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Developing Collaborative Expertise Teams
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Developing Collaborative Expertise Teams
Transforming Schools Through Coherence, Belonging, and Consistency

Foreword by Casey Watts



April 2026 | 200 pages | Corwin

Transform your school teams into engines of student growth

Despite significant investment, many schools struggle to translate professional learning efforts into measurable student achievement. The challenge isn't a lack of will but a need for a new approach—one that moves beyond mandated meetings that lack impact to cultivating genuine collaborative expertise.

Developing Collaborative Expertise Teams provides a clear, research-based blueprint for school and district leaders to transform how their teams work together and align efforts and actions to desired goals and outcomes. Drawing on Visible Learning research and proven strategies from high-performing organizations, the authors introduce a framework for designing and sustaining teams that maximizes impact and growth. Are you ready to unlock the full potential of your teams

With this book, you’ll learn to:

  • Determine core essential actions that unite the efforts of all the adults in your school or system
  • Embrace a nine-element framework to foster authentic collaboration, psychological safety, and a shared commitment to student learning
  • Utilize a variety of practical tools, including vignettes, case studies, self-assessments, instruments, and reflection logs, to effectively guide team development and track progress toward shared goals
  • Align professional learning with PLC actions to ensure new knowledge is applied effectively in the classroom, bridging the "knowing doing" gap
  • Strengthen your existing PLC model by integrating strategies that enhance team leadership, cohesion, and a focus on high-impact outcomes

This book offers a powerful blend of insights and strategies that leaders can implement immediately. By investing in the people and practices that matter most, you can create a system of connected classrooms, teams, and structures that lead to lasting success for all students.

 
Dedication
 
About the authors
 
Acknowledgements
Introduction

 
 
Part 1: The Breaking Point—And the Blueprint
Chapter 1:The Need for Expertise

 
Chapter 2: Unlocking Potential: Dismantling Barriers to Collaborative Educational Expertise

 
Chapter 3: A Model for Developing Collaborative Expertise

 
 
Part 2: Collaborative Expertise Team Framework for Impact
Chapter 4: Framework 1: Relevance to Role

 
Chapter 5: Framework 2: High Leverage Professional Learning: Aligning PL?PLCs

 
Chapter 6: Framework 3 : Structuring Collaboration for Significant Outcomes

 
Chapter 7: Framework 4: Impactful Inquiry: Leveraging the Impact of Guiding Questions

 
Chapter 8: Framework 5: Cognitive Diversity, The Power of Thinking Differently—Together

 
Chapter 9: Framework 6: Ensuring Relational Trust and Psychological Safety

 
Chapter 10: Framework 7: Authentic Norms and Commitments to Drive Effective Collaboration

 
Chapter 11: Framework 8: Team Leadership and Cohesion: The Anchor of Impactful Collaboration

 
Chapter 12: Framework 9: Scaling Success: How to Expand Collaborative Expertise Across Your School

 
Chapter 13: A Call to Action, the Courage to Transform Schools

 
 
References
 
Foreword

"Developing Collaborative Expertise Teams provides practical, realistic, and useful guidance via actionable frameworks, tabulated high-impact strategies, implementation tools such as PLC agendas and reflection logs, and realistic acknowledgments of constraints, positioning the text as a valuable resource for fostering sustainable educational transformation over a three-to-five-year horizon."

Felipe Sepúlveda
Professor, Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción, Chile

"Developing Collaborative Expertise Teams is one of the most comprehensive manuscripts that I have had the pleasure to read in quite a while!  It provides practical and useful guidance and will be a resource to a wide array of educators for varying reasons and purposes."

Lynn Macan
Retired School District Superintendent, Cobleskill-Richmondville CSD, NY

"Improving student performance requires engagement, commitment and consistency, not only from the student but, perhaps even more importantly, from the adult stakeholders.  This book provides a useable and relatable blueprint for effectively engaging staff for intentional collaboration for the betterment of the students.  The authors present research-based practices, and provide vignettes, graphics and protocols to introduce those practices in any school environment."

Martin J. Hudacs
Former District Superintendent, PA
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ISBN: 9798348832780