In my original reflection for this class, I wrote that I hoped to use what I have learned to be a better leader in my role as Grade Level Coordinator. I think that critical friends groups are one way that we can build on the existing department collaboration structure in a meaningful way to be better connected across grade levels. As my school continues to define the role of Grade Level Coordinator, I believe I will be able to make use of these techniques to guide my practice.
Critical friends groups "help people involved with schools to work collaboratively in democratic, reflective communities" (Bambino, 2002, p. 25). They "have unique structures that support the particular problem or dilemma that is presented" (Zepeda, 2012, p. 212). The meetings can take a variety of forms, from looking at student work to planning daily lesson plans. In my opinion, one of the strengths of the critical friends group is that groups can decide what they need to work on and how to structure the meeting. Overall, the goal is to collaborative critique and reflect to improve teaching practice.
Currently, collaboration at the high school level happens mostly within departments, though we have set a school goal of greater collaboration between the middle and high schools. While some critical friends groups form out of multi-disciplinary teams, such as the example in Bambino (2002) that describes a science teacher seeking feedback from a language arts teacher to improve a project, others form from single disciplines. Baum and Krulwich (2017) describe a school in New York that has moved it professional development exclusively to a critical friends model in which all teachers of the same discipline, seventh grade math, for example, collaboratively plan lessons and then reflect using student work and notes on teaching practices. Baum and Krulwich believe that "this work of daily collaborative lesson planning merges all the aspects of professional development into one comprehensive system" (2017, p. 66). While I don't think my school is ready to go that far (and we're far too small anyway!), we have a lot of room to grow as far as collaboration is concerned. One step that we have made in this direction is to shift the high school to a 5-day rotating schedule, which will help us better align with the middle school in terms of meeting times and opportunities for community events.
The heavy lift in implementing critical friends groups at my school would be data. We don't do a lot with data, so it would be a new way to talk about our students and our work. I think it would give use more purpose in our department meetings and more reason to observe each other. Right now, we often say we would like to observe each other more, but we never make the time to do it because there is no need or incentive. Each of us teaches our own grade level, so we have no framework for a conversation around that observation. Implementing a critical friends protocol, where we could share lesson plans and student work, could give us that sense of purpose. I plan to bring up these topics when the teacher evaluation committee that I am on begins to meet in the spring.
As we plan our new curriculum, collaboration will be crucial, especially for the teachers hoping to teach cross-curricular classes, either as co-teachers or with adjoined themes and essential questions. For my final project in this class, I planned a book study to aid in creating courses of this nature. A critical friends group could also help in this instance, because all the teachers planning this sort of class could meet, discuss strategies, observe each other, and reflect throughout the year so that we can ensure the students are getting the "right" things out of our new curriculum.
My school has a long way to go to improve collaboration. However, there are several changes in the works that, if we take advantage of them, can turn into wonderful collaborative opportunities.
References
Bambino, D. (2002). Critical Friends. Educational Leadership, 59(6), 25-27.
Baum, K., & Krulwich, D. (2017). A New Approach to PD--and Growing Leaders. Educational Leadership, 74(8), 62-66.
Drake, S.M., & Burns, R.C. (2004). Meeting standards through integrated curriculum. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Fahey, K., & Ippolito, J. (2015). Variations on a theme: As needs change, new models of critical friends groups emerge. Journal of Staff Development, 36(4), 48-52.
Zepeda, S.J. (2012). Professional development: What works. Routledge: New York.
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