"Critical Friend" Kevin

Unfortunately, participants in a regular five-day Critical Friends Group training don't get to experience every protocol in the National School Reform Faculty (NSRF) collection. That collection includes 322 protocols, activities, or modifications that all can be used differently to help your team achieve its goals. One of these protocols is called "Diversity Rounds," and until I had a special request from a group to use it this summer, I had never tried it before. Now that I've tried it, I try to work it into every training! Diversity Rounds requires the facilitator to identify a category where diversity exists. It then allows participants to decide how to best "subdivide" that category into two to four subcategories. The first two steps of the procedure are printed as follows: With the group I was working with, we first used "Birth Order" as a category and after a small hesitation, someone in the room took charge. She suggested the group b...

When working with new groups on the use of collaborative protocols, I almost always ask them to complete the following prompt at some point in the training: I used to think ___________, but now I think ___________. This easy sentence stem can produce a wide variety of encouraging responses, allowing me to see the growth the group has experienced in the first part of our training. But while there is always variety, there is one response that is most common in groups that are composed of many people who are new to protocols. They say something similar to this response, which I received at a recent training: I used to think protocols were time consuming and ineffective , but now I think protocols are an efficient way to honor voices and a critical component of true collaboration . The truth is...protocols do take time! However, expertly designed protocols focus the group on key pieces of conversation and eliminate the kind of conversation that takes away from the work. The constr...

Using NSRF Critical Friends Protocols has made an incredible difference in the schools where I have worked. Whether we have been working through challenging decisions, designing new lessons, or sharing visions for our organization's future, I have been surprised again and again at the implications the protocols have had for our culture and for the students involved. A protocol used during a team meeting can produce some amazing effective and efficient results. However, pulling the whole team together can sometimes be a challenge. This is why I recently began using protocols in meetings much smaller: meetings with one other person. I have discovered that protocols can be powerful in pairs, as well. Two protocols that I have found especially helpful are the "Data-Analysis" Protocol and the "Student Work Inquiry Rounds" Protocol. Both of these protocols encourage the person sharing the data or the student work to turn away from the group so that its individuals ...

Two of the most popular protocols featured in the NSRF Critical Friends Trainings are the Tuning Protocol and the Dilemma Protocols. They are both terrific processes to go through in a collaborative setting because they help teams find wisdom that may be alluding them. The Tuning Protocol allows a piece of work to be presented to a team so that it may be fine-tuned and enhanced, and those participating in the protocol almost always develop ideas to enhance the work that the creator of the work previously had missed. Similarly, the Dilemma Analysis and Dilemma Consultancy Protocols help participants to find solutions that the presenter of the dilemma may have previously missed. Each of these protocols is featured in a five-day Critical Friends New Coaches' Training. While each of these protocols is very helpful, choosing the "right" one - the one that will benefit the presenter or team the most - can be a dilemma in itself! At a recent training, our group explored these ...

If you participate in the five-day NSRF Critical Friends Group Training, you will be pushed to speak your mind within the first hour. The "Microlabs Protocol" is one of the first activities in which trainees participate, and this is very much on purpose; this protocol allows time for participants to think deeply about a critical topic and then a structured amount of time to convey their feelings. When participants are asked to do this early in a training, we hope it sets the tone for active engagement throughout the training.  Importantly, Microlabs is built around the idea that the wisdom in the room is more powerful than any one person's way of thinking. When used in a five-day training, participants often focus on collaboration during this protocol; they communicate what has worked for them in the past, and what has not. While this conversation is powerful regardless of any next steps, the training facilitator can drive off of this conversation to provide the par...

A powerful collaborative team can have some initial fun writing Agreements . Teams that embrace collaboration and strive to push one another to add value to impactful conversation typically like the Agreement writing process. Recently, I had a group that embraced one National School Reform Faculty suggestion to have one agreement be "2B4ME." While this may look like a clever personalized license plate, it was this group's fun way to remind themselves to let at least two people speak after they have spoken before speaking again. Groups that can be clever in writing Agreements like this one are having a little fun! That said, no matter how much fun the Agreement writing process is in the first place, finding a way to keep those Agreements on the forefront of everyone's mind - without being repetitive in doing so - can be a challenge...so I hope you will try the following ideas: 1. Challenge Participants to Share their Agreement Successes and Challenges If the facil...

Having always been a person who "plays nicely," it did not bother the "me of 2005" when my principal first asked us to create norms for our collaborative teams. Back then, collaboration was still new and different in my district, and if norms were a part of it, so be it. However, once we were in our groups, negativity ensued. ...and it wasn't the only negativity I would ever experience around collaborative agreements. The key argument against them seems to be "We are adults; we don't need these to keep us on track!" This argument has been raised by at least one person in each school of which I have been fortunate enough to work. That said, if we step back and take a look at what powerful norms or agreements can look like, we - as adults - may have a different perspective. The National School Reform Faculty pitches a variety of powerful "Agreements" as part of its Critical Friends Group trainings. A handful that I find most pow...