What conversations do you wish were happening at your school right now?

With the winter holidays feeling so close, it’s tempting to put your head down and charge forward until the last day of school for 2023. 

If you’re a leader, formally or informally, you are also thinking about where you are in relation to your goals and you’re wondering what adjustments you can make to strengthen the second half of the school year. There are a few truths for schools that, despite optimal organization and planning still remain true and one of them is that:

Things ALWAYS interrupt the planned schedule of the school year when it comes to professional learning. 

That can be as simple as several key staff members out sick on an important day of shared learning or data reviews, or it can be as complicated as adults passively and actively challenging the merit of the plan in the first place. 

That’s where utilizing protocols in your meetings can give you an extra powerful tool to re-calibrate, readjust or completely reset the tone and direction of your teams. 

What are Protocols?

In heavy use since the mid 1990s, protocols are tools that structure the conversation of groups. Protocols are one of those tools that are deceptively complex. At first glance, they look like a simple set of 3 or 4 prompts. Adults often roll their eyes at the idea of having to have assigned roles, use a timer or follow a set sentence frame. But in the healthiest teams and school cultures, you will see an ease with, and preference for, protocols. Healthy teams know that the protocols serve a purpose to change the flow of conversation, to shift the power dynamics of participation and the weight of contributions and to create the opportunity for deep, authentic sharing when psychological safety has been established. 

As a facilitator of protocols, you are the one who has the responsibility to prepare and rehearse. Creating a slide and releasing the task to the group will not get you to your goal and will undermine the use of structured talk in the future. Facilitators need to match the protocol to the purpose, select the text or prompt carefully to match the readiness of the participants and rehearse the timing and instructions to ensure they will work.

Protocols can work with teams as small as 3 and upwards of 100+ (with the right planning and identification of smaller group facilitators).

What’s the real purpose of protocols in conversation? 

We all know how to talk and every group of educators has established a pattern for who participates, who doesn’t, what opinions are welcome and what go unvoiced. Most of the patterns are not seen by most of the people, except those on the margins who are aware of the omissions, exclusions and harms.

Protocols support a new way of interacting with one another, an opportunity to give every person equal airtime, to create opportunities for divergent thinking and opposing views to be aired within the context of a working meeting. Protocols focus time and conversation on the topic at hand and, when facilitated, leave no time for tangents and distractions.

Where do I find protocols for schools? 

There are many to explore at sites like School Reform Initiative (SRI - Protocols)  NSRF (National School Reform Faculty -Open Access Protocols) Two common protocols are CONSULTANCY  and TEXT-BASED - 4 As Protocol. Protocol timings can be adjusted to introduce to a group and extended as the group gains experience. 

When might you use a protocol?

1. Build Shared Meaning - Your school might have undertaken a new initiative or gone deeper into the implementation whether it’s a curriculum, an instructional practice or a school wide commitment like restorative practices and MTSS. Your school community might be working on inclusion - both from a special education lens or from a larger perspective of identity markers. In all of these undertakings, you might find that people need to build some shared meaning on the initiative, the “why” for your school, the research and rationale and what others in the school or thinking and feeling. Many of the protocols that involve text create a powerful path into building shared meaning. (Recommend: 4 As Protocol, Making Meaning Protocol) 
2. Build Connection and Relationships - Protocols allow for sharing at a deeper level because they also build in intentional pauses - people are forced to listen. You will have to match the protocol and the prompt to the comfort level and trust in the group. Every participant should have a way to participate without revealing personal information if he/she/they does not wish to do so in that setting and that time. Ways you accomplish this is to offer two examples when you are giving directions. For example, with the consultancy - a person might share a dilemma about a new assessment the English department is using (not personal) or a dilemma about conflicts they are having with classroom management and not having success with restorative circles yet (more personal). (Recommended: Consultancy, Best Ever Protocol) 
3. Get the Unspoken Out In the Open  - This is an essential function that protocols can serve. By providing ways of talking and sharing and creating groups and capturing topics, skilled facilitators can make use of protocols to surface tensions and conflicts that are hampering the progress at your site and harming your culture. For these protocols, it’s recommended that you have an experienced facilitator and thought partner as you plan your sequence of moves to engage and support the community and this is to ensure that your decisions as a facilitator move the community forward and don’t unintentionally create a psychologically unsafe space or moments for marginalized members of your community or create harm. (Recommended: Affinity Groups, Becoming One Community.
4. Build a Culture and Habit of Professional Discourse  - The art of teaching blends relationships and technical skills with how to design, engage and assess learning. Building set practices to look at student assignments, work and critically engage with one another about the results, the strengths of teaching/assessment practices and the limitations will build a culture and habit of professional discourse. In this context, “professional” means related to the profession of teaching/the work role. (Recommended: Blooming Questions, Critical Incidents)
5. Center New Voices and Perspectives - Any standard protocol can be used to highlight and lift up new voices and perspectives, especially when a facilitator names that as an explicit purpose of the work. However, there are some creative protocols that permit use of different texts, images and language that will also permit you creative ways to not only listen to, but ingest learning about diverse perspectives in your community.  (Recommended: Imagemaking Protocol, Multiple Perspectives Protocol) 

Getting conversations going in a new, focused way can happen across any team. It can be a smaller department (counseling, grade level, district office) or a larger one that meets regularly (faculty, all administrators, multilingual department) and protocols range in length of time. Get curious in December and explore the protocols and put them in place in January to get some new conversations happening in your school. 

To get conversations going in 2024, I’m offering a limited number of free consultations with people who would like a thought partner in selecting and planning for using a protocol with their team.

Use this link (Protocol Thought Partner - Pulsehive) to book - one per person.