers did not bother to attend and it later caused me to wonder why.
We started the exercise with me going over and explaining each step of the success protocol to the group. I realized before starting that the larger than recommended group would necessitate me changing the timing of each step so as to ensure that all teachers could share their moment of success. When I had participated in this same protocol at HTH I saw that the preparing the case portion which has a 5 minute suggested time seemed too long and I thought that by trimming this it would allow for more time for each presenter to outline their case before the group. After I had established what was going to happen during our 45 minutes together we began with me asking the group to take 4 minutes to prepare their case by writing their thoughts down on a piece of paper. Most teachers only wrote for about 3 minutes but after the timer expired I asked who would like to share first. Our chemistry teacher volunteered and proceeded to tell the group about recent success that she has had with the introduction of current events into her classroom. After she had shared for 4 minutes the group commended her and asked a few questions about particular students who participated in the discussions. Next our math teacher shared by explaining that he needed help with his craft as a teacher and that he was feeling jaded with his teaching. The success, as he explained it, was with his students because he felt like he was pushing his students and that they were experiencing success, but he wanted to push himself. The best part of this entire protocol came out of the discussion that ensued. After teachers had commended him and questioned him about his classes what basically transpired was that this teacher realized that by pushing his students more he would in fact be pushing and challenging himself. It felt like a real breakthrough and set up what was to continue to be a very success protocol.
Our 10th grade science teacher presented next and he explained that his area of success had recent came with the launch of a project on the Manhattan Project. He said that he was very proud of the project because it had allowed him to connect to current events and also allowed him to be a history teacher for a day, which he loved. This teacher explained that he was most proud of the Harkness discussions that had emerged in his class during the project and I could tell that he was very proud of the work and had enjoyed sharing this with us. The discussion that followed was not groundbreaking but it simply commended the teacher for his work and for doing something different in his classes.
Our Chinese teacher shared next and she explained that she had found success this year with improvements that she had made to a fashion show that she had supported for students in her class. The success as she explained it stemmed not from the project itself, but rather from all the improvements that she had made this year to something that already existed. The group again gave her encouragement, which she seemed to appreciate. By this part of the process I realized that we were not sticking to our time properly and although I was using a timer I was having difficulty with keeping the teachers to adhere to the 5 allotted minutes for the analysis and discussion part of the protocol.
The final teacher to present was the art teacher and she explained to the group how she has recently found success with being able to let the students figure out for themselves various parts of a project. She admitted that she likes to be in control of most aspects of the process but recently she has been careful to allow the students to work more independently and it has resulted in greater success for the students and less stress for her. During the discussion and analysis segment of her presentation our group asked her some important questions which seemed to push her thinking on the issue.
Unfortunately we had to end the protocol here which disallowed for the Spanish and English teacher to present, but I assured them that we would hear from them later in the week at our next meeting. Because we only had 5 minutes before our next lessons I quickly distributed exit cards to all the teachers so that I could gather feedback on the process. The following are some of the responses to questions that I posed to the group:
Question 1: Describe any positives that you think this protocol brought to our grade level team
Science Teacher: “It made us feel good about what we do. We are so busy and so caught up with “what’s next” that we don’t take time enough to realize our accomplishments”. This teacher I felt enjoyed sharing his success more than any other in the group. He was positively glowing after describing the successes of his project and I was pleased that this allowed him to reflect on his positives in the classroom.
Art Teacher: “I liked the openness of just talking about classes and our projects. It was fun and I liked the positive feedback and the attitude of the team”. I actually agree with this teacher and felt like after the protocol that the group felt better connected and more sympathetic to what we had all recently gone through in our classes.
Spanish Teacher: “It helps understand better what is going on on a daily basis in other classes. I really appreciate the insight we got just by listening to other teachers”. Integration is a large part how our school tries to distinguish itself from others in the community. Although we often talk about what we are teaching, seldom do we hear about actual projects that other teachers are involved in. By listening to that during this protocol I feel like we all found new and different ways in which to integrate our lessons.
Question 2: What didn’t work for you with this protocol
Math Teacher: “For a first one, it was great. I wish we had the time to hear from the rest who didn’t get a chance”
Science Teacher: “We just needed more time. It would have been nice to hear from Chris, Eric, and Pedro and then find dome commonalities, themes, key ideas”.
Running out of time was the main issue. I really tried to stick carefully to the time but felt like I did not strike a good balance between keeping everyone on track, but also allowing everyone to have their important say in the process. Overall I think that the takeaway from the group was positive about the process. I don’t think that it was as impactful as when I did this same protocol with my HTH cohort but this is probably due to my facilitation and the fact that the group did not really seem totally committed to the exercise. I would definitely like to try other protocols or lesson tunings with this group that will allow for us to delve a bit deeper into a single issue. As our English teacher wrote on his exit card, “We could take a longer time to focus on challenges and more time to dig deeper”.
I was a bit disappointed with my own facilitation during this process. I felt like I did not cover the expectations clearly enough at the beginning nor did I really explain the positives that could result from us doing the success protocol as a group. I feel like I was effective during the process itself and that I challenged a few participants on more than one occasion to provide the group with some important information about their moments of success.
I was initially very nervous about doing this exercise with my colleagues. Doing the success protocol in our class at HTH was very powerful and I came away from that experience feeling very positive about protocols in general. I was however unsure of whether or not I could replicate this when I was in charge of actually facilitating a protocol. I choose the success protocol for a few reasons. Firstly, I was impressed with the positives that it brought to our small cohort when we did it at HTH. I felt like everyone involved really felt better about the group and about their involvement in this masters program as a result of participating in the protocol. I was also impressed with how easily the protocol seemed to be to administer to the group. It just sort of “flowed” beautifully and needed very little direction from the person responsible for administering the protocol. I also liked the success protocol because it really only focuses on positives and this was important to me because there are some colleagues within my grade level team who can be a bit confrontational when challenged or questioned about their practice.
As mentioned earlier I was apprehensive before the experience. I choose to engage my entire grade level teacher team in this protocol. This was a difficult decision to make because the success protocol recommends that the practice take place with small groups. We were a group of 7 teachers and although this seemed a bit big, it was also too small to be broken up into 2 small groups. I also knew that no one on my teacher team was familiar with the protocol and would have had trouble administrating it to a second group. In our group we had a science, chemistry, math, art, Spanish, Chinese, English, and history teacher. The protocol was initially scheduled for earlier in the month but my teacher team leader forgot that we had it scheduled, and as a result we had to postpone it by over a week. The fact that he forgot made me feel sad and angry, but also even more determined to show the group that this was something that was going to be beneficial.
On the morning of the event we all arrived at the meeting table and after a few announcements from my team leader we began. The team knew what we were going to be doing because I had earlier sent them a copy of the success protocol and briefly explained how it was going to work. I was disappointed to see that two teachers did not bother to attend and it later caused me to wonder why.
We started the exercise with me going over and explaining each step of the success protocol to the group. I realized before starting that the larger than recommended group would necessitate me changing the timing of each step so as to ensure that all teachers could share their moment of success. When I had participated in this same protocol at HTH I saw that the preparing the case portion which has a 5 minute suggested time seemed too long and I thought that by trimming this it would allow for more time for each presenter to outline their case before the group. After I had established what was going to happen during our 45 minutes together we began with me asking the group to take 4 minutes to prepare their case by writing their thoughts down on a piece of paper. Most teachers only wrote for about 3 minutes but after the timer expired I asked who would like to share first. Our chemistry teacher volunteered and proceeded to tell the group about recent success that she has had with the introduction of current events into her classroom. After she had shared for 4 minutes the group commended her and asked a few questions about particular students who participated in the discussions. Next our math teacher shared by explaining that he needed help with his craft as a teacher and that he was feeling jaded with his teaching. The success, as he explained it, was with his students because he felt like he was pushing his students and that they were experiencing success, but he wanted to push himself. The best part of this entire protocol came out of the discussion that ensued. After teachers had commended him and questioned him about his classes what basically transpired was that this teacher realized that by pushing his students more he would in fact be pushing and challenging himself. It felt like a real breakthrough and set up what was to continue to be a very success protocol.
Our 10th grade science teacher presented next and he explained that his area of success had recent came with the launch of a project on the Manhattan Project. He said that he was very proud of the project because it had allowed him to connect to current events and also allowed him to be a history teacher for a day, which he loved. This teacher explained that he was most proud of the Harkness discussions that had emerged in his class during the project and I could tell that he was very proud of the work and had enjoyed sharing this with us. The discussion that followed was not groundbreaking but it simply commended the teacher for his work and for doing something different in his classes.
Our Chinese teacher shared next and she explained that she had found success this year with improvements that she had made to a fashion show that she had supported for students in her class. The success as she explained it stemmed not from the project itself, but rather from all the improvements that she had made this year to something that already existed. The group again gave her encouragement, which she seemed to appreciate. By this part of the process I realized that we were not sticking to our time properly and although I was using a timer I was having difficulty with keeping the teachers to adhere to the 5 allotted minutes for the analysis and discussion part of the protocol.
The final teacher to present was the art teacher and she explained to the group how she has recently found success with being able to let the students figure out for themselves various parts of a project. She admitted that she likes to be in control of most aspects of the process but recently she has been careful to allow the students to work more independently and it has resulted in greater success for the students and less stress for her. During the discussion and analysis segment of her presentation our group asked her some important questions which seemed to push her thinking on the issue.
Unfortunately we had to end the protocol here which disallowed for the Spanish and English teacher to present, but I assured them that we would hear from them later in the week at our next meeting. Because we only had 5 minutes before our next lessons I quickly distributed exit cards to all the teachers so that I could gather feedback on the process. The following are some of the responses to questions that I posed to the group:
Question 1: Describe any positives that you think this protocol brought to our grade level team
Science Teacher: “It made us feel good about what we do. We are so busy and so caught up with “what’s next” that we don’t take time enough to realize our accomplishments”. This teacher I felt enjoyed sharing his success more than any other in the group. He was positively glowing after describing the successes of his project and I was pleased that this allowed him to reflect on his positives in the classroom.
Art Teacher: “I liked the openness of just talking about classes and our projects. It was fun and I liked the positive feedback and the attitude of the team”. I actually agree with this teacher and felt like after the protocol that the group felt better connected and more sympathetic to what we had all recently gone through in our classes.
Spanish Teacher: “It helps understand better what is going on on a daily basis in other classes. I really appreciate the insight we got just by listening to other teachers”. Integration is a large part how our school tries to distinguish itself from others in the community. Although we often talk about what we are teaching, seldom do we hear about actual projects that other teachers are involved in. By listening to that during this protocol I feel like we all found new and different ways in which to integrate our lessons.
Question 2: What didn’t work for you with this protocol
Math Teacher: “For a first one, it was great. I wish we had the time to hear from the rest who didn’t get a chance”
Science Teacher: “We just needed more time. It would have been nice to hear from Chris, Eric, and Pedro and then find dome commonalities, themes, key ideas”.
Running out of time was the main issue. I really tried to stick carefully to the time but felt like I did not strike a good balance between keeping everyone on track, but also allowing everyone to have their important say in the process. Overall I think that the takeaway from the group was positive about the process. I don’t think that it was as impactful as when I did this same protocol with my HTH cohort but this is probably due to my facilitation and the fact that the group did not really seem totally committed to the exercise. I would definitely like to try other protocols or lesson tunings with this group that will allow for us to delve a bit deeper into a single issue. As our English teacher wrote on his exit card, “We could take a longer time to focus on challenges and more time to dig deeper”.
I was a bit disappointed with my own facilitation during this process. I felt like I did not cover the expectations clearly enough at the beginning nor did I really explain the positives that could result from us doing the success protocol as a group. I feel like I was effective during the process itself and that I challenged a few participants on more than one occasion to provide the group with some important information about their moments of success.