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6 COLLECTIVE EFFICACY

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Collective Efficacy

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Collective Efficacy

Scan this QR code for a video introduction to the chapter.

C o p y r i g h t 2 0 2 0 . C o r w i n .

A l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d . M a y n o t b e r e p r o d u c e d i n a n y f o r m w i t h o u t p e r m i s s i o n f r o m t h e p u b l i s h e r , e x c e p t f a i r u s e s p e r m i t t e d u n d e r U . S . o r a p p l i c a b l e c o p y r i g h t l a w .

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88 Instructional Leadership

There are four areas of efficacy that are important to the topic of instruc-tional leadership. Although I will provide a short summary of each at the beginning of this chapter, I will go deeper into each one as this chapter unfolds.

Self-efficacy is the confidence we have in ourselves. If we lack confidence in a particular area of pursuit, we are more than likely going to avoid that area because we are worried that we will not be able to do it right. After all, we’re human, and many of us want to be seen as competent adults. It’s unfor- tunate that we don’t have more of a growth mindset, where we want to dive into challenges that take us out of our comfort zones. A good leader can help us get over that fear and try something new.

Leadership efficacy is the confidence that leaders have in themselves. It’s important to separate that out from other types of efficacy, because leadership is important. We often wonder why some leaders seem to take on challenges with a great deal of energy, while others seem to avoid challenges and remain in their office. I will explain that a little deeper in this chapter.

Collective teacher efficacy is the confidence that a group of teachers have in one another. It is not easy to build, because some school climates are frac- tured and they lack trust. When teachers in those buildings come together, they often do not have trust in one another, and they do not challenge each other’s thinking, so therefore they do not go as deeply with their learning as they could. They remain at the surface level.

Collective leader efficacy is the confidence that a group of leaders have in each other. That group of leaders may consist of a superintendent and his or her principals, or principals and their assistant principals. It may also be a leadership group that involves instructional coaches or teacher leaders. Col- lective leader efficacy may even involve a combination of all of the groups that I just mentioned.

Efficacy is the topic of countless educational conversations these days. For some educators and researchers, efficacy, both individual and collective, has always been an area of interest since its inception decades ago.

Let’s take the topic of collective teacher efficacy. Collective teacher efficacy is a fascinating topic because of what it represents for teachers, leaders and students. As a former school leader, I appreciate the power of collective teacher efficacy because, at its finest, it fosters an experience in which teachers work together, construct a common goal around learning, and do the necessary work to achieve that goal. When hearing this, you might almost envision the members of an Olympic rowing team working together to propel themselves almost effortlessly across the water. However, what is even more interesting to me than the power of collective teacher efficacy is the fact that collective teacher efficacy has become one of the biggest challenges for leaders.

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Collective Efficacy 89

While doing the research for my leadership coaching book Coach It Further, I surveyed more than 300 school leaders and found that there were four chal- lenges that leaders were most concerned about: communication, community engagement, the political issues that arise in schools, and collective teacher efficacy (DeWitt, 2018a). Survey respondents stated that they found it hard to practice instructional leadership because of these four areas of challenge.

As I began doing research for that book around instructional leadership, I surveyed more than 350 school principals, and collective teacher efficacy came up as the top area of focus for the leaders (DeWitt, 2019) focusing on instructional leadership. In fact, out of 350 respondents, 150 ranked collec- tive teacher efficacy as their number one area of interest when it comes to instructional leadership. It’s interesting to think that one topic can be on a list of the necessary components of instructional leadership and yet show up on the list of challenges that leaders worry about the most. However, when you think about it, it really makes sense. Sometimes those things that compose our biggest areas of interest can become some of our biggest challenges. To be honest, though, some leaders limit their ability to build collective efficacy because they do not look at all the ways in which it can be built, and often they believe it is about teachers working with teachers. Let’s explore that notion and discover other ways that collective efficacy can be built.

COLLECTIVE TEACHER EFFICACY: A DEFINITION

Tschannen-Moran and Barr (2004) define collective teacher efficacy as the “collective self-perception that teachers in a given school make an educa- tional difference to their students over and above the educational impact of their homes and communities.” Self-efficacy is the confidence we have in ourselves, and collective teacher efficacy is the confidence we have in our group. However, that collective confidence needs to have a positive impact on student learning. If the group together doesn’t have a positive impact on student learning, then it isn’t collective teacher efficacy. Additionally, it’s that “collective self-perception” that Tschannen-Moran and Barr included in their definition that can prove difficult, because the diverse members of a group sometimes have to work hard to arrive at that collective self-perception.

Goddard, Hoy, and Hoy (2004) found, “The connections between col- lective efficacy beliefs and student outcomes depend in part on the recipro- cal relationships among these collective efficacy beliefs, teachers’ personal sense of efficacy, teachers’ professional practice, and teachers’ influence over instructionally relevant school decisions” (p. 3). All of this is what makes col- lective efficacy so difficult to build, but the work is worth it in the long run, because the journey is sometimes equally as important as the final destination.

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Student Voice Questions

Did you know that students can develop collective efficacy as well? When students work together and it impacts their learning in a positive way, it is collective efficacy. How do students work together in class- rooms around the school you lead? And, in order for it to be considered collective efficacy, what evidence do teachers collect to see whether that collective work had a positive impact on student learning?

Well-known psychologist Albert Bandura is often seen as the godfather of efficacy. Bandura (1977, 1986) found four experiences that shape self-efficacy and collective efficacy. These are mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, social persuasion, and affective states.

Mastery experiences. Mastery experiences offer the biggest impact to effi- cacy. A mastery experience is the most powerful source of efficacy information (Goddard et al., 2004). Goddard et al. (2004) found that “the perception that a performance has been successful tends to raise efficacy beliefs, contributing to the expectation that performance will be proficient in the future. The percep- tion that one’s performance has been a failure tends to lower efficacy beliefs, contributing to the expectation that future performances will also be inept” (p. 5). If someone believes that their performance was successful, they will continue to put forth that same type of effort in the future. If they didn’t feel it was successful, they will probably begin to shy away from giving the same amount of effort.

Vicarious experiences. This simply means we learn when things are modeled for us. However, where this gets a bit tricky is that the person doing the modeling must have credibility in our eyes. If the person sharing a best practice doesn’t have credibility to us, then we are most likely not going to learn from them.

Social persuasion. “Social persuasion may entail encouragement or spe- cific performance feedback from a supervisor or a colleague or it may involve discussions in the teachers’ lounge, community, or media about the ability of teachers to influence students” (Goddard et al., 2004, p. 6). Once again, just as with vicarious experiences, this feedback (or discussion) only has an impact when the person from whom we’re hearing it has credibility to us.

Affective states. “The level of arousal, either of anxiety or excitement, adds to individuals’ perceptions of self-capability or incompetence. We postulate that, just as individuals react to stress, so do organizations” (God- dard et al., 2004, p. 6). If members of the group are stressed and do not feel

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Collective Efficacy 91

as though there is a “light at the end of the tunnel” as far as that stress is concerned, they will have less faith in their collective ability to bring about changes. One more important aspect to this is that Goddard et al. state, “Organizations with strong beliefs in group capability can tolerate pressure and crises and continue to function without debilitating consequences” (2004, p. 6).

As you read in our discussion of the four experiences that impact efficacy, credibility is important. Teachers are tired of being a part of groups where they are told what to do and not given a voice. Those groupings lack credibility. Reflect on how you assure teachers that your collective groups are places where everyone can learn from one another and that each voice matters. Is there something more you could be doing to back this assurance up?

Mindful Moment

WHY DO WE NEED COLLECTIVE TEACHER EFFICACY?

Throughout this book, I have highlighted numerous reasons why leader- ship is difficult and why we cannot go it alone in any leadership position. We need to work collaboratively with others to address our greatest needs. We can let needs like budget cuts, school consolidations, and poor morale put us in crisis mode, or we can try to build collective efficacy when we want to improve our grading practices, incorporate more effective feedback into stu- dent learning, or create trauma-informed practices for students so that they are more engaged in learning. Collective efficacy can be fostered around any issue we are facing in school.

The reasoning behind that thought is simple; when a diverse group of people put their thoughts together in supportive conditions and do their best thinking while they are doing that collaborative work, it gives us the power to achieve any goal we set for ourselves in a school.

Collective teacher efficacy is meant to motivate teachers to do their very best. If teachers feel motivated, they will deepen their practices, work in col- laboration with one another, and provide feedback to each other. Motivation is meant to provide teachers with agency, where they feel like they have a val- ued voice in their profession. However, there is a bit of a catch. Leithwood and Mascall (2008) suggest that there are two areas that impact motivation and agency, which are capacity beliefs and context beliefs. Leithwood and Mascall explain that “capacity beliefs include such psychological states as self-efficacy, self-confidence, academic self-concept, and aspects of self-esteem” (p.! 535).

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Context beliefs suggest that “the working conditions in the school will sup- port teachers’ efforts to instruct in the manner suggested by the school’s improvement initiatives” (p. 536). It’s not enough that leaders demand teach- ers work together because it builds collective efficacy. Leaders must set up the dynamic in which teachers feel supported in the work that they do.

I’m not just saying that because it sounds good. I’m saying that because I have experienced it as a principal.

When I was a principal, our school district suffered budget cuts, and as a result it had to close one of the smaller schools. The school that I led had to absorb the whole student population of that school. It was a hard time in our district, but our staff came together, even with a parent who was writing a community-wide hate blog. Not only did we make the consolidation work, after a yearlong process, we had also successfully brought together two fractured communities and created a new whole.

As another example, during a heightened time of accountability and mandates, staff morale was at a low, and it was having a negative impact on our school community. At a meeting of our Principal’s Advisory Council (PAC), which was made up of two chairs (the building union representatives) and one stakeholder from each grade level and special area, we did an activ- ity on chart paper to flesh out what our biggest issues were. Then we started doing the work to address those issues.

I would like to use the following blog post (DeWitt, 2011) to highlight one more example of how our staff fostered collective efficacy. The topic is the schoolwide mood around state testing, and, even though I wrote this piece almost a decade ago, you will no doubt find that the pressures are the same in your schools today.

No Testing Week

“We are raising a stressed-out generation of students who are over-tested and overanalyzed.”

The other day I took some time to craft an e-mail in a Word document. I needed to take the time to make sure that I chose my words correctly. Sending the whole staff a mes- sage is something that I take seriously because once your words are out there, they can be interpreted in numerous ways. The reason for the e-mail was to communicate some- thing that I feel strongly about. It had to do with the overuse of testing in the U.S. and the need to focus on creativity in our school.

Once a month I meet with my Principal’s Advisory Council (PAC). I have two co-chairs who are teachers within the building. They are open and honest, even when

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Collective Efficacy 93

NO TESTING WEEK

During the week of November 28 through December 2, our school is not doing any testing of any kind. We are participating in our very own “No Testing Week.” Teachers are not going to give science tests, social studies tests, math quizzes or spelling tests. They will not be able to progress moni- tor. Our students are going to have a week where they do not have to worry about the pre-test at the beginning of the week or the looming exam at the end of the week.

Instead, we are focusing on doing projects and other creative activities. Our school participates in two Scholastic Book Fairs and the week that brings November and December together is one of the weeks Scholastic will be at our school. Our students will be able to buy books all week long. They will be surrounded by books all week long. They will have extra time to get lost in the wonder of their favorite book all week long. On Friday evening, Decem- ber 2, we are having local children’s author Matt McElligott come to present and read to children and families.

The reasons for doing this are plentiful. In the United States we are too focused on testing, and I strongly believe the only way to bring back creativ- ity is for principals to give teachers permission to spend time without worry- ing about data. Good data that informs instruction will always be important, but I do not believe we always collect good data. I also believe we are raising a stressed-out generation of students who are over-tested and overanalyzed.

they are saying things I may not want to hear. PAC is not about venting about building issues, but about meeting to discuss how we can improve our building environment. I wanted to approach PAC about having one week that is test-free. I decided to send the staff an e-mail prior to PAC because I wanted them to understand where I was coming from.

As a principal and educator, I am concerned that all we ever hear about is testing. Our scores are available on-line to anyone who wants to see them. However, our school environment is not available for everyone. The happiness and engagement levels of our students are not available either, so in the end, clicking on a link that says “See How Your Kids Are Doing“ really means “See how your kids are doing in one particular area that took place over a three-day period.“

I am fortunate because I work with great staff and awesome kids, but I worry that we are only measured by a test and not by our creativity. I want our kids to live and breathe creativity all the time, but I need to begin with one week. Just one week to open up new doors for them. One week without test anxiety. Perhaps we will even out- law the word test.

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Teacher Reaction

Teachers were ecstatic, which surprised me because I was not sure if they would be on board with spending a week without data. However, they were happy to be given free rein to focus on projects and other creative activities that are highly effective in building student engagement. I could feel the tension in the building slip away. Although our No Testing Week is more than a month away, we already have many great school building initiatives planned. The following are some of the activities we will be doing:

• Reader’s theatre involving one of Matt’s books • Deb, our librarian, will be building a pit (swimming pool)

in her library which is the setting of Matt’s book Uncle Frank’s Pit. Students will be filling the pit with different objects by the end of the week.

• All students and staff will be writing about their favorite book and hanging their pieces around the school.

• All three fourth-grade classes will be building a long house with their students (Social Studies curriculum). Every class will be responsible for building a section.

• I will be digitally recording myself reading books, and our librarian will set it to a PowerPoint. The PowerPoint will be made into a movie with graphics. During the day, teachers can go to the shared folder, bring up the PowerPoint and listen to me read the story.

• We will read Bean Thirteen and will be making mosaics. • Teachers will be using Matt’s book The Lion’s Share to teach students

measurement and fractions, which means some baking will be involved.

• All teachers will be involved in project-based learning projects with their students.

• Our school will be transformed into a creative environment for learning, which will spur more ideas.

I understand that we can do these activities regardless of testing. However, the building environment changes when there is testing involved. People are less patient and more stressed. We know testing is our reality, but for one week it will be the furthest thing from our minds.

Perhaps we will find other weeks to do this again and we will all learn to not let testing get in our way. After all, it’s an elementary school, and all elementary schools should be places that spark the imagination and not put it out.

Feel free to start a testing revolution of your own, and take a break from testing.

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Collective Efficacy 95

No Testing Week was a reaction to the stress we felt when it came to test- ing. Together we thought of ways to alleviate that stress for our students and ourselves. I did not realize at the time I was helping to foster collec- tive efficacy. What I knew is that we were coming together to overcome one of our biggest challenges, and this particular example of how we came together did have a positive impact on student learning.

As a consultant working with schools nationally and internationally, I have seen leaders and teachers working together to explore their greatest issues and begin doing the work to alleviate those issues and make their school climate stronger. We need collective efficacy, not because it’s popular, but because it elevates the voices of the group and can help overcome the greatest issues a school is facing. Donohoo, Hattie, and Eells (2018) explain how it works: “When efficacy is present in a school culture, educators’ efforts are enhanced—especially when they are faced with difficult challenges. Since expectations for success are high, teachers and leaders approach their work with an intensified persistence and strong resolve” (p. 40).

LEADERSHIP EFFICACY

What about leaders? We know that leaders have to understand their own self-efficacy as well. In the literature, this is referred to as leadership efficacy, and Bandura’s research helps us look deeper into that phenomenon. Bandura (2011, p. 122) found that

[w]hen faced with obstacles, setbacks and failures, those who doubt their capabilities slacken their efforts, give up prematurely, or settle for poorer solutions. Those who have a strong belief in their capabili- ties redouble their effort to master the challenges.

Teachers do not have to have a strong sense of self-efficacy to build collec- tive efficacy with a group. In fact, the experience of working with a group can raise a teacher’s sense of self-efficacy. Why can’t the same be said for leaders?

What if we took that idea of teachers working together toward a larger impact on student learning and opened it up to leaders too? Yes, leaders can be an integral part of collective teacher efficacy, by working side by side with teachers. What if we then took the idea of that collective effort and looked at just leaders? Collective teacher efficacy has been well-researched and shown to have a powerful impact on student learning. However, leaders need to learn how to work together and have an impact as well.

At the beginning of this chapter, I mentioned that leaders often limit them- selves when it comes to focusing on collective efficacy. One area in which this is most likely to happen is the composition of their leadership team. Imagine how strong a building climate could be if a principal built collective leader

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96 Instructional Leadership

efficacy with his or her assistant principals. Too often assistant principals are at the mercy of their leader and do not always work in conjunction with him or her. Let’s take instructional leadership, for instance. If principals only allow their assistant principals to focus on discipline—and this is the case in many schools—then those assistant principals are not getting the necessary training they need to focus on instructional strategies and student engagement and will not be prepared to be instructional leaders when they get their own build- ing role and become a principal. I understand that there are principals who do not know how to practice instructional leadership, but they can further their education in that area by working with their leadership team. As powerful as collective teacher efficacy has proven to be, principals and assistant principals must work harder together to build collective leader efficacy, which can have a positive impact on student learning as well.

Unfortunately, not all leadership teams are created equally. And when I say “leadership teams,” I mean those teams consisting of a superintendent and principals; or principals and their assistant principals; or even principals, instructional coaches and teacher leaders. All of those positions are leader- ship positions and fall under the realm of collective leader efficacy.

Figure 6.1 illustrates how many teams function in terms of impact versus collaboration, and it provides the reasoning for collective leader efficacy. With the right people on the team, with the right focus and a supportive leader, all leadership teams can move to the upper right-hand corner.

Low Impact/Low Collaboration. The members of the leadership team don’t meet often, and their meetings lack a true focus on learning.

Figure 6.1

High Impact/Low Collaboration

Collective Leader Efficacy

Im p

a ct

High Impact/High Collaboration

Low Impact/Low Collaboration

Collaboration

Low Impact/High Collaboration

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Collective Efficacy 97

Low Impact/High Collaboration. The members of the leadership team meet often, but what they discuss does not have a positive impact on student learning. During the meetings they talk a lot about compliance issues and mandates, but they do not often focus on how any of their work together should impact student learning.

High Impact/Low Collaboration. The members of this team do not meet often or, sometimes, at all. However, they have a high impact. Don’t get too excited, because high impact does not always equate to a positive impact. All the leaders on the team have individual grade levels or departments that they lead, which may lead to positive impact in those pocket areas but not the overall school community. Other times, the impact may be negative. The leaders from the team focus too much on implementation walks and compli- ance, and it creates a negative climate in their school community.

High Impact/High Collaboration. The members of the leadership team meet consistently, and their focus is always on learning. Together they build a common language and common understanding, but they also understand how to leverage each member’s strengths and insights. All of this leads to a positive impact on student learning.

Too often, leaders come together and collaborate as a group but the results have little positive impact on student learning. That is not an example of collective leader efficacy. Collective leader efficacy, which involves the collective effort of leaders focused on learning, is equally as important as col- lective teacher efficacy because it involves leaders working together in their small administrative group on goals that will have a positive impact on stu- dent learning. Perhaps one of the goals involves establishing a common lan- guage and common understanding as a leadership team. Or, it may involve how leaders learn together by doing walkthroughs or formal teacher obser- vations. The truth is, a fractured administrative team can have a negative impact on a school climate, because each individual leader may engage in negative conversations about his or her administrative colleagues in order to try to make himself or herself look better, all of which can make teachers feel unsteady about their school’s leadership. Collective leader efficacy would not encourage that behavior; indeed, it would bring out quite the opposite kinds of conversations. In fact, collective leader efficacy could not only help a principal improve but also help prepare his or her assistant principals to be better principals in the future.

How can you build collective leader efficacy?

• Ensure that each member of the leadership team contributes his or her thoughts when you are constructing a common goal.

• Decide what leaders in the group most need to know about student learning. In this book, I have tried to focus on those areas and do it at the level of building leaders or instructional coaches.

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98 Instructional Leadership

• Principals need to lower their status and help raise the status of the assistant principals on the team. This doesn’t mean that principals lose their status—on the contrary, principals who lower their status in order to raise the status of assistant principals show very strong leadership.

• Decide how you can use the implementation cycle included in this book to help you begin focusing on your chosen goal.

• Collect evidence to understand impact.

In your experience, do assistant principals have a strong voice in decisions around learning? Does the principal feel supported by his or her assistants, and do the assistants get the opportunity to engage in discussions focusing on learning in the classrooms?

Mindful Moment

WHEN DO WE BUILD COLLECTIVE EFFICACY?

Sometimes collective teacher efficacy and collective leader efficacy are built naturally, on the spur of a moment when we realize we need to improve a situation. Other times, leaders and teachers do not need to count on a good crisis to help them build collective teacher efficacy. Schools looking to improve the learning environment for students can just as easily build collec- tive efficacy through looking at their grading practices, creating restorative justice programs or taking time to focus on enriching the way they teach con- ceptual understandings to students.

Too often, school leaders wait for a crisis to build collective efficacy. And by that time, they may find it hard to build collective efficacy to help them respond to the crisis if their behavior up to that point did not always support the idea that teachers have a voice. Stakeholder groups that are really assembled just to support the idea of the leader are a hollow way to build collective efficacy. Unfortunately, when a crisis comes along it may be too late for a leader to elicit good help from teachers if those teachers never felt as though they had a voice before. To put it another way, a feeling of helplessness among teachers who feel their ideas are unwanted or their opinions go unheard can have a negative impact on the school climate: “[I]f educators’ perceptions are filtered through the belief that there is very little they can do to influence student achievement, negative beliefs pervade the school culture. When educators lack a sense of collective efficacy, they do not pursue certain courses of action because they feel they or their students lack the capabilities to achieve positive outcomes” (Donohoo et al., 2018, n.p.).

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Collective Efficacy 99

Something else to keep in mind is that leaders often believe that they are supposed to be building collective efficacy with their whole staff. Although that may be true, and it is worth our efforts to do so, we can build collective efficacy in smaller but equally as powerful ways.

Those smaller methods of building collective efficacy, whether collective teacher efficacy or collective leader efficacy, happen when authentic profes- sional learning communities work together on a goal they have constructed. They happen in our stakeholder groups, such as PAC, and in our grade-level groups or departments at the middle- and high-school levels.

To illustrate the development of collective efficacy, I want to bring back the implementation cycle from earlier in the book. Through this process of implementation, teachers and leaders can come together collectively, or leaders can work within their administrative team to prepare themselves for conversations with teachers and students. All of these groups learn from one another during the reflection/feedback process, which should ultimately have a positive impact on student learning. If it doesn’t have a positive impact on student learning, then why spend the time doing it?

Figure 6.2 Implementation Cycle for Instructional Leaders

Stage 1: Discussion of new

practice to be implemented

Clearly articulated vision of the new

practice

Stage 2: Actual implementation

Reflection/ evidence/evaluate

Stage 3: Second round of

implementation

Reflection/ evidence/evaluation

Stage 4: Embedded in collaborative

culture

Reflection/ evidence/evaluation

How are teachers involved?

Who will it help? How is it better than what we are already doing?

Who will be involved?

What works? What doesn’t?

How will it be implemented? Who will do it? Pilot? Whole staff? Can teachers/staff provide feedback on how it is going?

How did round 2 go? Staff feedback?

What does successful implementation look like?

Is this an embedded part of the collaborative culture?

Based on research by Odom et al. (2014) and Fixsen et al. (2005).

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100 Instructional Leadership

Take a moment to reflect on your implementation process. Does it look similar to the one in Figure 6.2? If so, do you find that slowing down the process and listening to the voices of those in the group leads to a more positive impact on student learning?

Mindful Moment

Student Voice Questions

How might you incorporate students into the implementation cycle? For example, perhaps they can provide feedback around the implementation of walkthroughs. What if they are invited to reflect with teachers on how the implementation went? What are your thoughts?

WHY IS COLLECTIVE EFFICACY HARD TO BUILD?

As you may have guessed, getting adults to come together and focus on a goal is not an easy task. Many of us, in the field of education, entered into the teaching profession because we loved working with children and young adults or we loved specific content. Perhaps we had great experiences in school as students that we wanted to continue as teachers. Or we had nega- tive experiences in school that we wanted to prevent for the next generation of students. My point is that while most of us share a passion either for teach- ing children or for a particular subject, we did not enter the field of teaching to work with other adults. Working with adults can be challenging and frus- trating. We are so used to controlling our domains as teachers that it’s hard to let go of that control when working with other adults.

In order to work effectively with a group, we have to have a great deal of trust. This is not new information. Unfortunately, many teachers are so tired of being a part of shared-decision-making committees where they have no real shared-decision-making power that a request they join another group meeting is not always met with trust.

When it comes to collective leader efficacy, assistant principals often do not speak until the principal has given them permission to do so, because assistants believe—rightly so—that principals have more status than assistant principals. Sometimes assistant principals do not speak up because they are so inexperienced that they do not feel comfortable sharing their thoughts, for fear of being wrong. Additionally, some may not want to step outside of what they see as the typical assistant principal role of focusing on discipline, so they do not always delve into conversations about learning with their leader.

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Collective Efficacy 101

Knowing that adults do not always “trust the process,” we have to make sure that we foster diverse voices in our collective meetings. This takes strong leadership. Having a voice in the process does not always mean we get our way, but it does mean that we have open dialogue around issues and that we can go into these meetings with one idea and come out with a better one. This involves the ability to challenge each other’s thinking respectfully and not hold a grudge if someone gently criticizes or disagrees with our contributions.

Collective efficacy is about taking on a challenge as a team and accept- ing all the positive and negative experiences that can come along with that work—and then making sure we are collecting evidence of how well we are meeting that challenge.

COLLECTIVE EFFICACY: A PROGRAM LOGIC MODEL

In order to come together and build collective teacher efficacy, leaders need to make sure teachers and staff understand why they are coming together in the first place. A few years ago, I was getting ready to run a workshop for instruc- tional leadership teams. We were about 30 minutes from beginning when I overheard a teacher say to her colleague, “Do you know why I’m here? The principal called last night and said I needed to be here because we needed rep- resentatives from our school.” It was then that I realized one of the most impor- tant parts of the process is to help people understand why they are a part of this collaborative team.

It sounds simple, but more times than I can count, people are asked to be a part of the group, or are “voluntold” to do so, but really have no idea why they are there. It’s very difficult to build collective teacher efficacy when peo- ple do not understand why they are in the room. Below are some suggestions to help you prevent that from happening.

• Define why each member is a part of the team. • Define the expectations of being on the team. • Construct a common goal together around an initiative. • Assign duties to each member of the team. • Promote and support discourse among the members.

Donohoo et al. (2018) write: “Leaders can also influence collective efficacy by setting expectations for formal, frequent, and productive teacher collaboration and by creating high levels of trust for this collaboration to take place. ‘Produc- tive’ means that teachers’ collaborative efforts can help to account for conse- quences in the classroom” (n.p.). Trust is built one conversation and one action at a time. Trust is built when those who work in a school building feel valued.

Using the consistent theme of a program logic model, I’d like to illustrate what staff members need by setting up a scenario to show how an idea can help build collective efficacy.

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102 Instructional Leadership

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Collective Efficacy 103

Instead of looking at a crisis situation, let’s look at a situation that should be a continual focus in our schools, and that’s the frequently discussed problem of grading. What we know from the work around social-emotional learning is that grading can lead to alienation of students, and yet grading practices are often too big of a problem for groups to really take time to focus on. Grading practices are worthy of our time, and they are a great place to build collective efficacy, because the decisions made by the group can have an enormous impact on student learning.

In looking at early-20th-century studies of grading, Brookhart and Guskey (2019) found that “the extent of the unreliability in grading identified in these early studies was huge. Grades for the same work varied dramatically from teacher to teacher, resulting in highly divergent conclusions about students, their learning, and their future studies” (n.p.).

Proactive measures are needed to minimize the extent of such unreliabil- ity in our own schools. According to Guskey and Link (2019), “instructional leaders at every level must give serious attention to grading and reporting” (n.p.). They suggest that principals “become familiar with the extensive knowledge base on effective grading and engage teachers in ongoing dis- cussions about how to put this knowledge into practice.” They recommend that leaders “guide their teams (including teachers, counselors, instructional coordinators, and aides) in reaching consensus about the purpose of grading and help them ensure that the policies and practices they implement are con- sistent, meaningful, and educationally sound.” All of this offers us a perfect opportunity to combine the program logic model with collective efficacy.

Grading is a perfect academic example of how a staff can work together and build collective efficacy. A point of clarification is that I am suggest- ing grading practices be piloted before they are implemented schoolwide. I believe that students, parents and teachers would prefer to be able to work out issues within a smaller group as opposed to when they already involve the whole school community. Collective efficacy is about back-and-forth dialogue in which we learn from one another, and grading is a great area to focus on.

IN THE END

Collective teacher efficacy is both an instructional leader’s biggest area of focus and his or her biggest challenge, which makes sense: Those areas we value are not always the easiest for us to do well in, and that’s what makes them so worth our time. Collective leader efficacy no doubt can be character- ized similarly as difficult yet worthy. Whether we bring a group of teachers together or a group of leaders together, there is great potential to have a posi- tive impact on student learning.

We know that there are four experiences that enhance efficacy, and we explored a few examples of how instructional leaders can build collective

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104 Instructional Leadership

efficacy in their schools. One such mastery experience is defining a goal together as a staff or small group and going through the implementation cycle in Figure! 6.2 to deepen the learning. It may take a while, but it could really help solidify the notion that teachers have a voice in the improvement process.

In this chapter, I wanted to explore collective efficacy as it pertains to teach- ers, but I also wanted to introduce you to collective leader efficacy because it is important to have on your radar. After all, collective efficacy is about form- ing a group, constructing a goal together around learning, and then having an impact on student learning. Collective leader efficacy is not too much of a departure from this definition; it just means getting a small group of leaders together to begin focusing on learning.

As you can tell from reading this book, all of this good advice really comes down to where we put our focus. Regardless of what our role in a school may be, the more we can talk about the different elements of learning, and the more we work through those elements with our students, the more we can have an impact on those students.

In the next, and last, chapter, we will focus on how to take all the informa- tion provided to you in this book and evaluate its impact. None of the initia- tives we attempt in our schools will matter if we do not take time to evaluate their benefit to our greatest asset: our students.

STUDY GUIDE QUESTIONS

• What does collective efficacy mean to you? Do you believe you have collective leader efficacy?

• Leithwood and Mascall researched capacity and context when it comes to motivating teachers and building agency. How do those two topics impact your leadership team?

• As a leadership team, do you involve teachers and staff in your discussions so that you can build collective efficacy?

• What do you believe is the relationship between collective efficacy and improvement of student learning?

• Before reading this chapter, did anyone in your group know that collective efficacy can be fostered among students as well as adults? If so, what examples can they provide you of how they build it in your school?

• How does your team collectively define the reasons for their inclusion and what they will individually offer to the group? Does everyone have responsibilities?

• In what ways have you used collective efficacy to implement an improvement in your school district or school board?

• What new learning did this chapter offer to you? Did it challenge your thinking in any way?

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