Fractals are images of the way things fold, unfold and refold, as they feed back into each other and themselves.

Within the pattern of fractals are similar details on many different scales.

 Snowflakes, clouds and broccoli, ferns and artichokes are everyday examples of fractal scaling.

 Classrooms, schools and districts also display fractal scaling in their values, patterns of interaction and dispositions.       (excerpted from the Adaptive Schools Trainer’s Manual)

How might your use of the Norms of Collaboration replicate in your school, in your PLC, in your team, in your work group? 

Be an engaged participant by practicing Pausing, Paraphrasing and Inquiring during your PLC!  Assess the impact of your intentional use of the Norms on the outcomes of your time collaborating. 

I am excited to announce the formation of a new organization, Thinking Collaborative, that unites Adaptive Schools and Cognitive Coaching under the same leadership. From the Thinking Collaborative web page: http://www.thinkingcollaborative.com/

Thinking Collaborative provides strategies, skills and concepts to help individuals and organizations to maximize their abilities and reach higher levels of success.

Our seminars are a collective of two organizations:
Adaptive Schools® Seminars (formerly The Center for Adaptive Schools) and
Cognitive Coaching Seminars® (formerly The Center for Cognitive Coaching).

Adaptive Schools has updated the 7 Norms of Collaboration.  Norm 3, Posing Questions, combines the previous norms of Probing for Specificity and Putting Inquiry at the Center.  Norm 5, Providing Data, provides clarity on how to use data to construct shared understanding of our work.

7 Norms of Collaboration

1. Pausing
2. Paraphrasing
3. Posing Questions
4. Putting Ideas on the Table
5. Providing Data
6. Paying Attention to Self and Others
7. Presuming Positive Intentions

For more information, go to  the Adaptive Schools website.

This activity will help build understanding of three of the five Adaptive Schools’ Dynamical Principles:

• Everything influences everything else.
• Tiny events produce major disturbances.
• You don’t have to touch everyone to make a difference.

Directions

• Make a circle
• Look around the room and pick two other people without them knowing you are picking them.
• Remember who you picked.
• Do not let them know that you chose them.  The three of you are now the three vertices of an equilateral triangle.  Every time we move as a group, your job is to form an equilateral triangle with your two selected people.  You may not talk during this activity.
• Start walking when I say go and adjust your position so that you are equidistant from the other points of your triangle.
• Stop when I say stop.  Assess how successful you are.
• We will do this several times.

Processing the Activity

• Once the system is in motion, what happens when one person just stops or moves?
• What happens to the others?
• How were you connected to the others in your triangle?  How did your movement affect the entire system?
• What different systems are you part of?
• What implications does this activity have for your leadership team, school, grade level, PLC team, etc.
• Think of an example of how an action/decision you made had an effect beyond you that you did not anticipate.
• Consider each dynamical principle.  What might your understanding of these principles be now?

How might you individually and collectively use the norms as you begin the new school year?  What impact might they have on you? on staff learning?  on student learning?

How might the three focusing questions – Who are we?  Why are we doing this?  Why are we doing this, this way? – impact the beginning of your school year?

Please post examples of how you are personally and/or organizationally (classroom, teams, departments, PLCs, schools) applying what you have learned in Adaptive Schools.

Please then identify the impacts this application has had on your classroom, team, department, PLC, school, and/or student learning.

Thank you!

As I think about your table Focus Four and the action plans you developed, what might be helping you change your plans into actions? what might be barriers to changing your plans into actions?