DISCUSSION 7 2022

Discuss ways to motivate students.
Explain how student engagement factors could be reflected in a lesson plan. Please give specific examples of what you might look to improve in a lesson plan to promote engagement based on DeWitt’s engagement strategies from the textbook

105

7
EVIDENCE

How Will You Evaluate Your Impact?
Im

plem
entation

A
Focus on

Learning

Student
Engagement

In
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ru
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Evidence

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

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106 Instructional Leadership

How do we know that our instructional leadership practices have an impact? How do we go from an inspiring and satisfying conversation
around student learning to focusing on whether our words created actions
that ultimately had an impact on it? Just as with the program logic model,
we need to determine our needs, create activities that will help us meet our
needs, define outputs to put the improvements into action, and then collect
evidence to understand the impact of doing so. Instructional leadership is
not all about our own ideas of improvement—much of it is about the ideas
we inspire in others. However, we need to know that those ideas are result-
ing in improvements, and that is where evidence comes into our instructional
leadership story.

Evidence of impact is something that is always on my mind. We often
reflect on our days as leaders, but do we reflect with evidence? Without evi-
dence, aren’t we just remembering it the way we think it happened and not
necessarily the way it did happen?

The interesting issue is that when I train leaders in competency-based
collaborative leadership, the evidence part of the course is the most difficult
but also the most rewarding. I find that leaders are good at asking teachers to
collect evidence but not so good at collecting it themselves.

As a consultant and author, evidence of impact is something I often pur-
sue. It’s easy to give a keynote address or run an inspirational workshop, but
it’s less easy to see whether what those participants learned is actually being
used in their school. The question I pose to you here on evidence of impact is
the same one that I often ask myself: How do we know what we are doing is
having an impact on student learning? As leaders, we can use the reasoning
that we are too far removed from direct impact on students, but throughout
the book I have offered ways of having more direct impact. In my role, I can
use the excuse that I’m too far removed or that there are too many variables
that may prevent the work that I do to make its way to impacting students,
but if I don’t have impact, why I am doing what I do?

What does “evidence of impact” mean to you? In what ways have you collected evi-
dence of your impact? If you could become the instructional leader you dream of being,
where would be your greatest impact?

Mindful Moment

When looking at evidence of impact, it’s all about what we are measuring,
and we know we should be measuring those things we are trying to impact.
I do not believe there is one specific way to measure our impact. Rather, it’s
about the group driving the improvement engaging in dialogue around what

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Evidence 107

evidence they could collect that would show them the improvement was
working. Evidence collection should not involve sitting alone in our adminis-
trative office; it should involve working collaboratively with a group.

In the competency-based work that I do, participants are required
to bring evidence of impact around the six influences of collaborative
leadership, which are instructional leadership, collective efficacy,
professional learning and development, feedback, assessment-capable
learners and!family!engagement.

Student Voice Questions

Don’t forget about the students when collecting evidence. Many
participants bring in their notes or data but rarely bring in samples of
students’ work.

Additionally, when they meet to discuss their evidence, I remind them
that this is not a practice of judgment, meaning that we should not judge our-
selves based on the evidence we collect but look at it as a starting point. How
does the evidence we collect help us understand where we are in the learning
process, and what dialogue can we engage in to decide how to go further?
The following image is the slide that I use when diving into the conversation
regarding evidence and instructional leadership.

Collaborative dialogue is instrumental in the evidence collection process,
because it helps guide us to a deeper level of learning if we choose people to
collaborate with who have different ways of thinking than we do.

Figure 7.1 Evidence-Sharing Session

Evidence-Sharing Session

• Instructional leadership—What evidence helps support your goal of being an
instructional leader?

• Evidence sharing
— What evidence did you bring?

— How did you collect it?

— Whom did you engage in dialogue with around this evidence?

— What did you learn?

— What would you do differently next time?

Time: 30 minutes

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108 Instructional Leadership

EVIDENCE OF IMPACT

In the following pages, I will guide you through the process of collecting
evidence by using program logic and the implementation cycle. We will once
again focus on common language and common understanding.

As I stated earlier in the book, common language and understanding
are the cornerstones of a supportive and inclusive school climate. However,
common language and understanding can also help build an environment
around learning that I believe surpasses any discussion around content
expertise.

After the program logic model has been used to bring about a com-
mon understanding of the goal, it’s time to implement the cycle of learning
around the goal. The implementation cycle example in Figure 7.3 specifi-
cally looks at conceptual understanding around the most commonly used
words in education—words like “student engagement,” “growth mind-
set,” “differentiated instruction,” “cooperative learning” and “conceptual
understanding.”

When going through this process, we may want to choose activities with
the intent of facilitating the different levels of learning (surface, deep, and
transfer), in order. For example, we can use surface-level learning by provid-
ing staff members with one research-based article around conceptual under-
standing that they need to read prior to a staff meeting. At the staff meeting,
after discussing the research-based article, we dive into a deep level of learn-
ing by showing a video (from YouTube, from the Teaching Channel, or one
created by our own teachers), and then the teacher who is the expert at the
growth mindset or student engagement guides the teachers through a lesson.
This is often part of what is referred to as the “flipped faculty meeting” pro-
cess. Transfer-level learning comes in when teachers in the staff meeting feel
inspired to try one new instructional strategy to build student engagement
in the classroom, and the instructional leader sees that practice when doing
walkthroughs. It is important to note that not all teachers will feel confident
enough to try a new instructional strategy so quickly. They may need the
additional support of an instructional coach, peer, teacher leader, or instruc-
tional leader to help them achieve the next level, that of implementing those
practices in the classroom.

The evidence of impact collected, in this example, are the videos of
the practice being implemented, walkthrough observation notes from the
instructional leader, and the work created by the students.

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Evidence 109

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110 Instructional Leadership

Figure 7.3 Implementation Strategy for Concepts of Learning

Stage 1: Common
language/common

understanding

What are those words?
“student engagement,”

“growth mindset,”
“differentiated instruction,”

“cooperative learning”
or “conceptual
understanding”

Stage 2: Begin
researching the common

definition around the
chosen common

language

Group decides to focus
on one or two

research studies

Stage 3: At faculty
meetings, begin modeling

examples of how to put
the common language

into action

Stage 4:
Have a pilot group

implement the strategies
in their classrooms; film
the strategies in action

Reflect on evidence
collected (video,

observation notes,
teacher reflections,

student responses, etc.)

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

How are
teachers
involved?

Who is
responsible for
finding the
research?
How will the
research
be provided
to staff?

E.g., provide
video around
high-quality
conceptual
questions to
use in the
classroom.

Instructional
leader observes
and takes notes.

How can we embed
this into the
collaborative culture?

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

Student Voice Questions

When it comes to common language and common understanding,
don’t forget the students. Randomly select students from a few class-
rooms, and ask them for their definition of the common language and
common understanding your staff is working on. If they know it, then
it’s a good sign that the work you are doing with staff is having a posi-
tive impact.

STUDENT ENGAGEMENT PRACTICES

Let’s move on to another example. This time we will specifically look at
social-emotional learning. Figure 7.4 is a program logic model focusing on
social-emotional learning, which you read about in Chapter 4, on student
engagement. When I was a school principal, Kids Club was our student advi-
sory group created by teachers, and you will notice it specifically mentioned

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Evidence 111

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112 Instructional Leadership

Advisory Groups: Helping to
Create a Positive School Climate

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2009) recommends school cli-
mate reform as a data driven strategy that promotes healthy relationships, school
connectedness, and dropout prevention” (Thapa et al., 2012).

According to the latest National School Climate Study (2012), “A growing number of
State Departments of Education are focusing on school climate reform as an essential
component of school improvement and/or bully prevention” (p. 2). Schools are often
looking for quality ways to create a safe atmosphere for students. Using advisory
groups is one way to promote a healthier and more nurturing school climate.

Student advisory groups are not what you are probably thinking. This doesn’t just
mean that school social workers and school psychologists work with groups of students
who are in need. Advisory groups are small groups of students that span the grades
in the school system, and every staff member has a part in it. It can help make a large
school feel a little bit smaller.

Student advisory groups allow for a couple of students from each grade level to
get to know kids in other grade levels. It also encourages students from upper grades
to be role models for the younger students in the school. Older students need to learn
to be role models and understand the responsibility that comes with being the oldest
students in the school. Establishing advisory groups is one way that many schools are
creating a community of learners and showing students that they have an important
part in their own educational process.

Kids Club

In the school district where I am principal, we have advisory groups at all of the ele-
mentary schools. The one in our particular school has been in existence since the year
before I became principal, while the other schools have created their groups over the
past few years. We call our advisory group Kids Club, but one school calls their group
Peace Groups, and the last school calls their advisory time together Tiger Talk (their
school mascot is a tiger). Kids Club was based on an idea that our staff got from read-
ing the book The Big Picture: Education Is Everyone’s Business by Dennis Littky.

in the Outputs column. It is one of the greatest examples of student voice that
we had in our school.

For those of you at the secondary level, this was actually a method of stu-
dent voice that was created based on a high-school model. From the program
logic model, we take a deeper look at what can be created out of it, which is a
student advisory group. As I mentioned before, ours was called Kids Club, and
I wrote about it for Education Week in the following blog post (DeWitt, 2012).

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Evidence 113

Advisory groups are not simple to put together, but the time it takes is well worth
it when the kids meet with their advisory teacher. Typically, once or twice a month we
meet with our groups for 15 minutes and talk about what is going on in the school or
at home. Sometimes they complete surveys on how much they enjoy the school lunch or
other aspects of the school. When I first became principal the students had an opportu-
nity to choose which playground equipment we could get for our new playground.

The advisory group that the principal has is not all the students who frequently get
into trouble. They are an evenly balanced group of students just like every other staff
member has. I have about 10 students from kindergarten through fifth grade. One of
the great things that happens is when a child transfers from our school to one of the
other elementary schools, they understand the concept of advisory groups already and
feel comfortable contributing to the group because they know the process.

Character Education

“There is extensive research that shows school climate having a profound impact
on students’ mental and physical health” (Thapa et al., 2012).

I have not always been a promoter of character education programs. It’s not that I
don’t believe in character education, because I do. I just believe that if the program
doesn’t become a part of the culture of a school, it is harder to see if it is effective.
Advisory groups offer schools the opportunity to really delve into the topic of character
education because the groups are the venue that help build the culture. In the words
of Todd Whitaker, “It’s people, not programs.” Advisory groups will be successful if the
people in the school believe in them.

In New York State we have the Dignity for All Students Act (DASA). All schools in
New York State are required to “include classroom instruction that supports the devel-
opment of a school environment free of discrimination and harassment, including but
not limited to, instruction that raises awareness and sensitivity to discrimination and
harassment based on a person’s actual or perceived race, color, weight, national origin,
ethnic group, religion, religious practice, disability, sexual orientation, and gender” (N.Y.
State Commissioner Regulation 100.2 (c)). Our schools are using our advisory groups
as one way to meet this very important mandate.

In the End

Advisory groups can be beneficial to creating a safe and nurturing school climate. In
addition, they offer all students, even those who are new to the school, an opportunity
to feel like a valued member of the educational community. Many students feel a spe-
cial connection to their advisory teacher, because they may be in the same group with
them for up to six years.

(Continued)

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114 Instructional Leadership

School culture is so important to the educational process. It’s through a positive
school culture that we meet the social and emotional needs of our students so they will
feel safe and learn. We want our students to leave us feeling that we listened to their
needs, and advisory groups are just one of the ways that schools can meet that need.

Creating an Advisory Group:

• Three or four teachers work together with a list of all staff members.
• Add one or two students (depending on size of school) from each grade level into a

group.
• Each group stays with the same staff member year after year. (This is clearly harder

to do with schools that have high teacher turnover or in schools that have experi-
enced many budget cuts.)

• Put together monthly topics that each staff member should discuss. Remember that
not every staff member knows what to talk to kids about.

• Use character education words. For example, every staff member in the district is
talking about “Respect” with their advisory groups.

• Each staff member should get a plastic organizer that has crayons, pencils, scissors
and other supplies.

• Organization is key. School days are busy, and the more the planning group can do
some of the thinking for each teacher, the better. Teachers need to be prepared on
the morning or afternoon of the advisory group meeting, in the event that some-
thing comes up that morning that prevents them from having everything they need
for the group.

Advisory Groups:

• Advisory groups should last no more than 20 minutes.
• The principal or secretary uses the loudspeaker to announce the beginning and end.
• All staff members stand in the hallway to welcome students and make sure they are

being polite in the hallway as they individually walk to their advisory group.
• Grades 1 through 4 students walk on their own to their Kids Club.
• Grade 5 students pick up their kindergarten Kids Club peers and walk them to their

destination.
• Every Kids Club group has a plastic organizer that holds different ideas for meet-

ings, as well as crayons, scissors, and other items needed for crafts and projects.

References

Littky, D. (2004). The big picture: Education is everyone’s business. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Thapa, A., Cohen, J., Higgins-D’Alessandro, A., & Guffey, S. (2012). School climate

research summary: August 2012. New York, NY: National School Climate Center.

(Continued)

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Evidence 115

Now that you have viewed the program logic model and have a deeper
understanding of advisory groups, we will look at the implementation cycle
used to put it into practice. This implementation cycle should happen at the
very beginning of the advisory groups practice. Clearly, the cycle below will
keep going on and on to reflect the growth process that the school commu-
nity goes through during the advisory group process.

Something that is not reflected in the cycle or the program logic model
is what I cited from Fullan’s work earlier in the book around the topic of the
implementation dip. When looking at social-emotional learning, student
engagement, and an extra task put on teachers such as advisory groups, it’s
important to understand that not every staff member will be on board, and

Figure 7.5 Implementation Strategy for Student Advisory Groups (SEL)

Stage 1: The need for
school-based SEL

practices

Student advisory groups
is a research-based

practice to help connect
students with the

school community

Stage 2: Focus on
creation of advisory
groups with school
stakeholder group

Stage 6: Hold the first
advisory group meeting,
which includes students

Stage 3: Stakeholder
group defines/explains

the advisory group
process to all
teachers/staff

Stage 4: At faculty
meetings, begin modeling

examples of what is
discussed at advisory

group meetings

Stage 5: Students are
provided with an advisory
group teacher and given
an understanding of what

happens during the
group meetings

Reflect on evidence
collected (i.e, student
responses to surveys,

teacher reflections)

Usually happens
at the end of one
school year,
and involves a
summer planning
group

How do we
involve all
teachers?

Each member
of the school
community
will have a group
of students
representative
of each
grade level
in the school

School
community
decides on
frequency of
meetings (i.e.,
once a week,
twice a month, etc.)

How can we embed
this into the
collaborative
culture?

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

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116 Instructional Leadership

that will result in an implementation dip. Another thing to notice is the sheer
amount of work that goes into planning something like advisory groups.
However, the ends justify the means, because in a school community where
this emotional connection to school is established among students and teach-
ers, fewer students will feel alienated.

Over time, the evidence that can be collected will be student surveys,
teacher/staff reflections, the number of discipline referrals on the days when
advisory groups took place, and anecdotes around student interactions.
From a surface-, deep- and transfer-level learning framework, we would look
at what lessons students were learning as far as behavior was concerned,
how additional lessons were incorporated into classrooms after the initial les-
sons learned in advisory group, and how that learning transferred to student
learning when it came to students’ behavior (discipline referrals, community
involvement practices, etc.).

INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP

Now that we have looked at focus on learning, student engagement, and
instructional strategies (i.e., used in the focus on learning implementation
example—Figure 7.3), let’s end by looking at where we began, which is
instructional leadership. Instructional leadership is a highly important topic
and the basis of this book. Many leaders refer to themselves as instructional
leaders, but many of their teachers may not agree with that. As I mentioned
at the beginning of this book, in my survey of several hundred principals,
nearly one fourth of the respondents affirmed that they were “very confi-
dent” in their instructional leadership ability. Another 43% stated that they
were “confident” in their role as instructional leaders, and only 8% confided
that they did not feel like instructional leaders at all. According to the similar
survey I sent to teachers, their confidence in their principal’s instructional
leadership ability, on average, was much lower than the confidence the lead-
ers themselves felt.

Why was this the case—why might teachers rate the instructional leader-
ship ability at their school less highly than their leader does? Perhaps their
leader is engaging in instructional leadership practices, but not all teachers
are in close proximity of that, so they do not see the leader engaged in those
behaviors. Or, it may be that many leaders believe they are instructional lead-
ers when they really are not. So, let’s take that information and incorporate it
into our program logic model, as well as the implementation cycle that can be
used for instructional leadership practices. Figure 7.6 gives an example of pro-
gram logic where instructional leadership is concerned.

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Evidence 117

As you can see from the program logic model in Figure!7.6, the leader
engages in activities and exhibits behaviors that will help him or her reach
a comfortable level as far as instructional leadership is concerned. All of
this is dependent on how much of a burden the leader is already under
due to district office demands, accountability measures and mandates
they are responsible for carrying out. Sometimes there’s just too much to
juggle. I want instructional leaders to understand their current reality, and
use that to guide how much they can move into this instructional leader-
ship space.

Last but not least, let’s look at the implementation cycle to help show
us what implementing instructional leadership practices might look like.
Please remember, the implementation cycle is dependent on what you can
do given your stressors. For that reason, one instructional leadership action
may take only a week to complete, whereas others may take months or a
year. There is no hard-and-fast rule for how long improvement may take.
What we know is that it can take months or years depending on the culture
and climate of the building. Although you have seen similar illustrations,
the implementation cycle in Figure 7.7 focuses on walkthroughs. As men-
tioned in the Chapter 5 blog post on the myth of walkthroughs, it is a very
popular activity among principals but is often not implemented correctly.
This implementation cycle will help you make sure walkthroughs are done
correctly.

In this implementation cycle I added a few more questions, and those
were meant to provide an opportunity for teachers to have a voice. Walk-
throughs, and instructional leadership, are about collaboration and dia-
logue. How can a leader and the teachers they work with learn from one
another? How does the process add to the leader ’s level of instructional
leadership?

Evidence that can be collected to understand the impact of walkthroughs
includes reflection activities on the part of teachers and the leader, copies of
the feedback provided by both groups, surveys completed by teachers, and
evidence of how the teachers took the feedback given by the leader and used
it in their instructional practices.

When looking at surface-, deep- and transfer-level learning, we can see
that surface-level learning takes place when a leader and a staff member
discuss the definition of walkthroughs and decide what they want out of the
experience. Deep-level learning takes place when the leader begins doing the
walkthroughs and provides, as well as asks, for feedback on how the activity
went. Was it successful? How could it improve? Transfer-level learning hap-
pens when the leader takes that feedback and puts it into action the next time
he or she completes the walkthrough process.

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118 Instructional Leadership

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Evidence 119

IN THE END

As I stated before, there is no hard-and-fast rule for how long implementa-
tion takes. However, I can tell you it’s never as fast as we want it to be, and
we often have to spend more time on it than we expect to. That’s why it is so
important to take one area and focus on it. Any other way of approaching
improvement will probably fail because we didn’t take enough time to col-
laborate with staff and dive deep into what it looks like, as well as discuss
how to learn from those moments it does not go well.

It is my hope that in this chapter I have provided you with enough expla-
nation of how to understand our impact by engaging in activities and col-
lecting evidence to see what was successful and what was not. In order to be
instructional leaders, we have to put learning at the heart of what we do, and
we have to make ourselves vulnerable enough that it is okay for us to make
mistakes in front of our staff.

Figure 7.7 Implementation Strategy for Walkthroughs

Stage 1:
Walkthroughs

What is the purpose
of walkthroughs?

Why?

Stage 2: Implement
walkthroughs in two

grade levels

Discussion about
process with pilot

group

Stage 3: Implement
walkthroughs in
same two grade

levels

Reflection/evidence/
evaluation

Stage 4: Invite in
more grade levels

How are
teachers
involved?

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

Evaluate impact

Who will be
involved?

What does
successful
implementation
look like?

How will they be
implemented?
Who will do them?
Pilot? Whole staff?
Can teachers/staff
provide feedback
on how they are going?
Can teachers
be a part of a
team that
completes
walkthroughs
together?

What feedback did the leader
provide? What feedback did the
teachers provide? Did it transfer
into practice?

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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120 Instructional Leadership

Instructional leadership is when those in a leadership position focus their
efforts on the implementation of practices that will increase student learn-
ing. Throughout the book I have focused on six components that I believe
are central to instructional leadership: implementation, focus on learning,
student engagement, instructional strategies, collective efficacy and evidence
of impact. These are six practical ways that leaders can practice instructional
leadership and have a positive impact on student learning.

This information is based on my experience as a school principal
and on research I have engaged in for decades, particularly my deep
research of the topic over the last year. It is also based on what I
have learned by working with some of the leading educational
experts in the world, and the information has come from what I have
learned by working with thousands of leaders, teachers, specialists
and instructional coaches over the last five years as a consultant and
author. I would like to leave you with one last piece of information. It is an
instructional leadership framework that I created while writing this book.
It is not meant to be a judgment of your present abilities, but it is meant to
provide you with a starting point. Please reflect on, and decide where you
sit presently in, all of these parts of instructional leadership. Out of the many
different components, where would you start digging in first? Would you
choose an area where you already have confidence but want to go deeper, or
one that represents an area of growth for you?

Instructional leadership is the most researched form of leadership but the
most difficult to display. Researchers can tell us where we should focus our
time, but many of those researchers do not have a leadership background,
so please just keep that in mind as you move forward. Try to find a balance
between what they advise and what you can realistically do. That even goes
for what I wrote in this book. Find a place in all of these instructional leader-
ship practices, and begin with the one that makes the most sense for you.

As always, thank you for taking the time to read this book. I hope you
enjoyed learning from it as much as I learned from writing it.

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6
COLLECTIVE EFFICACY

Easy to Define, Hard to Build?
Im

plem
entation

A Focus on
Learning

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Collective
Efficacy

E
vidence

Collective
Efficacy

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

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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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90 Instructional Leadership

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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92 Instructional Leadership

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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94 Instructional Leadership

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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