National School Reform Faculty

Protocol Class/cfg vs. CFG
Date: June 28 - July 8, 2005
Listserv: Coaches

Tuesday, June 28, 2005 5:30 PM
Has anyone taught a course for credit. (or thought about it) on the use of protocols (or thought about it)? I am developing one and would love to see others' ideas of syllabi, etc.
Thanks,
Elisa, NY

Tuesday, June 28, 2005 6:02 PM
We offer college credit for our summer seminars -- New Coaches,
Administrators, and Advanced Coaches. I can share with you our syllabus if you send me your email.
Stevi, CO

Tuesday, June 28, 2005 6:33 PM
Elisa,
I taught a graduate class for principal candidates all year on just this. We called it Facilitative Leadership skills. Let me know if you want more details.
Chris, PA

Tuesday, June 28, 2005 7:55 PM
Thanks for the quick responses, Steve and Chris. If you wouldn't mind sharing your syllabi or anything else you think might be relevant/helpful, I'd greatly appreciate it.
Elissa, NY

Tuesday, July 5, 2005 8:21 AM
Steve,
I'm wondering if you can send your syallabi re: cfg work to me. I am a NYC charter school administrator, who uses cfgs as the basis for our professional development. Thanking you in advance for your prompt response.
Gwen, NY

Tuesday, July 5, 2005 8:24 AM
I, too, would like a copy of your syllabi. I work for a local education fund that provides CFG training in Houston.
Tim, TX

Wednesday, July 6, 2005 7:36 AM
Hi Stevi,
I use protocols in my courses with teachers at DePaul University and with new teachers at Taft (with much success!!!)-- I would love to see your syllabus on your course, perhaps this could be a new course at DePaul. Thanks for the information.
Peggy, IL

Wednesday, July 6, 2005 8:27 AM
Hi Everyone,
I'm wondering if we might ask Shane and Chris to make a space on our website where coaches could post their syllabi. I know that John Newlin and folks at the Southern ME Partnership shared a CFG syllabus a while back and I'm sure other colleagues around the country have taught courses as well.

I'm a little concerned that we might feed some misunderstanding if we call our work classes in protocols as opposed to something more explicitly about the power of collaboration and reflection in support of student learning. As an external coach I sometimes run into folks who obsess about the tools and lose sight of the purpose and meaning. I'm not directing this at the trained coaches on this list. However, I know the office gets requests from folks who want to buy our protocol program, or package, all the time and it makes me nervous.

They "did" LASW with our materials in all the Philly schools one PD day, way back when. It bombed, and those of us committed to this work have been cleaning up the fallout ever since.
Debbie, PA

Wednesday, July 6, 2005 8:49 AM
Good Morning.
Great suggestion, Deborah. I think that by making our work public we model in many layers what CFG is about. I, too, have been a participant in professional development that focused on "protocols" without any context, but have been presented as the new panacea (sp?)
Tim, TX

Wednesday, July 6, 2005 3:09 PM
I would love it if the syllabus we have been discussing could be posted via e-mail, as an attachment, maybe? I've use the protocols to teach facilitation skills to teacher- leaders on our Instructional Council Also, please update my school information. I recently became principal at Briarcliff Middle School in Briarcliff, NY.
Thanks.
Susan, NY

Wednesday, July 6, 2005 3:27 PM
I love this idea--and I agree with your concern. Our Region keeps saying they use protocols and all they do is Final Word, thus my intereset in going deeper with a group of teachers to really LASW.
Thanks for your suggestion,
Elissa, NY

Thursday, July 7, 2005 10:53 AM
Hi All-
I am finding myself a bit confused about the sharing of these syllabi. I have "taught" (facilitated) New CFG Coaches' Seminars as graduate courses, and I've taught a facilitation course that draws heavily on NSRF work. I am happy to share these syllabi with NSRF facilitators via the facilitators' listserv, but I'm not sure the coaches' listserv is the place to do it, since the NSRF guidelines for facilitation of coaches' seminars indicate a list of prerequisites beyond the five-day new coaches' seminar.

So, having said all that, I'm not sure what these syllabi that are being shared actually are or whether they should be posted on the website...can anyone clarify this for me?
Thank you-
Edorah, VT

Thursday, July 7, 2005 11:14 AM
I think that perhaps posting on the NSRF website is the answer - possibly in the facilitator section or with each center's information.
Tim, TX
Juli Quinn jqnn@EARTHLINK.NET
Thursday, July 7, 2005 10:04 PM
I have been connecting the curriculum of CFG Coaches Training to authentic work of SLCs, PLCs, Communities of Practice, and the emerging, different kinds of leadership/facilitation, and the tools to support each. I define a protocol as: an agreed upon set of guidelines to do something.

There are positive results when and where the cfg processes are integrated into the district and school operations and expectations. Note, small case "cfg." I find that the more the process of cfgs are embedded into the fabric of the district/school schedule, the closer the schools move to second order change.

Keeping the energy for second order change fed. Pressurce/Support/Intensity/Content..moving a school out of PI.
Supporting a self-managing school.
I'm looking for systems and long term plans for large sacle roll out of
NCLB, with a focus on the instructional core, which has opportunities to
embed cfg curriculum... Any ideas/examples?
CFGs and cfg curriculum are powerful tools to create continuous,
positive, planned opportunities for learning, and therefore change. It
would suit me better if our emphasis shifted from monitoring to learning
from monitoring. So what?! Now what?!
I ask myself my questions
Juli, CA

Friday, July 8, 2005 8:34 AM
I agree with Juli about the importance of embedding cfg (small letters)
into the culture of the organization (school, district, etc.) while at
the same time holding on to the importance of CFGs (caps). When we
watch CFGs flounder, it's often because they're an oddity in the culture
of the school, so some of our work here in Colorado has been at the
organizational level. Right now we're working on a DVD that illustrates
this. We have video clips of CFGs in both an elementary and high school
as well as Theress Pidick facilitating a cfg process at the district
level and Scott Murphy incorporating cfg processes in a staff inservice.For those of you who I promised to get my syllabus to, I haven't forgotten. It's on my computer at the university, and I can't get to it for a few weeks.
Stevi, CO

Friday, July 8, 2005 8:37 AM
Ditto. I'm glad to see the balance of cfg and CFG. When school culture
is cfg, CFGs seem to flourish.
Tim, TX

Friday, July 8, 2005 8:41 AM
Hi Stevi-
Wow, any chance you can share you DVD w/NSRF? That sounds really useful.
Edorah, VT

Friday, July 8, 2005 8:48 AM
Hi Stevi
I really like what I hear. NSRF in Bloomington is doing some of that kind of work with the District in Indianapolis. I don't think we thought about filming it and making it available for our mutual learning. Sounds good to me. If it is on the listserv we can all have access and it will make your life easier.
Lois, IL

Friday, July 8, 2005 8:49 AM
As soon as we get the DVD done, we'll be more than glad to share it. I
want to figure out a way to make parts of it available for anyone
interested but then for the full DVD, we're going to have to charge.
I've no idea how much but we need to "recupe" our costs. I don't think
it will be much, relatively speaking. Our goal is to have it done within the next few weeks.
Stevi, CO