Collaborative Leadership: Six Influences That Matter Most

Designed to shape collective teacher efficacy and foster teacher voice, this text will transform your leadership practice, identify where you can make immediate changes, empower your leadership team and incorporate all stakeholders into the conversation.

Table of Contents:
Foreword Preface Collaborative Leadership What You Will Find in This Book Why This Book? Acknowledgments About the Author Chapter 1: What Do You Want to Be to Leadership? What If You Could Be the Kind of Principal You Want to Be? Motivating People to Be Their Best Every Day What Is Collaborative Leadership? Meet, Model, & Motivate 10 Critical Issues Facing Education School Story—Many Hands Make Light Work Meet, Model, & Motivate Discussion Questions Chapter 2: Instructional Leadership (.42) What Do Instructional Leaders Do? Collaborative Leadership: A Positive Effect on Learning The Politics That Distract Us From Making Learning the Main Priority Meet, Model, & Motivate Flipping Our Focus to Learning Student-Centered Leadership Meet, Model, & Motivate Discussion Questions Chapter 3: Collective Teacher Efficacy (1.57) To Be Effective, Teachers Need to Be Motivated School Climate: The Plate Everything Lies On Meet, Model, & Motivate Enhance Communication to Promote Teacher Efficacy Risk-Taking and Rule-Following: Finding the Balance Within-School Variability Fostering Teacher Voice to Increase Collaboration Collective Teacher Efficacy School Story—Teachers Need to Have a Voice, Too! Meet, Model, & Motivate Discussion Questions Chapter 4: Assessment-Capable Learners (1.44) Assessment-Capable Learners Student Voice Needs to Come First Inspiring Assessment-Capable Learning Be More Than Visible A Collaborative Leadership Mindframe We Need Evidence to Collaborate Effectively Meet, Model, & Motivate Discussion Questions Chapter 5: Professional Development (.51) What Does Good Professional Development Look Like? Flipped Faculty Meetings Collaborative Leaders Debate, Dissect, and Discuss The Core Business of Learning School Story—Using Research to Engage All Stakeholders Meet, Model, & Motivate Discussion Questions Chapter 6: Feedback (.75) Feedback Is Complicated Feedback to Move Learning Forward One to Grow On The Multiple Avenues of Effective Feedback Teacher Observations: The Collaborative Approach School Story—A New Collaboration Meet, Model, & Motivate Discussion Questions Chapter 7: Family Engagement (.49) Nurturing Family Engagement Why Family Engagement Is Difficult How We Communicate With Parents Flipping Family Communications The Partnership Approach Branding Your School School Story—Engaging Families at the High School Level Meet, Model, & Motivate Discussion Questions Chapter 8—What Are Your Next Steps? The Place to Start—Strengths The Implementation Dip Moving Forward by Discovering Your PLN Don’t Negotiate or Regulate as Much as You Collaborate Discussion Questions Afterword—Russ Quaglia References Index

About the Author :
Peter DeWitt (Ed.D) is the founder and CEO of the Instructional Leadership Collective, and approaches everything with a learner′s mindset. He was a K-5 teacher for 11 years and a principal for 8 years. For over 12 years, he has been facilitating professional learning nationally, and internationally, based on the content of many of his best-selling educational books.  DeWitt′s professional learning relationships are a monthly hybrid approach that includes both coaching and the facilitating workshops on instructional leadership and collective efficacy. His work has been adopted at the state level, university level, and he works with numerous school districts, school boards, regional networks, ministries of education around North America, Australia, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the U.K. Peter writes the Finding Common Ground column for Education Week with Michael Nelson and they host Corwin’s Leaders Coaching Leaders podcast. In 2020 DeWitt co-created Education Week′s A Seat At the Table where he moderates conversations with experts around the topics of race, gender, research, trauma and many other educational topics. Peter is the author, co-author or contributor of numerous books and his articles have appeared in educational research journals at the state, national and international level. His books have been translated into numerous languages. 

Review :
"Collaborative Leadership brings together the essence of how leaders maximize impact. DeWitt unpacks Hattie’s six leadership keys, adds his own considerable insights and makes the whole phenomenon of efficacious leadership come alive with vignettes, and ‘meet, model, and motivate’ ideas in each chapter. Above all, he makes it personal. Be a better leader, he urges, and then shows the way." "Peter DeWitt′s brilliant book is by a proven leader for other leaders. It shows that collaborative leadership means more than distributing responsibilities, including others in decision-making, or managing data teams. Collaborative Leadership is about working or laboring together to accomplish extraordinary things. It is about defining directions as a community and also implementing them to best effect. DeWitt is a hugely accomplished writer, stellar blogger on social media, and the most humble leader you could meet. You will be unable to put this truly inspiring and deeply practical book down." Collaborative Leadership has confirmed a core truth in education:  We must create an educational learning community grounded in trust and responsibility, not testing and accountability. DeWitt has provided a framework to challenge our current thinking, make us reflect, and perhaps even become a little uncomfortable with current practices as school leaders. He has challenged us to have higher expectations of ourselves and those around us—to work collaboratively, simultaneously building trust and responsibility between all stakeholders striving to reach shared goals. "To most educators, leadership books have about as much impact as the leaves that cover my lawn each fall. But Peter DeWitt’s advice in Collaborative Leadership is of hardier stuff. Like the leaf that clings to the tree long after the winter has arrived, this book will stay in readers’ thoughts and affect their actions for many seasons to come. DeWitt delivers a strong message on how to begin this necessary work, where to focus, and most importantly how you grow as a leader." "As I read Collaborative Leadership: Six Influences That Matter Most, I kept being reminded of the great quote by the late business guru Peter Drucker, ′If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old.′ Peter DeWitt has hit the mark; he teaches all of us how to truly take a deeper dive into the important aspects of collaborative leadership and provides a new model and pathway to get us there through proven influencers. His personal leadership journey, stories from the field and practitioner′s lens breathes life into the ideas." "It is time we realized that the top-down model of leadership often guarantees failure in professional communities. Peter DeWitt offers us a way forward with a revolutionary new approach to leadership that recognizes that everyone’s brain is required for complex change—not just the brain of the "leader." If you want to have an impact, you should study this book and put these ideas into practice as soon as you can." "This book is much more than about collaborative leadership. It feels collaborative for it has a generous and inclusive tone and is packed with the authentic voices and stories of students, parents, teachers, leaders and researchers. It provides a strong case for being collaborative and will inspire all who read it to reflect on their understanding of what it means to be a collaborative leader and on how they can increase their educational impact through greater collaboration."  "Peter DeWitt′s comprehensive combination of Hattie′s evidence, personal and practical experience, clear, useable frameworks and illuminating blogs and articles make the case for collaborative leadership a cause for immediate action." "In this compelling book on leadership, Peter DeWitt tackles comprehensive and convincing reasons for the need to be collaborative. He accompanies his reasons with recommendations that guide. Supported by valued research and accompanied by stories from leaders in the field, DeWitt pulls no punches. He shares, with honest reflection, his own experiences as he grew as a leader, writer, and professional developer. The stories and the research combine to deliver a book that informs and guides. It is the kind of book one keeps close after reading, a go-to as the reader develops themselves as a collaborative leader for this century." "Peter DeWitt′s excellent book Collaborative Leadership builds bridges from evidence to practice, providing a wealth of ideas for developing a collaborative vision, strategy and frameworks for action. DeWitt presents real insight into the potential benefits of collaborative leadership, and this book should surely encourage its adoption. It might also encourage all educators to see the value of evidence based practice and to consider how we might gather, compare and act on our own evidence to improve student experience." "Teachers dream of having the type of principal described in Collaborative Leadership! DeWitt’s roadmap of Meet, Motivate, and Model, underpinned by an impressive research base, has the potential to transform relationships and collaboration between teachers and leaders, ultimately leading to an improved learning experience where the voices of all concerned are listened to and valued." "Peter DeWitt is an experienced teacher and administrator. I recommend his book as a practical and informative resource for administrators at any point in their career. It is easy to read and utilize from day one. It is an essential handbook to keep on your desk."