RSA2: Creating a Results Orientation in a Professional Community

When professionals collaborate to develop common goals and a means of achieving those goals, they must consider what will make these goals successful. By creating goals that are strategic, measurable, attainable, results oriented and time specific (SMART) teams not only create consistency among many different educators but maintain clarity across educational settings (DuFour, p. 158). These goals will not have a sole focus on the end criteria, but also what it takes to get there. Assessment schedules to identify high achievers that need more challenges or strugglers that require further support can be recognized and provided with the appropriate interventions and the results of the target can be reached. Also, by implementing SMART goals, educators will be able to develop meaningful and powerful instructional strategies that enhance student learning. Data collection will then be more thorough and become “information that can improve teaching and learning” (184).

In “Gaining Grounds in the Middle Grades: Why Some Schools Do Better”, 303 middle schools displaying various differences in California participated in large-scale surveys to establish what particular practices and policies improve academic outcomes (Education Digest, 2010 p. 14). One of the findings proved that teachers in a middle school who collectively worked together and then individually in their own classrooms on shared missions created a successful learning environment and better prepared their students for high school (p. 18). The article stated “schools serving similar student populations can vary widely in how well their students perform. This study shows that, although the socioeconomic backgrounds of students are one strong predictor of school-level academic achievement, the practices and policies enacted by educators also have a significant relationship with outcomes” (p.18). Educators who collaborate in order to develop a common goal or mission can improve the educational experience for their students in the present and in their future. As a special education teacher, I work closely with our program's speech pathologist to provide ongoing communication instruction across the curriculum. I can often provide her with reports on student progress in a more natural setting than a speech therapy session and she can provide me with ways to work on improving student success in speech. We develop goals together that are beneficial for the students and something that we both understand how to implement.

The idea that professionals working together on specific outcomes and establishing common expectations for their students despite differences in subject matter, grade level, learning needs, etc., is proven to benefit all participants in the learning community. Providing consistency in teaching methods, assessments and instructional delivery and focusing on successful results continues the precision intended by SMART goals developed by educational teams.


References

DuFour, R., DuFour, R., Eaker, R., & Many, T. (2010). Chapter 3, 4 and 5. In Learning by Doing

(pp. 59-154). Bloomington, Indiana: Solution Tree Press.

Gaining ground in middle grades: Why some schools do better. (2010, October). Education

Digest, 76(2), 14-18. Retrieved from http://www.eddigest.com/index.php