Jigsaw Learning
220 episodes listed below
School collaboration, made practical.
Leading Collaborative Response focuses on the structures behind better school teamwork: collaborative team meetings, planning time, support continuums, staff voice, and evidence-informed leadership. Its conversations stay close to implementation, showing how schools and divisions turn shared responsibility into repeatable routines.
PRESS PLAY
Leading Collaborative Response is a professional learning show for school and district leaders working through the real mechanics of collaborative response. It is less interested in big claims than in what happens at the table. Meetings matter here. So do roles, data, facilitation, planning norms, service delivery, teacher judgment, and the follow-up that turns a conversation into action. Recent episodes show leaders trying to make collaboration more intentional across different settings, from individual schools to large systems. A public school division becomes a case for aligning system supports with what schools actually need. A high school brings the focus to staff voice, professional judgment, and the gradual shift from resource-team ownership to wider teacher leadership. Other episodes examine instructional playbooks, collaborative team meeting roles, and the difference between having a schedule and building a mindset. The conversations are guided and reflective. They often pause on process before moving to the next example, which gives the show a useful working-room feel. A listener hears leaders naming what they tried, what needed refinement, and what had to be co-created rather than perfected in advance. The Sunday Rewind episodes widen the archive with examples from a school, a board of education, and literacy intervention work. The show is especially attentive to clarity and fidelity. It asks what a structure is for, who owns it, and how staff can see themselves inside it. There is occasional lightness, but the center stays professional. Leading Collaborative Response suits educators who want concrete language for moving teams beyond compliance. It also serves administrators looking for examples they can adapt without pretending implementation is neat. The value is in its steady return to the same useful question: what would this look like in practice?
Made for: School leaders, administrators, curriculum directors, student services teams, and teacher leaders working to strengthen collaborative response, PLC, or MTSS-style structures.
What sets it apart: The show stands apart by treating collaboration as a set of observable routines rather than an abstract leadership value. It pairs school and division examples with detailed attention to meetings, roles, ownership, and implementation drift.
Are you a school leader, administrator, or curriculum director searching for a proven way to enhance your PLC and MTSS efforts? The Leading Collaborative Response podcast is your guide to establishing and deepening the Collaborative Response framework within your organization. We know that leading change is complex, and effective collaboration is often messy, but you don't have to navigate it alone. Join hosts Kurtis and Lorna Hewson as they share their insights and interview guest leaders who share lessons learned and how they've successfully implemented Collaborative Response in their own schools and school districts. This podcast is engineered to help...
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
A practical study of how school leaders turn shared decisions into accountable action across teams, classrooms, and district systems.
Leading Collaborative Response treats educational leadership as operational work: structuring meetings, distributing responsibility, following up on decisions, and connecting school needs with district support.
The meeting doesn't end at the meeting: someone asks how your visual schedule worked in class.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A practical look at co-creating collaborative planning and school support structures.
The episode takes a clear, system-level view of how Collaborative Response can better support students and staff through collaboration. Its strongest value is practical: it moves from the case for leadership into the work of creating collaborative planning time, setting norms,…
Shared leadership works when the people closest to the work own the decisions.
The piece treats collaborative response as a workable leadership model, anchored to the 2026 Collaborative Response Retreat in Lacombe, Alberta.
A practical look at how collaborative response becomes a system, not just a meeting.
This Sunday Rewind keeps its focus on the practical side of collaborative response, tying leadership, evidence, and team practice to how a school or district actually serves students.
Follow-up is treated as a practical school habit that helps agreed actions reach the classroom.
The episode is about a practical problem: how to follow up on actions agreed to in a collaborative team meeting, and whether those steps are changing teacher practice or student learning. The strongest part is the classroom-level follow-through.
A practical reminder that better meetings depend on structure, safety, and voice.
Jennifer Ferguson and Curtis Hewson make collaborative response meetings feel concrete, not abstract. The conversation stays on the mechanics: facilitation, psychological safety, equality of voice, norms, roles, and routines.
School leadership notes and a firm case for public schools
Clear thinking about education’s next turn.
Student radio with a community pulse.
Steady counsel for school leaders.
Start with schools.
This bonus episode opens the retreat series.
This episode explores instructional playbooks, their connection to collaborative team meetings and co-creation, while announcing a new online course on facilitating effective collaborative team meetings and sharing examples from school principals.
This episode explores how Ron Southern School implemented collaborative team meetings with high intentionality and fidelity as part of a collaborative response framework to address student needs.
This episode explores the leadership strategies and conversational shifts that make collaborative response frameworks effective in a middle school setting, featuring insights from administrators at Percy Baxter Middle School.
This Sunday Rewind returns to a conversation with Joanne Pittman, Chief Superintendent of Schools with the Calgary Board of Education.
Kurtis and Lorna Hewson discuss the importance of roles in collaborative team meetings for school leaders implementing the Collaborative Response framework.
This episode discusses the Collaborative Response framework for schools, featuring an interview with educator Nancy McClellan as part of National Literacy Month.
This episode explores how Northland School Division uses the Collaborative Response framework to improve student engagement and attendance through coordinated support systems.
This episode explores how a high school principal successfully implemented the Collaborative Response framework to improve collaboration and student success.
Kurtis and Lorna Hewson discuss developing a continuum of supports for attendance within the Collaborative Response framework.
An interview with Superintendent Peter Barron about implementing the Collaborative Response framework in school divisions.
Hosts Kurtis and Lorna Hewson interview Dr.
This episode discusses why focusing primarily on high-need students can negatively impact collaborative school culture and offers strategies to build collective capacity.
Hosts Kurtis and Lorna Hewson discuss the Collaborative Response framework for school leaders, addressing how to implement collaborative structures effectively.
This Sunday Rewind returns to a practical leadership question.
This episode explores how elementary schools can create a safe, caring learning environment while challenging students academically through the Collaborative Response framework.
Jennifer Ferguson opens a Sunday Rewind.
This episode explores how secondary schools can intentionally build culture, character, and collaboration to support student success across academics, athletics, and well-being.
This episode features a conversation with Superintendent Scott Brandt and Principal Britta Goldie about implementing a collaborative response framework across all schools in the Grasslands School Division to address student needs through leadership and teamwork.
This episode features a conversation with school administrator Colin Desnoyers about implementing collaborative response frameworks across different school organizations to address student needs through leadership and teamwork.
This episode features principal Kari Huk discussing how she implements collaborative response in her elementary school, sharing insights and lessons learned about leadership and student-focused collaboration.
This episode revisits a conversation about implementing collaborative response frameworks in schools, focusing on leadership lessons and student-centered collaboration.
This episode introduces the Collaborative Response framework for school leaders, featuring an interview with an early learning coordinator.
This episode introduces the Collaborative Response framework for school leaders and previews a conversation with Curtis Highsen about implementing the approach.
Hosts Kurtis and Lorna Hewson interview Principal Jared Hofer about implementing the Collaborative Response framework at Brooks Junior High School.
A conversation with a school leader about using collaborative response to transform team work and support students sustainably.
This episode previews the Collaborative Response Virtual Summit and features an interview with Joanne Pittman on leading effective teams and using evidence to support responsive learning environments.
This bonus episode previews the Collaborative Response Virtual Summit and features an interview with a principal about integrating research-driven strategies into the framework.
This episode previews the Collaborative Response Virtual Summit and features leaders discussing how to implement the Collaborative Response framework in schools.
This bonus episode features Bev Cotton discussing how she guides inclusive education facilitators in implementing the Collaborative Response framework to address student needs within Northern Gateway Public Schools.
This episode introduces a bonus series for the Collaborative Response Virtual Summit, featuring a school that successfully meets students' social-emotional needs through collaboration.