Coherence: The Right Drivers in Action for Schools, Districts, and Systems

by Michael Fullan

Staff attribute their success to their principal who brought out their potential using five key components: Use quality professional development that is research based, consistent, convenient, relevant, and differentiated. Use time wisely by flipping faculty meeting time to focus on learning, not administration. Trust your teachers to determine the professional learning they need next. Facilitate, don’t dictate by providing teachers with what they need and allowing them to make decisions. Expect the best by holding everyone to high standards. Guided by research, they identified their top 10 teaching practices and engaged weekly in professional learning to help them implement the practices more effectively. Their nonnegotiable list of strategies included the following: essential questions, activating strategy, relevant vocabulary, limited lecture, graphic organizer, student movement, higher-order thinking questions, summarize, rigorous, and student centered.