Professional Learning Communities At Work (DuFour, DuFour & Eaker) Board Presentation Fall 2014 Dr. Scott L. Crane

PLC Definition A Professional Learning Community is a group of educators committed to working collaboratively in an ongoing process of collective inquiry and action research in order to achieve better results [academic results] for the students they serve.

The ‘Three Big Ideas’ of PLC’s Ensuring that all students learn. A Culture of Collaboration A Focus on Results Schools with highly effective PLC’s emulate the ‘Three Big Ideas’

Ensuring that all Students learn. ‘Learning for All’ is not just a cliché It is the school mission It is a literal statement of fact It is the staff’s internal belief

Teaching to Learning

Ensuring that all Students learn. The school staff finds itself asking: What school characteristics and practices have been most successful in helping all students achieve at high levels? How could we adopt those characteristics and practices in our own school? What commitments would we have to make to one another to create such a school?

Ensuring that all Students learn. What indicators could we monitor to assess our progress? As the staff collaboratively answers these question they: Build shared knowledge Common ground On which they can build a solid foundation for improvement

Every professional in the school must engage with their colleagues to determine the answers to these crucial questions. What is it we expect students to learn? How will we know when they have learned it? How will we respond when they don’t learn it? How will we respond when they already know it?

As PLC’s analyze these questions they soon realize that there is an incongruity between The commitment to ensure ‘Learning for all Students’ The lack of a coordinated strategy to respond when some students do not learn.

Staff addresses this problem by Designing strategies to ensure that struggling students receive additional time and support Accelerated students receive enrichment activities No matter who the teacher is

Strategies must be School wide/Grade wide/Department wide Timely: Needy students are quickly identified Intervention rather than remediation: Help is provided when student experience difficulty rather than waiting for summer school, retention etc. Directive: Students are not invited to seek help Students are required to devote extra time and receive additional assistance

Creating a Culture of Collaboration Educators, creating PLC’S, recognize that to ensure ‘Learning for All’ they must create structures that promote a collaborative culture. Despite extensive research that indicates that working collaboratively is successful and best practice, many schools and teachers still work in Isolation. The staff’s willingness to collaborate stops at the classroom door.

Traditional Teacher Isolation

Creating a Culture of Collaboration Collaborative PLC’s do not: Develop consensus on operational procedures Supervising recess Developing tardy policies Oversee school operational facets Discipline Technology Social climate

Let’s be clear… Professional Learning Communities: Not a workshop Not a program Not a book study Not a faculty or department meeting IS a never ending journey of continuous improvement IS a framework for the entire school, district

Creating a Culture of Collaboration Collaborative PLC’s do:  Work together to analyze and improve their classroom practice Engage in an ongoing cycle of questions that promote deep team learning

Creating a Culture of Collaboration Collaborative PLC’s do: Create common formative assessment: Monitor student’s mastery of essential outcomes Set common standards for each student skill or concept that student must master Agree on the criteria by which they will judge the quality of student work Practice these assessment tasks until they are consistent in their practice Determine when to administer assessments

Creating a Culture of Collaboration Collaborative PLC’s do: Team conversations are public not private Goals Strategies Materials Questions Concerns Results

Schools Create Successful Collaborative PLC’s by: Ensuring that everyone belongs to a team Provides weekly/daily collaboration time during the work day Requires teams to generate products that reflect their discussions and actions to ensure that all student learn Essential outcomes Assessments Student data Strategies developed from student data

Schools Create Successful Collaborative PLC’s by: Teams must develop norms or protocols to clarify team Expectations Roles Responsibilities, Relationships

Schools Create Successful Collaborative PLC’s by: Removing barriers to success Move from intended curriculum (What is contained in curriculum maps) To implemented curriculum (What the teacher actually teaches) To attained curriculum (What students learn)

Schools Create Successful Collaborative PLC’s by: Faculties must stop making excuses for failing to collaborate We just can’t find the time Not everyone on the staff has endorsed the idea We need more training in collaboration We need more training in PLC’s

Schools Create Successful Collaborative PLC’s by: Are teachers and administrators willing to accept the fact that they are part of the problem?...God didn’t create self-contained classrooms, 50 minute periods, and subjects taught in isolation. We did...because we find working alone safer than and preferable to working together. Roland Barth (l991)

PLC’s judge their effectiveness on the basis of results. Focuses on Results PLC’s judge their effectiveness on the basis of results.

Every PLC participates in an ongoing process of Identifying the current level of student achievement Establishing a goal to improve the current level Working together to achieve that goal Providing periodic evidence of progress Team goals shift from We will create two new reading groups to-We will increase our reading scores by 5%

Teams Reverse the DRIP Syndrome (Date Rich/Information Poor) PLC’s turn the data rich teaching environment datum into useful and relevant information for instructional enhancement at the student level. Teams use data for student skill comparison among team students Individual teachers can use the expertise of colleagues to help reflect on areas of concern

Each teacher has access to the entire teams knowledge of instructional Ideas Materials Strategies Talents

Continuous academic improvement based on results requires a change in educator traditional practices and assumptions. Educators must: Embrace data as an indication of progress Stop disregarding or excusing unfavorable data Honestly confront the sometimes brutal facts Stop using averages to analyze student performance

Begin to focus on the success of each student Stop assessing educator effectiveness on how; Busy they are How many new initiatives they have launched Stop working in isolation and hoarding Ideas Materials Strategies

Creating PLC’s is a fundamental Shift on how we create schools.

It’s Shifty…Fundamental Purpose From a focus on: To a focus on: Teaching Curriculum Overload Learning Less, but more significant content

It’s Shifty…Assessments From a focus on: To a focus on: Infrequent individual summative assessments Frequent, commonly developed formative assessments

It’s Shifty…What to do When Kids Don’t Learn From a focus on: To a focus on: Individual teachers determining the appropriate response A systematic response that ensures support for every student

It’s Shifty…The Work of Teachers From a focus on: To a focus on: Isolation Collaborative Teams

It’s Shifty…Entire Focus and Celebration From a focus on: To a focus on: Inputs Infrequent recognizing of a few students Results Creating lots of winners and celebrating success, emphasizing improvement as well as meeting arbitrary standards

If a pretty poster and a cute saying are all it takes to motivate you, you probably have a very easy job. The kind robots will be doing soon.

The Creation of PLC’S Hard Work Stressful Challenging Demanding Rewarding Educators must have the COURAGE and WILLINGNESS to ACT and have the PERSISTENCE to keep on ACTING.

“The rise or fall of the professional learning community concept depends not on the merits of the concept itself, but on the most important element in the improvement of any school…the commitment and persistence of the educators with it. DuFour (July 2008)