PLC Facilitator Training September 12, 2007 Early Release Day “The most promising strategy for sustained, substantive school improvement is developing the ability for school personnel to function as professional learning communities. (DuFour & Eaker, 1998)

Materials Icebreaker Norm Form PLC Log, SMART Goals, PLC Evaluation, and PD Needs Assessment from 06-07 Unit Plan Template PLC Plan Sheet PD Request Form

Agenda Sept. 12 Early Out Team Building Activity - PLC Overview Share District Expectations Develop Norms Examine your current reality PLC Needs Develop tentative PLC Yearly Plan To Turn In to the Principal: Norm Form Tentative PLC Plan Sheet

Team Building Activity Purpose: Get acquainted, fun, experience the power of collective thoughts--brainstorm, demonstrate their role is to facilitate not know everything. visit what a PLC is

Response to Students who aren’t Learning Big Idea #1 How is a Professional Learning Community different than a traditional school? PLC In Regard To Traditional School Learning for All Focus Teaching Strategies to back their commitments Commitments Haphazard strategies at best Teachers develop and monitor the indicators frequently Indicators Indicators are often developed by outside sources. Monitoring is done at the end of the learning only. Timely, Required, Systemic Intervention Response to Students who aren’t Learning Left up to the individual teacher Educational Issues Collaboration Student behavior, personalities, school politics

Big Idea #3 For each term below explain the importance of each word in a PLC Goals: PLC teams establish goals, work together to achieve the goals, and provide periodic evidence of progress. Data: PLC teams are data driven. They welcome data, use it as a catalyst for improved teacher practice. Data is useful only when the team has a basis of comparison. Common Assessments: PLC teams develop common assessments, identify how students perform on specific skills. There is common administration and common scoring of the assessments. The data is used to improve instruction and help individual students meet the learning goals. Improvement: Focus on continual improvement which results in change in teaching and learning. Improvement focuses on the classroom not those factors that are outside the classroom and beyond our control.

Commitment and Persistence Sustaining PLC’s requires: Hard work Focus on learning rather than teaching Collaboration on matters related to learning Accountability for continuous improvement Even the grandest design eventually translates into hard work. The professional learning community model is a grand design

District Commitment 8 Early Outs October 8 PD Day for Data Analysis January 2 half day for PD 2 half day Learning Teams for Core PLCs For professional development related to data analysis, curriculum development, common assessment development and analysis, instructional improvement, and development of interventions and enrichments.

PLC Organization Configuration of Teams—work with principals to make them meaningful, if across buildings we can help coordinate. Leadership of Teams—several trained facilitators, share the leadership, identify new facilitators to be trained, decide who will go to principal/facilitator/PD Rep meeting

PLC Expectations TIME PRODUCTS After September Early Out Norm Form Tentative Yearly PLC Plan Sheet After Each Early Out Monthly Log PLC Plan Sheet Yearly Log TBA (decided by building) 2 unit plans (Cores) Non-cores - what makes sense? TIME --All PLC members are expected to meet in the building with the PLC group on designated days from 1:15-3:30. Schedules on early out days should be the same as a regular school day for extra-curricular activities. --Facilitators and PD Representatives will have follow-up meetings with principals after each early out. Reason CP’s sequence—data, smart goal, unit topics, pd needs ( identify resource needs too for req.) 1 that can be taught this year and data gathere Elementary 1 incorporating a math smart goal & 1 incorporating a CA SMART GOAL, may be integrated Unit Template, Electronic or binders, with assessments—formative & summative, activities, resources

Rationale Unit Plan Unit plans answer the questions of a PLC: What do we want students to know? Essential Questions How will we know they learned it? Assessments, Scoring, Data Analysis C & C Question: How will we help them learn it? Instruction & Special Ed Adaptations What will we do when they didn’t learn? Interventions What will we do when they did learn? Enrichments

Unit Plan Template October PD Day Identify the 2 units you will do Make your unit development plan

Norms Why we need them? What they are? Samples/Categories Publishing the norms Enforcing them Periodic evaluation Overview, all of the things around norms

NORMS EXIST WHETHER OR NOT Why Norms are Needed Norms are ground rules to identify behaviors that will help us do our work & discourage behaviors that interfere with a group’s effectiveness. How we act How we interact How we conduct business How we make decisions How we communicate—to have honest discussions that enable everyone to participate & be heard. NORMS EXIST WHETHER OR NOT YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THEM Parallel to procedures in classrooms. How many times have you heard teachers say, teachers are the rudest people we know or that teacher would never tolerate that from their class.

Categories of Norms Time Confidentiality Decision Making Participation Leadership Participation: How to make suggestions How to state a different opinion vs how to disagree?? Issues: New vs established people Inexp. Vs. Exp. PARTICIPATION IS EVERYONE’s RESPONSIBILITY

SAMPLE NORMS FOR PLC’s TIME/ATTENDANCE: Start & Stop on time Stay on task Attend all meetings CONFIDENTIALITY Say what you need to here in the room, not in the parking lot Individual comments are confidential DECISION MAKING Reach decisions by consensus, fist to five Use data to drive decisions We will publicly support all decisions made by the group PARTICIPATION Stay on task, focus on what we have control over and what moves the PLC forward Listen and hear one another’s viewpoints—look at pros & cons It is your responsibility to make sure your idea is put in the room Speak directly to the person and you have issue with. Address issues, not personalities Commit to getting representative views, allow equal airtime for all participants Focus on being a change agent Be willing to experiment and make mistakes Think creatively Be responsible for the work of the PLC LEADERSHIP: Assign and rotate roles of timekeeper, recorder/secretary, leader, etc.

ACTIVITY FOR DEVELOPING NORMS PURPOSE: To ensure all members have the opportunity to contribute To increase productivity & effectiveness To facilitate the achievement of your goals PROCESS: Put the categories for norms on the board, may want to add a miscellaneous Each person records behavior you consider ideal for a group, one per slip of paper and place it under the appropriate category. 1 or 2 people will work with each category to group those with similar ideas together. For each group of cards, the group writes a norm, record on chart paper. Determine support for the norms Adopt final set of norms What irritates you about meetings, collaboration? What do you need to be effective—relate to compass activity OPTIONAL ACTIVITY

Consensus occurs when… 1. All points of view have been heard 2. The will of the group is evident even to those who most oppose it. Use Fist to Five to get consensus All participants start with a fist and then put up the number of fingers to indicate their level of support for the topic. 5 = greatest support, fist=no support Those most opposed have the opportunity to voice their opposition CP do we need to add to or change this?

Publishing Norms How can you keep them visible? Posted in meeting room Copy for everyone Review at the beginning of each meeting Include on the top of each agenda Decide as a PLC

STOP & DEVELOP NORMS Revisit Last Year’s Norms Revise Start from Scratch A copy will be turned in at the Principal/Facilitator/PD Rep meeting following the early out

Enforcing Norms WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? ALL GROUP MEMBERS Norms will be violated so talk about violations & how violations will be dealt with. If you don’t call attention to violations, you are creating a second set of norms. Ask: “How would you prefer to be notified you have violated a norm.” Keep it light hearted , like throwing foam balls at someone who comes in late. Use colored cards, flags, hankies. All members must agree to these methods. Periodically evaluate the adherence to the norm—How well did we do on this norm.

Stop and Develop Ways for Publishing & Enforcing Put this on your list of norms to turn in

5 Principles of Successful Meetings Discuss only one topic at a time Use only one process at a time Achieve interactive and balanced participation Respect cognitive conflict by eliciting disagreements and respecting other viewpoints Have all understand and agree to meeting roles and responsibilities

PD Needs Assessment from 06-07 Current Reality—using our data for comparison to continue the improvement cycle. PLC Yearly Log SMART Goals PLC Evaluation PD Needs Assessment from 06-07 What were our accomplishments last year? (Log, Smart Goals, back of PLC Evaluation) What needs did we identify? Are there others to add? (PD Needs Assessment) How did we function as a team last year? (PLC Evaluation)

FOCUS ON RESULTS… Where do we want to be? Where are we now? Questions for PLC Groups FOCUS ON RESULTS… Where do we want to be? Where are we now? What questions do you have that data might answer? How will we get where we want to be? What are we learning? Where should we focus next? Looked at vision & how PLC are to function –their business, & behavior Next data Plan to get where we want to be 7 determine focus

PLC’s Focus on educational issues not school politics not student behavior not personalities Sign some PLCs posted, Kathy lewis gave you

Learning Team # 1 ( Cores) Take the Smart goals and sequence them throughout the year Plan for common assessments, doesn’t have to be done in early out time, may have 1 or 2 people do. Input?/

PLC EARLY OUT MONTHLY LOG for _____, 200_ PLC GROUP NAME:___________________________________________ Members Present:____________________________________________ Members Absent:_____________________________________________ QUESTIONS TO BE ADDRESSED During today’s PLC time Next PLC Time How will we know if they learned it? (Assessment, Data Analysis) What do we want students to learn? (Curriculum Objectives, Unit Development) What will we do if they didn’t learn it? (Instruction, Intervention) What will we do if they did learn it? (Instruction, Enrichment) TODAY’s GOAL: RELATED SMART GOAL: SUMMARY OF TODAY’s PLC TIME: (Include any data reported) New facilitators trained in NOve., help you , take over next year Work together with principals to select. AGENDA FOR THE NEXT PLC TIME: Date: Time: Place: Leader: GOAL: Materials to Bring: Individual Responsibilities:

PLC Facilitator Training Dates for OCT. 8 PD Day September 28 8:00 to 11:00: 6-12 Math 12:00 to 3:00: 6-12 Comm. Arts October 1 8:00-11:00: 7-12 Social Studies 12:00 to 3:00: 7-12 Science October 2 8:00 to 11:00 3rd-5th Grade 12:00 to 3:00 K-2nd Grade Specials—TODAY - after this meeting

“A successful face-to face team is more than just collectively intelligence. It makes everyone work harder, think smarter and reach better conclusions than they would have on their own.” James Surowiecki “If there is anything that the research community agrees on, it is this: The right kind of continuous, structured teacher collaboration improves the quality of teaching and pays, big, often immediate, dividends in student learning and professional morale in virtually any setting.” Mike Schmoker