The Adaptive School: A Sourcebook for Developing Collaborative Groups

by Robert J. Garmston, Bruce M. Wellman

Overview

This 3rd edition of the award winning Adaptive Schools Sourcebook provides both a theoretical and practical guide for groups and teams to develop and focus their collaborative energies to improve teaching practices and enhance student-learning outcomes.

In five sections: Becoming Adaptive, Collaboration Matters, Meetings are Teachers’ Work, Resources for Inquiry, and Conflict, Change and Community, the authors draw on decades of personal experiences in schools and research from multiple disciplines to present powerful tools and useful templates for structuring the work of productive professional communities in schools.

Readers will learn ways to develop and sustain the fundamental elements for enhancing social capital in schools: distinguishing between dialogue and discussion, establishing seven norms of collaboration, automating language patterns for inquiry and problem solving, facilitating groups and data teams, engaging in productive conflict, and building community. The book offers links to video clips demonstrating key skills, inventories for assessing groups, instruments for assessing personal skills, and a collection of over 150 meeting strategies and facilitator moves for engaging group members in productive interactions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442223639
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	08/30/2016
Series:	Christopher-Gordon New Editions Series
Edition description:	Third Edition
Pages:	358
Sales rank:	444,025
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Robert J. Garmston presents to educators and managers throughout the United States as well as in Canada, Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East and South America. Emeritus Professor of Educational Administration at California State University, Sacramento, Bob has previously been a classroom teacher, principal, director of instruction and acting superintendent. Co-Developer of Cognitive Coaching with Dr. Arthur Costa and co-founder of the Center for Adaptive Schools with Bruce Wellman, www.thinkingcollaborative.com, his work has been translated into Arabic, Hebrew, Italian and Spanish. He is director of Facilitation Associates, a consulting firm specializing in leadership, learning, personal and organizational development.

Bruce M. Wellman, Co-Director Miravia LLV, has served as a classroom teacher, curriculum coordinator, and staff developer in Oberlin, Ohio, and Concord, Massachusetts, public schools. He consults with school systems and professional groups and organizations throughout North America, presenting workshops and courses for teachers and administrators on the patterns and practices of learning-focused classrooms, learning-focused conversations for supervisors and mentors, presentation skills, and facilitating and developing collaborative groups.

Table of Contents

Preface
Part I: Adaptivity
Chapter 1: The Context
Chapter 2: What is an Adaptive School?
Part II Collaboration Matters
Chapter 3: The Importance of Professional Community
Chapter 4: Developing Collaborative Norms
Chapter 5: Two Ways of Talking That Make a Difference for Student Learning
Part III: Meetings are Teachers’ Work
Chapter 6: Well Run Meetings Enchance Social Capital
Chapter 7: Save Time With Smart Agendas
Chapter 8: The Confident and Skilled Faciliator
Part IV: Resources for Inquiry
Chapter 9: Developing Groups: Six Domains of Maturity
Chapter 10: Developing Groups for Sustainable Change
Chapter 11: Facilitating Data Teams
Part V: Conflict, Change and Communty
Chapter 12: Constructive Conflict
Chapter 13: Capacities for School Change
Chapter 14: Community Doesn’t Just Happen
References
Appendices

Editorial Reviews

Whether or not you’ve seen or read The Theory of Everything, this is 'The Practice of Everything' in educational change. In this magnum opus, two living legends of coaching, mentoring and consulting show us the bold designs and build the bricks and mortar of adaptive change. Adaptive change, they demonstrate brilliantly, is incremental and disruptive, involves loss and growth, must be viewed from the balcony and on the dance floor — and is remarkably complex and incredibly simple all at the same time. Read. Think. And be inspired to act.

Andy Hargreaves

In this timely Third Edition of their important ground-breaking book on Adaptive Schools, Garmston and Wellman have incorporated new research and recent experience on leadership and organizational development to flesh out with concrete and practical guidance how an adaptive school, teacher, principal and administrator can successfully navigate through the constant, rapid change and future uncertainty which is our new normal. If we are going to prepare young people to be successful in this reality, we ourselves have to learn and practice the skills for acting adaptively and for creating schools, human systems as they are, that can survive and thrive under these conditions. This revised edition is a powerful but not hostile counterweight to the push toward measurement and short-term accountability that threatens to suck the life out of individuals, organizations, communities and, yes, schools where inspiring lifelong learning and capacities for adaptation has to be the most important goal.

Marty Linsky

Through The Adaptive Schools Sourcebook, Garmston and Wellman develop the language and structures of the learning organization in a choreography of collaboration, diversity, and energy. The book provides school leaders with tools, strategies and conditions for a responsive mindset, setting the stage for perpetual growth, innovation and a capacity to thrive. This sourcebook makes sense of the ever-changing landscape and complexity of our schools as we work to access the limitless power of learning.

Michael Webb