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Schools Can Change

A Step-by-Step Change Creation System for Building Innovative Schools and Increasing Student Learning

By: Dale W. Lick, Karl H. Clauset, Carlene U. Murphy

Foreword by Carlene U. Murphy

Working at the grass-roots level, the change-creation system guides teachers and principals in school innovation and improved student learning. Includes a comprehensive collection of practical online resources.

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Product Details

Grade Level: PreK-12
ISBN: 9781412998741
Published By: Corwin
Year: 2012
Page Count: 256
Publication date: November 26, 2012

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Description

Build a dynamic system for change!

From No Child Left Behind to Common Core standards, we are inundated with directives for improving our schools. How can we really create lasting change? By applying the Change Creation system!
The Change Creation system produces a creative, collaborative, nurturing school environment—and you can make it happen. The authors use what they have learned over two decades of working with schools implementing Whole Faculty Study Groups to make improvements and refinements that create a more streamlined and effective grass-roots system for measurable and sustainable student growth.

Learning community pioneers Dale Lick, Karl Clauset, and Carlene Murphy show teachers, principals, and schools how to:

Develop the right vision, relationships, and culture to create and sustain change
Create communication networks for sharing that work
Model learning-inquiry cycles for action teams for success
Build loyalty, trust, and responsibility within your teams and across the school

With a free, comprehensive online collection of practical resources including templates, checklists and action team assessment forms, Schools Can Change will become your keystone for school innovation and improved student learning.

"Far too many good initiatives fall short due to lack of planning and exclusion of important stakeholders. The authors tell us how to build a sustainable culture over time. They don't pretend that it is easy, but give the educator confidence that it can be done."
—Eddie Ingram, Superintendent
Franklin County Schools, Louisburg, NC

"This is the most comprehensive book on the topic of school change ever written. The suggested practices and strategies at various stages create a comprehensive, meaningful text. This book helps us gain practical wisdom at all levels in our districts and schools."
—Lyne Ssebikindu, Assistant Principal
Crump Elementary School, Cordova, TN

Key features

1. Built around step-by-step practical 'change creation' approach, beyond anything available today, to build systems with learning teams to generate improvement innovations and to change the culture appropriately for sustaining school successes and student learning achievements.

2. Based on more than two decades of success with the Whole Faculty Study Group approach to professional learning.

3. Free access to a valuable online collection of accompanying practical resources including templates, checklists,action team assessment forms, and an action team rubric.

Author(s)

Dale W. Lick

Dale W. Lick is President and Professor Emeritus at Florida State University, a former President of Georgia Southern University, University of Maine, and Florida State University, and, most recently, a University Professor at Florida State University, where he did research in the Learning Systems Institute and taught and directed doctoral students in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, and worked on educational and organizational projects involving transformational leadership, change creation, learning organizations, distance learning, school improvement, enhanced student performance, educational technology, new learning systems, strategic planning, and visioning.

Included in over 50 national and international biographical listings, Dr. Lick is the author or co-author of eight books and more than 100 professional articles, chapters and proceedings, and 285 original newspaper columns. His recent books are: Whole-Faculty Study Groups: A Powerful Way to Change Schools and Enhance Learning, 1998; Whole-Faculty Study Groups: Creating Student-Based Professional Development, 2001; Whole-Faculty Study Groups: Creating Professional Learning Communities That Target Student Learning, 2005; and The Whole-Faculty Study Groups Fieldbook: Lessens Learned and Best Practices From Classrooms, Districts, and Schools, 2007, all with Carlene U. Murphy, Corwin Press; Schoolwide Action Research for Professional Learning Communities: Improving Student Learning Through The Whole-Faculty Study Groups Approach, 2008, and Schools Can Change: A Step-By-Step Change Creation System for Building Innovative Schools and Increasing Student Learning, 2012, with Karl H. Clauset and Carlene U. Murphy, Corwin Press; and New Directions in Mentoring: Creating a Culture of Synergy, 1999, with Carol A. Mullen, Falmer Press (London), 1999.

Dr. Lick received B.S and M.S. degrees from Michigan State University, and a Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Riverside, all in Mathematics, and has three levels of certification in Leading and Managing Change from Conner Partners, Atlanta, GA. His alma maters have honored him with the Michigan State University 2006 Distinguished Alumni Award, and, on its 40th Anniversary in 1994, the University of California, Riverside, with the designation as One of 40 Alumni Who Make a Difference.

Karl H. Clauset

Learn more about Karl Clauset's PD offerings

Karl H. Clauset is director of the National WFSG Center. He is an experienced school improvement coach and Whole-Faculty Study Group® trainer. Since 1999 he has helped more than ninety elementary, middle and high schools launch WFSG and has supported the schools through the implementation phase. He was the lead author, with Dale Lick and Carlene Murphy, for Schoolwide Action Research for Professional Learning Communities: Improving Student Learning Through the Whole-Faculty Study Groups Approach (Corwin Press, 2008), which focuses on the collaborative work teacher teams do to improve their teaching and increase student learning. He is also a senior consultant with Focus on Results and works with principals, school leadership teams, and central office staff to help them align and strengthen efforts to improve teaching and learning.

Previously, he worked as a site developer with ATLAS Learning Communities, a nationally recognized school reform program, and in standards-based reform and international education development at the Education Development Center. In his earlier careers in education, he was a teacher and administrator at the Jakarta International School in Indonesia, and taught in secondary schools in Philadelphia, Zambia and Tanzania. He received a national award from ASCD for the outstanding dissertation in supervision for his doctoral dissertation on the dynamics of effective schooling. As a faculty member at the Boston University School of Education, he taught graduate courses in educational policy analysis, organizational analysis, and planning. Before moving to western Washington in 2003, he served as an elected school board member and board chair for six years in his Massachusetts community.

Carlene U. Murphy

Carlene U. Murphy is founder and executive director of the National WFSG Center and the principal developer of the Whole-Faculty Study Groups® system of professional development. In August 2007, she began her 50th year of work in public schools. She started her teaching career in 1957 as a fourth grade teacher in her hometown of Augusta, GA. The next year she moved to Memphis, TN where she taught for 13 years, returning to Augusta in 1972 and retiring from the district in 1993 as its director of staff development. During her 15 years as the district’s chief staff developer, the district received many accolades, including the Award for Outstanding Achievement in Professional Development from the American Association of School Administrators and Georgia’s Outstanding Staff Development Program Award for two consecutive years. She was awarded the National Staff Development Council’s Contributions to Staff Development Award and served as the National Staff Development Council’s chair of the annual national conference in Atlanta in 1986, president in 1988, and board member from 1984 to 1990. The friendships she formed and cemented during the over thirty years of her close relationship with NSDC were life-changing.

After retiring from the Augusta, Georgia schools, she has worked with schools throughout the United States implementing Whole-Faculty Study Groups. She has written extensively about her work in Educational Leadership and Journal of Staff Development and has written with Dale Lick two other books about the WFSG system: Whole-Faculty Study Groups: Creating Professional Learning Communities That Target Student Learning, Corwin Press, 2005; and The Whole-Faculty Study Groups Fieldbook: Lessons Learned and Best Practices from Classrooms, Districts, and Schools (co-editor), 2007. Another book with Karl Clauset and Dale Lick, Schoolwide Action Research for Professional Learning Communities: Improving Student Learning Through the Whole-Faculty Study Groups Approach (Corwin Press, 2008), focuses on the work of study groups and gives descriptive data from schools implementing WFSG.

She now lives on a small horse farm just outside of Augusta in a four generational home, which includes her husband, Joe, daughter, three grandchildren and a great-granddaughter. Even with all the activities in such a home, she still finds time to write about her work, correspond with colleagues and read about the latest developments in education.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables

Online Resources

Foreword

Preface

Purpose and Need

Who Should Read and Use This Book?

Organization and Contents

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

1. The Change Creation System

School Improvement

School Reforms

The Roots of the Change Creation System

No Silver Bullet, One Brick at a Time

Standards for Professional Learning and Practice

The Change Creation System

Summary

Part I. Fundamentals of Effectiveness

2. Fundamentals of Effectiveness for School Improvement

Understanding the Culture

Culture of Discipline

Culture of Change Creation

Culture of Relationships and Collaboration

Culture of Transformational Leadership

Cultural Change

Summary

3. Fundamentals of Vision and Successful Change

Vision

Change

Success and Failure of Change

Effective Sponsorship in Schools

Change and Resistance in Schools

Universal Change Principle for Schools

Summary

4. Fundamentals for Creating Learning Teams and Professional Learning Communities

Collaboration and Teamwork

Action Teams and Professional Learning Communities

Authentic Teams and Synergy

Comentoring Teams

Learning Teams

Professional Learning Communities

Summary

Part II. The Process of the Change Creation System

5. Introducing the Decision-Making Cycle

Action Teams Decision-Making Cycle

Preparing to Start the Decision-Making Cycle

Summary

6. Identifying Student Learning Needs and Forming Action Teams

Student Learning Needs That Action Teams Address

How to Identify Student Learning Needs

Form Action Teams and Select Student Needs to Address

Selecting Student Needs to Address

Support for Identifying Student Needs and Forming Action Teams

Summary

7. Introducing Action Teams

Action Teams in the Change Creation System

The Work of Action Teams

Purposes of Action Teams

Action Team Principles

Action Team Process Guidelines

Effective Action Team Meetings

Action Teams as a Bundle of Changes

Summary

8. Support for Action Teams

Keep the Focus on Student Learning

Protect Time for Action Team Meetings

Establish Routines

Provide Regular, Frequent, and Constructive Feedback to Action Teams

Understand the Developmental Stages of Action Teams

Help Struggling Teams Move Forward

Develop Communication Networks and Strategies to Share Action Teams' Work and Results

Form Administrator Action Teams

Summary

9. Creating Team Action Plans

Team Action Plan

Creating Team Action Plans

Support for Action Teams on Their Team Action Plans and Logs

Summary

10. Implementing Learning and Inquiry Cycles for Innovation and Improving Student Learning: Parts 1 and 2

Implementing Learning and Inquiry Cycles

Supporting Learning and Inquiry Cycles for Innovation and Student Learning

Summary

11. Implementing Learning and Inquiry Cycles for Innovation and Improving Student Learning: Parts 3 and 4

Implementing Learning and Inquiry Cycles

Supporting Learning and Inquiry Cycles for Innovation and Student Learning

Summary

12. Assessing the Impact of Action Teams and Sharing Results and Best Practices

Assessing the Impact of Action Teams on Teacher Practice and Student Learning

Sharing Results and Best Practices and Applying Lessons Learned

Repeating the Decision-Making Cycle Each Year

Supporting Assessing the Impact of Action Teams and Sharing Results and Best Practices

Summary

Epilogue

References

Index

Reviews

"The Change Creation System is an empowerment of professional educators who want to meet the learning needs of their students and inform their own practice. Finally, a call to reform by a collaboration of school professionals who develop best practice for the students in their own schools. This is an informed work that provides a step by step process for school wide renewal and individual professional development as it appeals to the best that is within us and students."

Sherry Markel, Professor, Teacher Education
Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ

"This book will become an essential resource to school districts as they continue to develop capacity to lead students and staff to greater levels of effectiveness. This book will take all of us from where we are and move us to make greater differences for our students."

Claudia Thompson, Academic Officer, Learning and Teaching
Peninsula School District, Gig Harbor, WA

"In a changing world, our schools must change, but far too often administrators do not know how to make the changes necessary to keep up with the rapidly developing world. This book offers a wealth of resources, practical experience and a direct model for how to change to meet the needs of learners. This book is a "must read" for any administrator who wants to make a long-lasting impact on the learning outcomes in his or her school."

Renee Peoples, Teacher
Swain West Elementary, Bryson City, NC

"This is the most comprehensive book on the topic of school change ever written. The suggested practices and strategies at various stages create a comprehensive, meaningful text. This book helps us gain practical wisdom at all levels in our districts and schools."

Lyne Ssebikindu, Assistant Principal
Crump Elementary School, Cordova, TN

"If school communities are looking for a comprehensive road map for school improvement, they will not find anything more comprehensive. The authors not only set out a plan on how to get to where you need to go, but they identify every small pothole that you will encounter, and which can sometimes derail school improvement. This book in two words—comprehensive, authentic."

Neil MacNeill, Headmaster
Ellenbrook Independent Primary School, Ellenbrook, WA Australia

"This text should be required reading for all future principals and found on the desk of all current school leaders. Promoting school improvement in teaching, learning and student performance is the leaders mantra today. The process of change in schools is complex, however this step-by-step manual provides leaders with the tools they need to improve academic performance. It is comprehensive and rich in detail but more importantly, it provides the roadmap and details for success."

Harriet Gould, Adjunct Professor
Concordia University, Lincoln, NE

"The authors' work with the change creation system is significant. Far too many good initiatives fall short or are abandoned due to lack of planning and exclusion of important stakeholders. Lick, Clauset and Murphy, in a very matter of fact style, tell us of the consequences of change, the time involved, and how to build a sustainable culture over time. They don’t pretend that it is easy, but give the educator confidence that it can be done."

Eddie Ingram, Superintendent
Franklin County Schools, Louisburg, NC

"Our school has used the Whole Faculty Study Groups for the past decade, and this book updates the model with relevance to the current changes happening in public education. For schools or districts looking to improve their current delivery of professional development, Schools Can Change is a proven system that works!"

David Wilm, Principal
Matthews Middle School, Island Lake, IL

"Schools Can Change is like a good novel that you can’t put down, one in which you want to go over the key parts again and again. It is full of sound advice and a very good cross section of proven practices on educational change. We look forward to using a number of the suggested strategies with our staffs in the years to come."

Don Boyd and Jessica Antosz, Principals
Ballenas Secondary School and Nanoose Bay Elementary School, British Columbia

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Related Resources

Access to companion resources is available with the purchase of this book.

Other Titles in: Staff Development & Professional Learning | Professional Learning Communities | School Change, Reform, & Restructuring