Turning Isolated Wins Into Collaborative Growth

When Principal Rodriguez walked into Mr. Patel’s* fourth-grade classroom, she noticed something exceptional. Mr. Patel’s students were deeply engaged in a writing exercise, discussing their arguments, backing them up with evidence, and referencing standards-aligned work samples. Then Principal Rodriguez walked across the hallway, where students in another classroom were disengaged. Their tasks were repetitive and lacking in high-quality reading, writing, and discussion. Principal Rodriguez realized her challenge: turning isolated pockets of excellence into a unified environment of rigorous and engaging practices across her school.

Transforming a school into a collaborative, high-performing learning community requires strategic leadership, but it’s well worth the effort and is a compelling need for students, who don’t have the choice of a classroom. All teachers—whether they’re already making a major impact or still finding their footing—can collectively improve their craft. 

Below are three steps leaders can take to streamline success across the classroom, school, and system.

(Note: Principal Rodriguez and Mr. Patel are fictional characters meant to illustrate common observations and behaviors in classrooms; their portrayals draw from research findings, as well as the author’s experiences as a former teacher, principal, and central office administrator, and the author’s insights from extensive conversations with educators and school leaders.)

Step One: Identify Key Priorities

Principal Rodriguez gathered her teachers for a regularly scheduled professional learning community (PLC) meeting, this time to reflect on how to address pressing matters. Together, they went through the following process.  

Need it: School staff identified two categories of problems: important and urgent. Important problems of practice center on ensuring that all students are ultimately able to meet grade-level standards. For example, Principal Rodriguez’s team mapped out Tier I requirements, clearly defining the teaching practices and student behaviors expected for success. School staff also decided to prioritize the improvement of students’ argumentative writing, which they placed in the “important” category. 

In addition, staff went over urgent needs, which are typically short-term challenges faced by students who are performing below grade level. Staff identified the concept of establishing a claim from a piece of writing—in other words, penning a clear and concise argument in response to a prompt—as one such urgent need.

See it: Principal Rodriguez placed staff in grade-level teams so they could think about how they’d define success after three weeks of Tier I teaching and learning. She posed the following question: What will it look like if students master the skill of linking claims, evidence, and reasoning in their argumentative writing? Teachers brainstormed possible observable changes, such as students actively discussing their ideas, engaging in meaningful writing, and demonstrating mastery of key standards. She also tasked teams with identifying an observable change in the urgent category—meaning students performing below grade-level writing—that could be achieved in three weeks’ time. 

Start it: Principal Rodriguez then asked grade-level teams to identify a small and manageable routine that could address the school’s important and urgent needs. Mr. Patel and his grade-level team focused on using search and unseen questioning—a structured routine that deepens comprehension via retrieval-based thinking and adaptive, inferential reasoning—to support struggling students. Before moving to the next step, the same grade-level team brainstormed feasible support strategies that the administration could employ to help the entire teaching staff, like informal learning walks to watch classroom implementation.

Show it: Principal Rodriguez asked every staff member to share what they were going to do and when they were going to do it. She noted that coaching, walk-throughs, and lesson studies were all on the table as supportive options and that some of these options would be mandatory. And she asked teams to be prepared to share their evidence, such as improved student writing samples or increased participation in class discussions, at their next monthly meeting. 

Step Two: Make Routines Short, Sharp, and Sustainable

Principal Rodriguez debriefed with her teacher leaders and asked them to discuss the successes and challenges that came out of their staff-wide meeting. To ensure that staff focused on routines that could be implemented consistently, without overwhelming themselves or their students, she had each teacher leader go over next steps for their staff based on the following criteria.

Start small: Teachers implemented one new routine at a time, starting with the important category—which is applicable to all teachers—and the urgent category, which may be more nuanced based on individual student needs. 

Sustain: These routines must be observable, daily habits, not one-offs. 

Stack: Teachers linked new strategies to existing practices. For instance, Mr. Patel integrated search and unseen questioning into his regular reading lessons.

Shelter: Avoid initiative fatigue. Teachers said no to adding lots of programs at once and often reduced initiatives down, focusing instead on agreed-upon, small shifts.

Sprint: Teachers tested their ideas with a small group of students before rolling them out to the whole class. This approach allows them to identify challenges and refine strategies.

Share: Teachers shared their successes during PLC meetings. Seeing tangible results inspires others to adopt similar routines.

Step Three: Build Capacity

For a school to grow, teams must learn together. Principal Rodriguez collected needs-based data from staff about how to effectively execute new routines. She knew that capacity-building requires collaboration, modeling, and shared accountability. She introduced the following steps to further help teachers implement or enhance new practices with precision and consistency. 

See one: Teachers watched a modeled example—in this case, a video of Mr. Patel’s writing lesson. Seeing practices in action clarifies expectations and inspires confidence.

Do one: During a PLC meeting, teachers practiced a new routine together. They role-played the search and unseen practice and critiqued each other’s approaches.

Teach one: Teachers implemented the new routine in their classrooms. They shared their experiences and sought feedback from peers. Coaches observed and supported teacher implementation. 

Support one: Principal Rodriguez embedded ongoing coaching, observations, and lesson studies. Regular check-ins ensured that teachers felt supported and accountable.

By focusing on the three steps—identifying key priorities, making routines doable, and building capacity—Principal Rodriguez transformed her school into a true community of practice, where change is scalable and sustainable. The process isn’t about doing everything at once, but doing the right things consistently. Small, focused actions, grounded in collaboration, create a ripple effect that leads to lasting change.