What Is Adaptivity?

e draw the organizing metaphor for our work from the field of biology. Adaptive organisms respond to changing environmental conditions by flexibly responding to their surroundings to meet their basic biological needs. Species such as raccoons, deer and coyotes have adapted to a wide variety of habitats in both natural and human-created environments.

This is not true for all species. Some species are adapted to place and condition and are not adaptive. Many bird and insect species and populations are threatened today because of the tight fit between their physical requirements and their requirements for supportive habitat. They are so finely adapted to certain food plants and shelter conditions that alteration in their surroundings puts them at risk. Being unable to modify their habits or immediate environment, they end up clinging to the "fragile islands" that currently sustain them. Unable to cope with a changing world, they decline in numbers and eventually disappear.

Human organizations and individuals can be adapted to a specific niche or can become adaptive, flexing to meet the challenges of a changing world. To be adaptive means to change form and clarify identity. Form can be the ways we structure our organizations and the ways in which we do our work. New challenges require new and increasingly flexible forms. Identity is about who we think we are as an organization and who we think we are as professionals. The ways in which we define the meaning of schools and schooling shape the identity of the organizations in which educators work and the identity of individual players within schools.

The work of the Center for Adaptive Schools is to develop the resources and capacities of the organization and of individuals to cohesively respond to the changing needs of students and the changing needs of society.

Collaborative Cultures and Student Learning

School-wide improvements in student learning accrue in schools whose work cultures are collaborative. Yet, the historical underpinnings of North American schools have created a work environment in which isolated teachers, without expectations or training for rigorous collaborative work, toil alone in their classrooms valiantly trying to make a difference in the lives of the students they serve. These cultural norms of autonomy, individualism and teaching as private practice are increasingly not resilient enough or sufficient enough to face up to current conditions and the needs of today's students. Most schools are not organized culturally or structurally to meet the demands of student needs and increased external accountability.

The growing body of work on the power of collaborative adult professional cultures in schools offers a positive and productive means for organizing the work of on-going school improvement. In such cultures, professionals learn to talk about the hard-to-talk-about details of learning, teaching, assessment and the cumulative effects of their work with students.

Researcher Karen Seashore Louis¹ and her colleagues identified five attributes of collaborative cultures that improve learning for all students at three levels of schooling—elementary, middle and high school:

1. Shared norms and values. These include such things as how people talk to one another, what they talk about, and agreement on what is most important and what the essential goals and standards for student performance are.
   
   
2. Collective focus on student learning. This means focusing on student products and performances and taking honest and hard looks at assessment data to guide curriculum and instructional choices. Choices are driven by student needs and not teacher preferences. The social resources of communication skills and relational trust are necessary requisites.
   
   
3. Collaboration. Teaching is increasingly a collective task. Students learn from cumulative effect. Teacher collaboration occurs both horizontally across grade levels, teams and content areas and vertically as the work of teachers feeds year to year achievement. To collaborate means to share knowledge, skills, questions and concerns with engaged colleagues and act in student interests.
   
   
4. Deprivatized practice. Teaching has historically been an isolated act done behind closed doors. To deprivatize practice means to open these doors physically, emotionally and metaphorically. By looking at student work, assessment data and lesson designs together, teachers align their work with others.
   
   
5. Reflective dialogue. How school people talk may be as important as what is talked about. To dialogue is to inquire, examine assumptions, and generate new thinking in an atmosphere of seeking to understand. The practice of dialogue becomes a self-organizing energy source and organizer within a professional culture. To talk together about important things creates communities committed to each other and to shared action.

¹Louis, K. S., et. al. (1996). "Teachers' professional community in restructuring schools." American Educational Research Journal, 33 (4), 757-798.

Four Hats of Shared Leadership

We provide seminars in each of the following leadership functions for school districts, agencies and schools. The purpose of each workshop is immediate application of skills, concepts and strategies in the work place. Our seminars are interactive, goal focused, attuned to the unique characteristics of clients and represent state-of-the-art instructional practices. A description of each leadership "hat" follows, as well as links to information on seminar opportunities provided by the Center for Adaptive Schools.

In an adaptive organization, leadership is shared; all the players wear all the hats. All participants have the knowledge and skills to manage themselves and manage and lead others. Leadership is distributed in meetings, in examining student work, in staff development activities, in action research and in projects. Recognizing the hats and knowing when and how to change them is shared knowledge within the organization, because when values, roles and work relationships are clear, decisions about appropriate behavior are easy.

Facilitating
Facilitate means "make easier." A facilitator is one who conducts a meeting in which the purpose may be dialogue, shared decision making, planning or problem solving. The facilitator directs meeting processes, choreographs the energy within the group, and maintains a focus on one content and one process at a time. The facilitator should rarely be the person in the group with the greatest role or knowledge authority. Visit our Facilitation Skills page to learn more about seminars on this topic.

Presenting
Presenting is teaching. A presenter's goals are to extend and enrich knowledge, skills or attitudes and to have these applied in people's work. A presenter may adopt many stances—expert, colleague, novice or friend—and use many strategies of presentation/lecture, cooperative learning, study groups and many more. Premier presenters are guided by clarity of instructional outcomes and continuous assessment of goal achievement. Visit our Enhancing Presentation Effectiveness page to learn more about seminars on this topic.

Coaching
Coaching helps another person take action toward his or her goals while simultaneously helping him/her develop expertise in planning, reflecting, problem solving and decision making. The coach takes a nonjudgmental stance and uses tools of open-ended questions, pausing, paraphrasing and probing for specificity. The skillful coach focuses on the perceptions, thinking, and decision-making process of the other person to encourage and enhance self-directed learning. Visit our page on Cognitive Coaching^SM to learn more about seminars on this topic.

Consulting
Consultants can be information specialists or advocates for content or process. As an information specialist, the consultant delivers technical knowledge to another person or group. As a content advocate, the consultant encourages the other party to use a certain strategy, adopt a particular program or purchase a specific brand of equipment or materials. As a process advocate, the consultant attempts to influence the client's methodology (for example, recommending an open meeting rather than a closed one in order to increase trust in the system). Visit our The Skillful Consultant: Getting Your Expertise Used page to learn more about seminars on this topic.