The Dysfunctions of a Team and Creating a Classroom Culture

Learning is a risky endeavor.  You're doing something you've never done before, and that brings with it a certain element of fear or uneasiness.  As teachers, we have to create an environment where students feel safe in taking that risk.  An environment where they know if they stumble or even fail, they will be ok because that is part of the learning process.

I've had this poster posted in my room ever since I went through the Passage Works Institute's 5 Dimensions of Engaged Teaching Trainings.  Creating an effective classroom culture is creating an environment where you can push students outside of their comfort zone to learn, but not so far as to be in their excessive risk zone.

Yet, if students don't feel safe enough to take those risks, you'll likely end up with kids unwilling or unable to engage in the class.  They may never speak, be reluctant to do do the work, show signs of anxiety, or in a worst case scenario maybe even not come to class.  Ultimately, they won't learn because they're in the "Excessive Risk Zone."

Every teacher has their own unique and wonderful way of building a classroom culture that supports student learning.  Some methods are innate. These teachers just have "a way" of connecting with their students and making them feel comfortable. I'm always in awe of these great teachers.  Some methods however, are more overt.  In this case, teachers take deliberate action by building in activities, scenarios, and/or tasks that build this culture.

PLC

Earlier this summer I was at a Professional Learning Community (PLC) Training with colleagues from our district.  One of the breakout sessions was on creating "Collective Commitments" among stakeholders before embarking on the PLC process.  Here are my sketchnotes from the session if you'd like see more.  Tim Brown described how and why many teams fail.   He described the 5 Dysfunctions of a Team.  Below is a picture from my notes.

A team, which I would include a classroom community as a team, will fail if there is a lack of trust (which comes from a place of invulnerability). A lack of trust leads to a fear of conflict (which comes from a place of a false sense of harmony). A fear of conflict comes from a lack of commitment in what the team is doing (which comes from unclear expectations).  A lack of commitment leads to an avoidance of accountability or responsibility (which comes from low standards or unclear expectations). And finally an avoidance of accountability leads to inattention to results (which can come from a place of status or ego).  As you can see in the diagram, the more we can mitigate or minimize those sources, the stronger our team becomes.

I argue that these 5 dysfunctions of a team within a classroom occur when a teacher has not adequately created the proper classroom culture for the team to perform (learn).   

The antidote, is creating an effective classroom culture based on trust, empathy, and mutual understanding.  One such tool in creating this is the Collective Commitment or Shared Agreement. 

The presenter argued that the solution to this was creating a collective commitment early in the process.  This was an essential first step because it ensured that all parties involved clarified the values that matter most to them, and then together through a process of sharing, combining, and distilling these down, the group could come to a group of short statements that everyone in the party would agree was their focus.  In a sense these are norms, but in my opinion, better because they are more inclusive, specific, and a product of the group. 

I had a bit of an "A-HA" during this presentation, because I have done this process in my classes. I originally learned about this from Laura Weaver and Mark Wilding's book 5 Dimensions of Engaged Teaching , and began implementing in all of my classes in 2014.  Some of the classes I did this with where the Biology Courses I co-taught with my colleague Brian Elliott.

Here's a tweet I shared back in 2017:

Shared agreements made by students in bio. The vision for how we conduct ourselves in class. Great statements! #community #gofalconpower pic.twitter.com/LSGAwtLkCR

— Mr. Orre's Class (@OrreBiology) September 13, 2017

I've always felt I created a pretty effective classroom environment for learning, and I think this was in part because of who I am as teacher, but mostly because I always devoted a chunk of time in the beginning of the year for team building and getting to know one another.

Yet, once I began implementing the Shared Agreement process, the culture of my classroom community went to another level.  Students from the beginning of the year felt engaged in the classroom community in a way they hadn't before.  Groups were more collaborative during lab work. Kids were more likely to share out their ideas or ask questions than in previous years.  They were more likely to take risks.  Here's a tangible example: Students often don't raise their hand and answer a question unless the KNOW that they know the correct answer. But after doing this process I found students were more likely to take a shot at a questions they weren't sure of, because the class had a shared agreement that stated it was ok to take risks and make mistakes.

Since taking on the role as TOSA, Brian has been co-teaching with another biology teacher, Jennifer Lee.  They are building on what we created in 4 years of co-teaching, and frankly, are going above and beyond what Brian and I ever did.  Last week I checked in with them and they shared how they were doing the collective agreement process in their classes.  It sounded amazing, and their methodology was super innovative.  I even dropped by and took some pictures and videos of it in action.

I asked them if they would be willing to sit down for a 10-15 minute interview to describe their collective agreement writing process and how it's impacted their classes.  They agreed, and I'm super excited to share it with teachers.

In my next  blog post, I will share my interview with Jennifer and Brian, and then I will outline how to create a shared agreement in the classroom.  You won't want to miss this.