exert concentrated effort, and persist in collective action leading to improved performance for the group and their students (Goddard, Hoy, & Woolfolk Hoy, 2000). In these groups, members believe in the power of the group to make a difference for students. They recognize that their individual choices, both in the meeting room and in their classrooms, affect everyone. Thus, they willingly invest their time and energy, setting aside personal agendas to support the group’s work and its development.
Drawing on Feedback
High-performing groups draw on internal and external sources, or feedback, to monitor and modify their performance. Feedback is information to the system. Developing groups use multiple types of feedback to modify, control, or change their products and performance. In the absence of feedback, groups stagnate. Valuing and applying the insights that emerge from well-constructed feedback is both an essential disposition and a learned skill for thoughtful group members and thoughtful groups.
Effective feedback both maintains and amplifies high performance. Maintaining feedback reinforces established parameters, such as learning standards. Amplifying feedback increases desired behaviors so that they spread throughout the system. For example, skillful groups use student performance data to determine whether and which students are meeting established standards, so they can continue to achieve these same results. They might then use the same data to determine where and how to transfer effective practices to increase success in other areas and for other students.
To assess, maintain, and amplify the seven qualities, a group requires specific feedback mechanisms. The following tables are two such instruments. Table 1.2 provides group questions to measure and maintain a group’s present feedback practices. Table 1.3 (page 16) provides self-assessment questions that stimulate deep reflection about personal choices and behaviors to amplify feedback. The essential questions in each table will help groups and group members understand who they are in light of who they want to be. (See pages 21–23 for reproducible versions of these tables.)
Table 1.2: Seven Qualities of High-Performing Groups—Scaled Group Inventory
| Quality | Questions for Groups | Scale: 1–4 (Rarely to Always) |
| Maintain a clear focus. | Are we clear about our desired results in both the short and long term? | |
| Do we have clear and shared criteria for determining success? | ||
| Do we have strategies for getting back on track if focus is lost? | ||
| Embrace a spirit of inquiry. | Do we ask questions for which we have no immediate answers? | |
| Do we search for and honor other perspectives? | ||
| Are we willing to ask questions that might cause discomfort? | ||
| Put data at the center. | Do we use data to calibrate and inform our conversations? | |
| Do we use multiple types and sources of data to add to our thinking? | ||
| Do we have methods for ensuring shared understanding? | ||
| Honor commitments to learners and learning. | Are our conversations student centered? | |
| Do we continually assess our current learning goals (for students and for ourselves as a group)? | ||
| Do we set meaningful goals for our own learning as a group? | ||
| Cultivate relational trust. | Do we clarify and communicate high expectations for ourselves as a group? | |
| Do we make it safe not to know? | ||
| Do our actions reflect our commitments? | ||
| Seek equity. | Do we use structures and protocols to ensure balanced participation? | |
| Do all group members have an equal voice? | ||
| Do we challenge our own preferences and judgments in order to consider other ideas? | ||
| Assume collective responsibility. | Do we believe that our collective action makes a greater difference for student learning than our individual efforts? | |
| Are we willing to be answerable for the choices we are making? | ||
| Do we push past good enough to continually challenge ourselves? |
Table 1.3: Seven Qualities of High-Performing Groups—Self-Assessment Inventory
| Quality | Questions for Individual Group Members | Comments |
| Maintain a clear focus. | Am I clear about our purpose? | |
| Is this comment or contribution contributing to our purpose? (Do I really need to say this?) | ||
| Should refocus the group at this point? | ||
| Embrace a spirit of inquiry. | Am asking questions to which have an answer? | |
| Am open to the influence of others’ perspectives? | ||
| What might be avoiding or leaving out? | ||
| Put data at the center. | How do these data influence my thinking and comments? | |
| What other sources might add to our thinking? | ||
| What don’t I understand at this point? | ||
| Honor commitments to learners and learning. | How do keep learning as the priority? | |
| In what ways am achieving my current goals in my classroom and with my group? | ||
| What new goals might set for my own learning? | ||
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