Reciprocal accountability and distributed leadership also extend to the work of teacher-based teams at the school level. In Ohio's Leadership Development Framework, the Ohio Leadership Advisory Council references data teams, teacher-based grade level/content area teams, as a natural extension of the work of the district leadership team (DLT) and building leadership teams (BLT). The figure illustrates the Ohio 5-Step Process (see Resource 14:TBT 5-Step Process Visual) that is used by teacher-based teams to support the implementation of the OIP at the classroom level. Resource 21C: TBT 5-Step Process Meeting Agenda and Minutes Template, provides a protocol that can be used by teams to support more consistent analysis of student formative data among teachers and the development of instructional plans for team member implementation. Additional information can be found within the OIP Stage 0 Module: Teacher Based Teams.

In most schools, the practice of teachers working in isolation has been the norm. One of the drawbacks of this practice is that teachers have not had the structure and support necessary to challenge their own thinking about effective teaching practices or to learn new approaches to teaching and learning from one another. In Ohio's model, teacher-based teams - working in alignment with BLTs and the DLT - break this cycle of isolation by involving educators within schools in critical conversations focused on student learning results and effective instructional practices. Through this collaborative process, teacher-based teams build strong professional communities in schools. Whether referred to as professional learning communities, data teams, or teacher-based teams, these collaborative learning teams promote shared accountability for student learning and establish norms of collegiality among teachers that are associated with higher levels of student achievement (McNulty & Besser, 2011).

Teacher-based teams are most often comprised of groups of educators who teach the same grade or the same content area. For example, an elementary school may have teacher-based teams at each grade level. Intervention specialists supporting the needs of students with disabilities are regular members of these teams. In middle schools and high schools, teacher-based teams may center around specific content areas within existing department structures. Teacher-based teams may also be arranged vertically across grade levels or across disciplines to provide continuity of focus in instruction, curriculum, and assessment. In the following link providing additional team structures, teacher-based teams are referred to as data teams.

Ohio teacher-based teams use the 5-Step Process to teachers generate standards-based common formative assessments, analyze their students' results, and determine and implement effective instructional strategies based on students' learning needs.

At Step 1, TBT members collect and chart data using common reporting forms to gather the formative assessment data to be reviewed by the team. Team members must agree on the specific data (e.g., results of teacher-created assessments, end-of-unit assessment results, etc.) that should be brought in a common format to the TBT meetings. Following the administration of common formative assessment, the team compiles the data, paying particular attention to the performance of all students and subgroups of students, as well as to adult implementation data provided by the BLT.

At Step 2, the team analyzes questions from common assessment by identifying strengths and obstacles, and prioritizing student needs across four levels: advanced, benchmarked, targeted, intensive. The analysis of strengths and weaknesses includes identifying patterns related to common errors, misconceptions about concepts/skills, urgent needs, and trends in student responses, including patterns related to subgroups of students. Following this review, team members prioritize needs that must be addressed at Steps 3 and 4.

Team members establish shared expectations for implementing specific effective changes in the classroom at Step 3 by identifying learner-centered problems of understanding that appear to be common to many students. A pre-requisite to this step is having a good understanding of what the target skill or behavior looks like when demonstrated by the student. Team members should be able to articulate what they want each student to learn and how they want each student to behave, and be able to describe how they will respond when students experience difficulty in learning the target skill/behavior. This step involves determining the appropriate instructional strategies shown to be most effective in addressing student needs, and making decisions about such things as delivery methods, differentiated instructional strategies to be used, intervention and/or enrichment strategies, duration and frequency of the instruction to be provided, and more.

At Step 4, team members follow through on the consistent implementation of instructional strategies that have been prioritized and learned by the team. They might visit each other's classrooms and, at the same time, BLT members might visit classrooms to identify exemplars that can be used to support ongoing and targeted professional development (PD) to all team members.

The final step - Step 5 - involves team members administering a post-assessment to determine student progress following team implementation of the agreed-on strategies. The team honestly considers the level of implementation of such strategies to determine whether strategies were fully or partially implemented, or not implemented at all, understanding that a high level of implementation (i.e., about 90%) is needed for improvements to be made. The needs of individual students are discussed and their level of progress determined using pre- and post-test data. In analyzing post data, team members also identify classrooms where there was greater student progress, investigating potential causes for such differences, as well as implications for the continuing work of the team.

Establishing teacher-based teams builds "the kind of relational trust in schools that helps teachers set aside the structures that protect their autonomy and relax the cultural barriers to collaborative action" (Halverson, 2006, p. 4). This teacher-based team process builds a culture of inquiry where teachers are challenged to engage in reflection and analysis that leads to more effective practice and, as a result, to greater student achievement. Aligning the work of teacher-based teams with the work of the district's DLT and BLTs provides a basis for the development of a system committed to reciprocal and shared accountability for the success of all students.

In order for teacher-based teams to be successful, districts and schools must establish a culture where these teams or professional communities can flourish. In "Policies that Support Professional Development in an Era of Reform," Darling-Hammond and McLaughlin (1995) point out that

"Habits and cultures inside schools must foster critical inquiry into teaching practices and student outcomes. They must be conducive to the formation of communities of practice that enable teachers to meet together to solve problems, consider new ideas, [and] evaluate alternatives . . . ." (p. 6)

Resources, including time and targeted high quality professional development (HQPD), are essential in ensuring the efficacy of teacher-based teams, and are the responsibility of the district/DLT to provide. Similarly, it is the responsibility of the BLT to provide differentiated HQPD to the teacher-based teams that need such support.

Resource to assist with this work: Resource 22: Coaching TBTs: Prompts, Log