The Collaborative Advantage

Schools that explore data and take action collaboratively provide the most fertile soil in which a culture of improvement can take root and flourish. The authors describe how eight schools, working with the Harvard Graduate School of Education's Data Wise improvement process, have used teacher collaboration to understand student achievement data and develop realistic instructional improvements. They describe how school leaders can create the right conditions for effective collaboration by allocating time for the process, delegating data management to data coordinators or teams, and establishing norms of positive intentionality, transparency, and objectivity that foster trust.