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Source: U.S. Navy, 2005. In public domain.
Figure I.1: FOD walk being conducted on board an aircraft carrier.
As seen here, FOD walks require all members of a ship’s crew to work together to identify and resolve potential problems.
Consider another example of the power of continual data collection and monitoring. Studies show that daily weigh-ins help individuals lose weight and keep it off (for example, see Linde, Jeffery, French, Pronk, & Boyle, 2005, and Wing, Tate, Gorin, Raynor, & Fava, 2006). Each time someone steps on the scale, that person collects a data point that shows whether he or she is moving toward or away from the target. If data show that he or she is not moving toward or maintaining the goal, he or she can take steps to minimize the impact of errors (such as eating less at meals or snacking less frequently).
In the same way that aircraft carrier crews walk along the flight deck or a dieter steps on the scale every day, so too must teachers and administrators monitor the reliability of their school even after they have achieved high reliability status at a specific level. Such work can be accomplished through quick data, problem prevention and celebration of success, and level-appropriate data collection.
Quick Data
Monitoring can be done quite efficiently through the use of quick data—information that can be collected quickly and easily within a short span of time. In the following chapters, we describe how schools can collect quick data about indicators for each level. Once a school has achieved high reliability status for a given level, its leaders can generate quick data on any topic, even if that topic is an area of strength for the school (as indicated by initial survey results). Quick data are meant to be used to monitor the pulse of a school regarding a particular level of performance. Therefore, a school should focus its quick data collection on indicators that will best help it monitor fluctuations in performance at a particular level of high reliability status. There are three types of quick data: (1) quick conversations, (2) quick observations, and (3) easy-to-collect quantitative data.
Quick Conversations
As the name implies, quick conversations are brief discussions that occur between teachers charged with collecting quick data and various members of a school community. For example, questions such as “How safe has our school been lately?” might be designed around leading indicators 1.1 and 1.2, which deal with safety (see chapter 1). Similarly, questions could be designed for leading indicator 1.3, which deals with teachers’ having a voice in school decisions (see chapter 1), by asking, “Recently, to what extent have teachers had roles in making important decisions regarding the school?” One or more of these questions would be asked of teachers, students, and parents over a short interval of time (for example, during a specific week).
Members of collaborative teams within a PLC are perfect candidates for quick conversations. For example, consider a school that designs or selects (from the lists of questions in chapters 1 through 5) questions every month for each high reliability level it has already achieved. One or more members selected from a collaborative team are then invited to ask these questions of teachers, students, or community members (whichever groups are appropriate) and engage in five to ten quick conversations with appropriate members of the school community. These conversations last only a few minutes and occur with those school community members who are readily available. Immediately after each interaction, the teacher asking the questions codes each answer using a scale like the following:
Excellent—The answer indicates that the respondent believes the school is performing above what would normally be expected for this issue.
Adequate—The answer indicates that the respondent believes there are no major problems relative to this issue.
Unsatisfactory—The answer indicates that the respondent believes there are major problems that should be addressed relative to this issue.
The teacher asking the questions records the responses on a form such as that in figure I.2.
Figure I.2: Sample quick conversations response form.
Visit MarzanoResources.com/reproducibles/leadership to download a reproducible version of this form.
Notice that the collaborative team member who initiated the quick conversation has recorded the respondent’s role (teacher), the questions asked, the code assigned to each response (adequate for question 1, unsatisfactory for question 2), and any pertinent notes from the conversation.
At the end of the month, the team aggregates the responses, as depicted in figure I.3.
Figure I.3: Aggregated quick conversation responses.
Visual representations of data, such as those in figure I.3, allow school leaders to quickly identify problems, take steps to mitigate their effects, and resolve unsatisfactory situations. Here, school leaders might decide to reexamine the processes in place to collect information about teachers’ opinions. Additionally, graphs like these give members of the school community a quick look at areas where the school is excelling and allow for celebrations of success.
Quick Observations
Like quick conversations, quick observations are made by teachers from collaborative teams. As the name implies, quick observations are specific events teachers look for. For example, for the first two leading indicators at level 1, teachers could be asked to observe recent incidents that indicate the following:
• The school is a safe place.
• The school is an unsafe place.
• The school is an orderly place.
• The school is not an orderly place.
School leaders could also design observation prompts from their school’s lagging indicators. Quick observation data would be collected anecdotally. Table I.4 shows one collaborative team member’s anecdotal notes about incidents observed over the course of a week.
Table I.4: Anecdotal Notes for Quick Observations
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