Critical Friends Groups

Critical Friends Groups

For several years, the National Coalition of Essential School, Centers across the country, and The Annenberg Institute, have devoted time, energy, and effort in formalizing an approach to school staff "self-analysis," through a program called "Critical Friends Groups," or CFGs.

A Critical Friends Group brings together six to ten teachers within a school over at least two years, to help each other look seriously at their own classroom practice and make changes in it. After a solid grounding in group process skills, members focus on designing learning goals for students which can be stated specifically enough that others can observe them in operation. They work out strategies to move students toward these goals and collect evidence on how those strategies are working out. In a structured setting of mutual support and honest critical feedback from trusted peers, they then work to adapt and revise their goals and strategies. CFG members bring to the table student work, teacher lessons and units, case studies of students, classroom dilemmas, etc. Using structures called protocols, CFG members help each other "tune" their practice by analyzing these artifacts and issues.

Each CFG meets for at least two hours monthly with a coach, sometimes from within the school and sometimes not. Many Essential schools have more than one CFG, and typically, the groups broaden their perspective through partnerships and regional meetings with CFGs from other schools.

CFG Expectations and Goals

Expected Outcomes for CFG Coaches (every CFG group has a coach who is accountable for the following tasks):

1. Be able to plan for and facilitate meetings of colleagues focused on teaching and learning;
2. Use a variety of strategies to promote trust-building, collaboration, reflective practice and documentation of student learning;
3. Deal effectively with controversy and conflict resulting from:
   • the examination of cultural and organizational traditions,
   • differing standards and expectations for students held by individual teachers, and
   • assumptions which underlie practice;
4. Serve as a resource within the school on issues relating to whole school change and changing teacher practice;
5. Serve as an advocate for the CFG and the professional growth of the staff at the building, district and community levels;
6. Serve as a collaborator with the school's principal on issues related to the professional growth of the staff and changing the school's culture and practice;
7. Participate in and eventually lead a variety of networking activities (CFG coaches will meet regularly with other school coaches; CFG coaches will have an external CFG coach, as well).

Expected Outcomes for CFG Members:

1. To participate in and contribute to activities designed to build trust between colleagues, to examine of student work, and to discuss research and texts related to student learning and teacher practice;
2. Exhibit the ability to be reflective about their own practice and the work of their colleagues;
3. Develop skills for documenting student learning within their classrooms and for sharing their findings with their colleagues;
4. Develop skills at analyzing together and using data the school already possesses;
5. Exhibit collaborative rather than competitive behaviors with their colleagues both within and outside of the CFG;
6. Articulate the standards and expectations which underlie and drive lesson design and assessment of students;
7. Participate in a variety of regional networking activities to enhance professional growth.

Expected Outcomes for Principals:

1. Assist teacher leaders with their efforts to help themselves and the rest of the staff with professional growth;
2. Serve as an advocate for CFGs and the professional growth of the staff at the building, district and community levels;
3. Provide support for the coaches of the CFGs;
4. Share the responsibility and leadership for the professional growth of the staff with the CFG coaches;
5. Share the responsibility and leadership for changing the culture and practices of the school with the CFG coach and members of the CFG;
6. Participate in a variety of network activities throughout the region.

Expected Outcomes for Students:

Ultimately, students whose teachers have participated in CFG work over time will exhibit improved performance on school assignments and projects and have greater success on standardized tests.

General Goals of the CFGs:

1. To improve the academic success of students by providing teachers with new resources and tools for examining student work and an organizational framework for sharing strategies and knowledge;
2. To develop and empower teacher leaders at the school site;
3. To alter the leadership structure within the school by systematizing a collaborative relationship between principals and leader-coaches;
4. To develop a new model for the on-going and sustained professional growth of practicing teachers;
5. To establish and facilitate a network for both teacher leaders serving as CFG coaches and principals;
6. To advance whole school change (through the 10 Common Principles) by developing teacher leaders, by operationalizing a new model for professional development and by strengthening the network which exists between schools working on the Common Principles.

CFG Protocols