Why Your School Needs to Consider Growth Plans

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” - Margaret Mead

Teams that believe in themselves can change the world. Ok, be honest for a second. Do you really believe this to be true? Although this might sound like a simple platitude, there’s actually strong scientific evidence proving it’s true.  The foundation for this evidence originally came from the work of famous psychologist, Albert Bandura. [As an aside, if you’ve never read about or watched the Bobo Doll experiment do yourself a favor and google it.] In 1977 he coined the term “collective efficacy” to describe the assurance a person places in his or her team to be successful. Since then, numerous studies have supported this evidence for collective efficacy significantly affecting a team’s performance and success.

One such application of this research for schools was conducted by John Hattie in 2017 when he published a coherent synthesis of nearly 1200 meta-analyses looking at the factors related to student achievement. Collective teacher efficacy was found to have, by far, the highest impact on student achievement. Simply put, teams who believe in themselves to achieve the desired outcomes do so.

So what does this have to do with the need to consider growth plans for your school? Quite simply, collective teacher efficacy can be influenced and shaped by school leadership through establishing a school culture focused on professional growth. If you’re looking for a model to better understand the disciplines needed for meeting professional goals, look no further than the 4DX model.

The 4DX model focuses on 4 disciplines needed to ensure success in reaching a goal.

  1. Focus on the Wildly Important

  2. Act on the Lead Measures

  3. Keep a Compelling Scorecard

  4. Create a Cadence of Accountability

Having a clear and coherent professional growth process is essential for cultivating a professional growth culture in your school - and the good news is that it’s simple with iAspire. The iAspire Assistant will personally guide each professional through the 4 steps below to develop their growth plan for the school year and also assist with the follow-through steps along the way. Check it out for yourself by clicking the button below. 

  1. List the purpose, or “Why”, for your growth plan.

  2. Establish a professional growth goal.

  3. Identify your leverage (most important action) to achieve the goal.

  4. Set your next steps (including a growth plan partner). 

Can you imagine a school where everyone believes in each other, believes they can make a difference for every student, and believes in the abilities of school leadership to help take them there? If you do, you’re already laying the foundation for the power of collective teacher efficacy in your school, and the iAspire growth plan process can help take you there!