Collaborative Team Response with Kurtis Hewson, ep. 293

Collaborative Team Response with Kurtis Hewson, ep. 293, Instructional Coaching with Ms. B Podcast

Chrissy (00:01.208)

Hey coach and welcome to Instructional Coaching with Miss B. Today we are talking about collaborative team response with Curtis Hewson. Curtis is a great guest. He’s been on this podcast before. He’s a highly sought after keynote speaker, author and professional learning facilitator. He’s the co-founder of Jigsaw Learning and currently works with districts and schools nationally and internationally establishing a school-wide approach called collaborative response, having opportunities to interact with thousands of educators annually.

I invited Curtis because I thought this would be a good fit for our staff development, learning opportunities for teachers, even though it’s not your traditional PD or PLC meeting. Our teachers don’t spend enough time learning from each other. And so making this process a part of your regular school systems, I think could go a long way for encouraging collaboration, conversation, and learning from each other, really developing the capacity in teachers to become experts in their own classroom and make those decisions.

So this is a great process. I’m so excited to share with you about it today. I actually have some PD tools for you that will be great in kind of adding some spice and joy to the work that you’re doing with teachers. If you go to buzzingwithmissb.com and episode, today’s episode, buzzingwithmissb.com slash episode 293, you can grab the free PD tools in the show notes of this episode.

so you get a bunch of different resources to help you create powerful professional development for your teachers, all right to your inbox, and that’s free. So check that out today for sure, and let’s welcome Chris.

Chrissy (00:01.336)

Thank you so much for being here today, Curtis, and welcome.

Kurtis Hewson (00:03.377)

thanks so much. It’s a pleasure being back on with you, Chrissy.

Chrissy (00:07.488)

Awesome. I am really excited to get into this topic of your collaborative team meeting structures and how this actually is staff development, how this actually supports teachers in their practice. So can you give us kind of a run through of the structure of a collaborative team meeting?

Kurtis Hewson (00:23.685)

Yeah, so Chrissy, think it’s important to understand that the collaborative team meeting is not the be all end all in schools. And sometimes we’ll have schools that say, well, we do PLC meetings over here. Should we stop doing those and start doing collaborative team meetings? And my response is no, we wanna see four layers of collaboration that happen in every school with the collaborative team being one. So if we think about this as aligning with tiers of support in our school,

Our foundational layer is the PLC work or I work with some schools where we call it collaborative planning or it may not follow DoFOR’s traditional PLC model, but it’s essentially we’re meeting together to discuss instruction and what we’re doing to support all students. And then at the other end of this spectrum, we have what we call our school support team meetings where we want to come together and look at who are the students who need support beyond the classroom. And then there’s always a time, and you know this from in schools where

There are times where we have to bring the right people around the table for the, we call them case consult, but the idea of anytime there’s one student on the agenda, it falls into that layer. So understanding these different layers, and I’ll share some resources with your audience here as we get going to help understand, to then really position and understand that the collaborative team meeting is about utilizing an issue that we’re experiencing for a student to then engage in a conversation about practice.

I often say it looks like we’re talking about students or kiddos in the collaborative team meeting, but really we’re just using them to leverage a conversation around a key issue. So the process that we use is really, really important and I’d love to break that down for you because it has tremendous impact for us within a school.

Chrissy (02:13.784)

Yes, that would be great. And I love that you explain kind of how it’s situated within the school structure of professional learning and engagement with other educators. So I think that’s great. And the idea of like using that specific case, it’s like a problem of practice kind of. This is an issue that we see in this one case, but it’s going to open up conversation that we see in other classrooms too.

Kurtis Hewson (02:34.104)

my goodness. And this is where from a coaching standpoint, people get so excited hearing this because it can be a really hard conversation if you say, Curtis, who would you like to talk about? And I’d say, I’d like to talk about Darcy. And now let me tell you everything I’ve done for Darcy, everything I’ve tried. Someone suggests something and I go, no, I’ve tried that. That wouldn’t work here. Let me tell you more about Darcy. And I think we’ve all been in those conversations. What the collaborative team meeting does is we flip it through two really

Chrissy (02:38.22)

Right.

Kurtis Hewson (03:03.532)

intentional and purposeful processes. So the first is being able to come in and of course having solid meeting structures like do we know who’s facilitating, who’s taking notes, who’s our timekeeper, do we have norms established that we can look at, do we have a predictable agenda that we work through and then we want to start with all right let’s start with celebrations and Chrissy who’s a student that you’ve brought and as quickly as possible share what’s a celebration that you’re seeing.

This celebration portion is so critical because of the question that I’m going to ask as a follow-up. So when you say, you know, I have Tanisha and I am so excited with the growth that I’ve seen in her class, she’s moved up three reading levels since the last time we met. Now, the critical question that we want to ask in that meeting is, great, what do you think you did that led to that success?

Let’s get really focused. I was just in a meeting this morning, actually a collaborative team meeting where someone had said the student’s engagement has just increased so much. And my response back is, what do you think you did that led to that engagement? And the person said, you know, I’ve been bringing in different reading materials that we’ve been utilizing. And I actually have the student select what are some areas of interest and then we find reading connected to it. And I said,

That sounds awesome. Tell me about exactly what that looked like in one of your latest classes. So what we’re trying to do is for the others in the room to hear me break down something that I believe is having success for the student and I’m sharing the specific strategies. Now someone else in the room might pop in and say, you know, Curtis, I also noticed that you do this really effectively as well. And I think that’s having impact. So it’s not just validating the person that

I feel good because I see a success for a student that I’m directly attributing to, but I’m sharing those strategies and someone in the room might go, connecting it to personal stories from the students. That’s an interesting idea. That’s something I could try. It’s really starting the process of unlocking toolboxes, which is what we’re trying to do in this collaborative team meeting.

Chrissy (05:18.178)

Yes, I love that. So then the first piece of your meeting in terms of structure is that celebration. Okay.

Kurtis Hewson (05:22.309)

Yeah, so let’s say we had a 60 minute meeting. We take 10 minutes to celebrate and get real specific. Now in time, these celebrations are not just off the top of my head. It’s based on the data. When I reviewed it, this is what I saw. And when someone says the kids just had a turnaround, it’s been a miracle, then we want a facilitator in the room that says, awesome, what do you think you did that led to that miracle? Well, the parents got more engaged. Great. What do you think you did that led to the parents getting more engaged?

Chrissy (05:44.696)

Yeah. Yeah.

Chrissy (05:50.978)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we need to get down to the teacher action because that’s what can be replicated in other rooms.

Kurtis Hewson (05:52.207)

So getting really particular.

Kurtis Hewson (05:56.646)

Yes, 100%. And then what we move to is the absolute game changer. Let me describe what this looks like. So I say, Chrissy, I know you have a student in mind. Don’t say their name yet. And this is why we want people to come ready with a pre-meeting organizer. And I’m going to share a resource with you after that has all these different templates that you can use. And so I know you have a student in mind, Chrissy, but don’t share their name yet. In eight words or less, what are you seeing as a key issue?

Now this takes a little bit of practice, a little bit of time, sometimes some coaching from a facilitator, but we want for you to be able to identify what’s one thing that I’m seeing as a concern. So when you say, you know, I’m really concerned with on-task stamina. And I might say, describe what that looks like to me so that everyone in the room understands what we’re talking about. And usually in a collaborative team meeting, we say, it’s usually five to 10 people in the room.

Not just teachers, we want our coaches in that conversation. As an administrator, I always wanted to be in this because of what I learned about instructional practices that was happening and things I could suggest. And so when you say, and you describe, know, it’s when the kid starts working independently, they’re easily distracted after two minutes. Two minutes is about all of the attention that I can get. So we go, okay. So to paraphrase, on-task stamina,

when working independently. Have I got it? Yep. Okay, now I’m going to turn to everyone else in the room and say, okay, everyone think of your class or think of your subject that you’re teaching or your classes and write down the name of a student where you’re also seeing that for. And when someone says, yeah, all of my grade eights, can write all of them are having difficulty with that. Then we say, well, just put one student in mind. And then

Take a moment and let’s just all jot down what are some things that we can do or that we do do to help with on task stamina. Okay, we give a few minutes. I like doing this kind of quiet pause because it gives everyone a chance to just prepare for what’s gonna happen next and to get some ideas down. And if I’m facilitating, I’m looking to see who’s jotting some things down. I noticed that Mr. Woodward who…

Kurtis Hewson (08:18.795)

Sometimes struggles with coming up with ideas. They’re writing some things out I’m actually gonna go to them first for the next part where we say alright everyone Start sharing out. What could you do or what do you do? And mr. Woodward? Can you start us off? What’s one one thing that you’ve tried and he says well, I use a visual Timer in my classroom for this now, even though if there’s someone in the room that goes I’ve tried that and it doesn’t work. We don’t allow that to come out Here for us in the conversation

We just, all right, a visual timer is a possibility. And then we just keep turning to each other and saying, you know, I used to use a visual timer, but I found it more effective to have individual sand timers on kids’ desks to be able to work with. And then you jump in and say, I found this website that has some great resources for being able to chunk assignments or activities into smaller checks. And someone else jumps and says,

I go with my class and I identify what step one, step two, step three to complete this task. And then I go and assist the students who I know will have trouble getting started with step one. And someone else says, you know, I do something like that, but I have the kids talk to each other about what they’re gonna do for step one first. And this is where an instructional coach can be jumping in with, here’s another strategy that might be something that we could utilize. Have you ever heard of this? And when someone goes, no.

Chrissy (09:41.773)

Yeah.

Kurtis Hewson (09:44.377)

Okay, let me describe what this strategy looks like. So what we’re doing is…

Chrissy (09:46.7)

Yes. Or, you know, I was in so-and-so’s room and I saw them do this. Right? Highlighting. Yeah.

Kurtis Hewson (09:50.566)

Yes, can you explain us what that looks like? Or if that person’s not in the room, I’m still gonna share it for them. actually, Chrissy, we call this in our work, distributive coaching, because the idea is the expertise doesn’t lie with just one person in the collaborative team meeting. It may be the role of the instructional coach to be, know of a teacher who does this really well, how can I connect you with that person?

Chrissy (09:56.862)

Mm-hmm, right. Mm-hmm.

Chrissy (10:19.66)

Yes, I love that role. That’s like my favorite role.

Kurtis Hewson (10:19.685)

So we do this, yeah, and we set a timer. We set a timer and we come up with these ideas. And then we come back and say, right, Miss Chrissy, who’s the student that you’re thinking of, just the name, and what’s one thing you’d like to try for this? And you say, you know, I really like Mr. Woodward’s idea of a visual timer. I’m gonna try that in my classroom. And then we say, okay, do you need any help with that? No, I’m feeling pretty confident.

Okay, now let’s go to the next teacher. Who’s the student you had in mind for this issue? Just the name. And what’s one thing that you want to try? Now the beauty of this is we are actualizing UDL by saying, I want to try a visual timer for Darcy, but I know that that visual timer is going to help lots of others within the room. But you’ll notice in this, A, nowhere in there did we get into the story of Darcy.

Chrissy (10:53.688)

Mm-hmm.

Kurtis Hewson (11:17.561)

or all the things I’ve tried that didn’t work.

Chrissy (11:18.164)

Yes, that is what I love. Yes, the eight minutes or the eight words or less. The I was noticing all the structures you have built in to not be like, well, the problem is, it’s all right since she was in kindergarten or my God, the other day she this and that and you’re just like, my gosh, this is so counterproductive.

Kurtis Hewson (11:33.074)

And the next teacher jumps in and goes, my goodness, her brother was just like that.

Chrissy (11:37.228)

I guess what I was gonna say, I had the brother and the brother, yes. Yes. And that is, it just, I love the way you have all these boundaries that, know, like just give me the name and what you picked, the name and what you picked. I don’t need to hear all the times you’ve tried it already. Obviously you’re not gonna word it this way, but I don’t need to hear about all the times it failed because for somebody it’s gonna be a success. Obviously for somebody it was. So let’s not, we’re not gonna get into the weeds here. We’re gonna focus on what we’re trying to accomplish, which is crowdsourcing this problem.

Kurtis Hewson (11:44.849)

Mm-hmm.

Kurtis Hewson (12:03.365)

Yeah. And the beauty of this is no one in the room is saying, Chrissy, as teacher, here’s all the things you should do. It’s putting the ownership back to the teacher to say, knowing what you know about the student you have in mind, your classroom, the content. What’s one thing that you’d like to try? The beauty of this though, is that as teachers get comfortable and trust the process, and then also trust the people within the room that no one’s judging.

Chrissy (12:12.342)

Yes.

Chrissy (12:18.99)

Yeah.

Kurtis Hewson (12:32.345)

When I raise a key issue and everyone else nods and writes down the name, it’s almost validating that, okay, good. It’s not just me, but we find that people start stretching and trying things they may not have tried. You know, I like that person’s idea of breaking the task down into chunks, but I’m not quite sure what that looks like. And this is now as a coach being able to jump in and say, would you like me to come in and model that for you? Or even better,

Chrissy (12:41.272)

Right.

Chrissy (12:55.33)

Yeah, what does it look like? Yeah.

Kurtis Hewson (13:02.543)

Would you like me to come and free you up so you can go and watch this teacher doing it because they’re really good at this strategy. And this is where we say in the collaborative team meeting, everybody’s an expert, but everyone’s a learner. Everyone has something to contribute, but none of us have this completely figured out what could we do. And so through this process and in a collaborative team meeting, we might get through three or four separate key issue conversations, but

Chrissy (13:05.731)

Yes.

Kurtis Hewson (13:31.814)

You’ll notice it’s impacting a lot of students for it. we’re just, the whole intent is that everyone leaves this conversation just a little bit stronger than when they came in. I’ve heard of a new website I didn’t know of. A teacher that I’ve been teaching with for the last 20 years shares a strategy and I go, that’s interesting. Or you jump and say, I have a great graphic organizer that works.

And I say awesome, I’d love to see a copy of that. Everyone’s getting just a little bit stronger. And so again, through these layers of over time, because of this collaborative teaming, let’s say out of my class, I’ve been referring 10 students for supports beyond the classroom, referring up to our inclusive ed or our special ed, whatever we term that within our school, through this building, man, if I could in six months bring this down to seven rather than 10.

Chrissy (14:18.412)

Yes. Yes.

Kurtis Hewson (14:29.209)

or five, like we’re building our capacity so that over time we see less and less students getting referred to those external supports and the ones that are the ones that absolutely need it.

Chrissy (14:44.194)

Yeah, I was, I actually made a note here that I could see this as being part of the RTI process that it, yeah, yeah. It’s like, you’re, going to first start here with things that are working in other classrooms and then you can progress, you know, as, as needed. But if, if we can figure some things out, like if somebody goes, you know what I’ve been doing, I’ve been doing those phonics lessons we have, you know, that training we got, I actually did it. And they’re like, I should maybe do it. It’s working for you. You know, I mean, the amount of like, go ahead. Yeah.

Kurtis Hewson (14:48.429)

It is 100%.

Kurtis Hewson (15:09.425)

Or I, yeah, I was gonna say, or I tried those phonic lessons and I didn’t, it didn’t quite click for me because after that training, tell me how are you utilizing, like it opens up the space for a conversation about practice.

Chrissy (15:23.382)

Right. Yes. Yes, it’s building that teacher capacity. across the school, you’re saying these are the people who are making things work in their classrooms just right across the hall from you or down the hall. And so you know it’s working somewhere in some way. So let’s talk about the practice. Let’s talk about what it looks like. Let’s build the collegiality. Let’s build the opportunities to go see each other teach and to be. I think the biggest disservice we do to teachers is that they don’t spend enough time in each other’s classrooms.

And this is like such a a great move down that path.

Kurtis Hewson (15:56.454)

Well, and what it really helps us to do is to understand that, yeah, we all have issues that we’re seeing that are getting in the way of student success, but what could we do? It’s creating that, I often say it’s a solutions focused and action oriented approach of, okay, I’ll leave and I’ll commit to one thing that I could try. And then what did I learn through that? And then again, man, I come back to these meetings and…

Chrissy (16:08.6)

Yeah.

Kurtis Hewson (16:24.241)

I tried Chrissy’s idea and it worked. How excited am I to engage in a conversation with them again? And so we often see with these layers of team that I PLC with people I share a similar teaching experience, whether it’s we’re a department team that are meeting regularly or a grade level team or a multi, like a divisional, a K-123 team. But then when we get to the collaborative team meeting, what if we could mix some of those individuals?

Chrissy (16:31.426)

Yeah.

Kurtis Hewson (16:54.117)

to be able to say, right, I was again, just this morning with a high school where they met in departments for their PLC like structures, but then once a month for their collaborative team meetings, they would mix. And when someone says, my key issue is a student coming unprepared to class consistently. And then someone who says, yep, in the cause lab, the cosmetology lab, here’s what I do when that happens. And someone jumps in and says,

In gym when kids aren’t bringing their proper change attire, here’s something that I do In a mathematics classroom. Here’s I’ve got a poster on the door of all the materials that you need when you come in Hearing all of those different ideas and strategies going hmm I always remind the kids what they need. I never thought about putting a poster on the door with the pictures of it I’d love to see what that looks like again. Like you said, we’re just expanding the

capacity and the expertise. And it’s recognizing that inside our school, in most schools, we have centuries of teaching experience. If you add it together, how can we leverage that as effectively as possible? Because you’re right, I don’t often get to see other people teach. I’ve been in schools where people have taught together for 20 years, but have never had the what strategies do you use in your room?

Chrissy (17:50.902)

Yeah.

Chrissy (18:02.67)

Yeah.

Chrissy (18:15.67)

No, it’s wild, but yeah, absolutely. you just mentioned something that I love, which is how relevant this makes the process for different kinds of teachers, for teachers of like really specific classes. Maybe the music teacher in fifth grade has never ever, and often they haven’t, had a conversation with the general ed classroom teacher in fifth grade. But they can talk about this problem of practice, what they’re doing to solve it in their classroom, and it’s sort of

So I really like that you mentioned this about involving different types of teachers, different contents. One of the challenges that I hear from school leaders who are trying to make different kinds of teams work is…

is in supporting the development of teachers whenever they’re at various places in a learning curve. Like you’ve got the veteran teacher, you’ve got the brand new teacher, you have the uncertified teacher who has never spent time in a classroom, you know, alongside somebody who’s taught for 30 years in the same room in first grade. You know, so how does, love, can hear how this would be supportive of them, but how does this process help coaches do this?

Kurtis Hewson (20:29.931)

Yeah, so this is where it becomes so powerful of thinking about in my collaborative team meeting, could I get a diverse perspective of not just teaching experiences, i.e. subject areas or grade levels, but of years of experience. And so again, it goes to that, I don’t care if you’ve been teaching for six months or if you’re in your third decade, everyone’s an expert, everyone’s a learner. There’s a few things that become powerful for that.

beginning teacher to say in my last practicum, one of the strategies I saw a teacher use was X. That’s powerful. When a teacher of 30 years goes, you know, one of the things I’ve learned that seems to work effectively is, is this thing. Again, by having to articulate my practice to somebody else, that’s powerful for my reflection. And the other thing is I sometimes hear, well, will experienced teachers get value?

out of this conversation and I see and hear it over and over again of someone getting reminded of a strategy and going, I used to do that. I don’t know why I stopped. And the reason is your toolbox is so deep. How could you possibly remember every particular strategy? But I might need this conversation to to get that reminder of an anchor chart in my room that’s created by co-created with the students is a really powerful strategy.

Chrissy (21:34.252)

Yes. I used to do that.

Chrissy (21:55.63)

Mm-hmm.

Kurtis Hewson (21:57.588)

I used to do that years ago. don’t know why I stopped.

Chrissy (21:58.796)

Yes. Yes. Yes. You know, it reminded me of so many conversations I’ve had during, you know, team meetings or PLC meetings where a newer teacher will say, well, I was having this problem, but Ms. So-and-so shared with me this. And I just think that’s so generous and sweet. They listened, they heard it, they tried it out, and then they want to give credit back to this person who shared something with them because it worked for them. I just think it’s so nice. And this is a great way for them. They have something to share. They’ve seen something before and they’ve tried it out or they can even, I mean,

I tried this, worked for a little while. know, sometimes we try things, they don’t work forever, but they work for a little while and then we have to have a new tool.

Kurtis Hewson (22:35.594)

Yeah, absolutely. Or again, I used to have anchor charts in my room, but I stopped doing that because the students weren’t referencing it. And then for somebody else to say, you know, one of the things that I did that helped with that is I co-created it with the students. And I said that this is Marcus’s strategy. I don’t call it the doubling strategy for mental math. I call it Marcus’s strategy. And someone in the room to go, interesting, that’s gold.

Chrissy (22:44.78)

Yes.

Chrissy (22:55.362)

Okay, yes.

Chrissy (23:03.906)

Yeah, yeah, I love that. That was, this is beautiful. I love this. It’s honoring teachers, experience and knowledge, and it’s giving them the opportunity to grow in a really authentic way. So thank you so much for everything that you shared today and how can people keep learning from you?

Kurtis Hewson (23:18.838)

So Chrissy, I would suggest we have a new book that is coming out in relation to this very topic of collaborative team meetings. So if anyone goes to collaborativeteammeeting.com, you’re going to find resources. You’re going to find some free, a free starter kit to be able to access information about the book when it is released. And it brings you into our website, which is jigsawlearning.ca where we have

further resources to be able to access. So that’s collaborativeteammeeting.com. It’s a great place to start. We have video clips of collaborative team meetings in action, just further things to help people learn about this structure and process that has such an incredible impact for, again, discussing practice in a meaningful way.

Chrissy (24:09.314)

Yes, I love it. Thank you so much for sharing today.

Kurtis Hewson (24:12.426)

Thanks, Chrissy. Really appreciate the chance to connect with you and your audience once again.

Chrissy (00:01.102)

All right, coach, if you are trying to figure out how to make your PLC meetings or your team meetings or whatever more purposeful, you can really try this process out. Give it some time to see how it takes off. I think you could pilot it with one grade level if you’re like, I don’t know how this is gonna go. Try it out with a grade level that likes to try stuff or with a grade level who’s like, we’re kind of burnt out on the stuff that we always do. Try it, try it at the end of the year. See how it goes and or try to, know, whatever time block you’ve got.

see how it goes and just kind of observe the process so you can apply it in other grades. Next week, we are starting a new series. We are jumping in a little bit early to Coach Tober. You know that I’m all about Coach Tober in October. This is like the third year I think of Coach Tober. So we’re jumping in a little bit early. So maybe it’s like Coach Timber, but we’re going to do all this work around the coaching strategy toolbox.

and the structure of coaching cycles, all the tools that you have in your pocket. It’s gonna be all about coaching strategies this next really six weeks because my book, Expand Your Coaching Toolbox is coming out in November. I’m so excited. And so we’re gonna really dig into these strategies over the next couple of months to help you have tools in your toolbox. So until next week, happy coaching!