Over Christmas break, I read Transforming Professional Development into Student Results by Doug Reeves.  Overall, I felt the book did not live up to its title, however one chapter stood out and continues to stick in my mind.

Reeves proposes a "Leading and Learning" matrix describing the effectiveness of school districts and their level of understanding why they are (or are not) successful.

(adapted from Figure 1.1 on p. 17)

As a district administrator, I'm thinking about adapting this framework for classifying teachers and/or learning teams.  This could evolve into a potential staff development conversation starter.  

For the first four years of my teaching career, I believe I bounced back and forth between quadrants I and III.  Looking back, that's pretty scary because I believed that, at times, I was successful at helping high school students learn math, but I had no real understanding why.  I wish I could say I instead spent most of my time in quadrant II, but the students I inherited were the difference.  If several external factors changed, I could have easily been stuck in quadrant I.  During years five and six, I danced between quadrants II, III and IV.  

Which quadrant do you most identify with and why?