1. PLC Initiative High School Faculty Meeting Presented by: Kathy Niebuhr, Jen Rademacher, Kris Scholz, and Laura Slominski

2. School Initiative: Implementing Professional Learning Communities in the District

3. The Progression Kitty Foord Charlotte Danielson Richard & Rebecca DuFour Presenter Kathy

4. Why Teaming? ●You’re not the best at everything. We all have complementary skills and can learn from one another.

5. Why Teaming? ●It’s not about the 30 students in your room, it’s about ALL students.

6. Haven’t we been doing this for years? ●Collaborative Team Definition: Group of people working interdependently to achieve a common goal for which members are mutually accountable. Old Model New Model

7. The Power of Professional Learning Communities: Bringing the Big Ideas to Life (Dufour, Dufour, Eaker, 2007) Schools have traditionally operated from the premise that educators have a responsibility to provide students with the opportunity to learn. Whether or not the students actually learn depends on factors educators cannot influence, such as innate ability, student motivation, a home environment that supports and encourages learning, student work habits and so on. PLC Work: No More Excuses!

8. PLC Big 3 1) Focus on learning (not teaching) 2) Build a collaborative culture (moving away from isolation) 3) Focus on results (How do we KNOW that all our students are learning?)

9. Professional Learning Community Defined An ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve. PLCs operate under the assumption that the key to improved learning for students is continuous, job-embedded learning for educators. (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many, 2010)

10. Is this a fad?

11. Research to support PLC work Why does the big three work? Focus on learning Build a collaborative culture Focus on results

12. Research to support PLC work FOCUS ON LEARNING In order to improve results, an organization must first ask the question – what exactly do we want to accomplish? The correlation between clarity of purpose and effectiveness has been cited in educational research (Lezotte, 1991)

13. Research to support PLC work FOCUS ON LEARNING An effective school system and its leaders build a shared sense of purpose and a shared vision of what the school system would look like if that shared purpose was acted on, and develop a bias toward action relevant to the action. (Schlechty, 2005)

14. Research to support PLC work FOCUS ON LEARNING To close the gap, educators must move beyond writing mission statements to clarify vision, values and goals that drive the daily working of school and THEN align all of the their practices accordingly. (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many, 2010)

15. Research to support PLC work BUILD A COLLABORATIVE CULTURE Implementing a strategy of common, rigorous standards with differentiated resources and instruction can create excellence and equity for all students. (Childress, Doyle, & Thomas, 2009, p. 133)

16. Research to support PLC work BUILD A COLLABORATIVE CULTURE The staff in the effective school accepts responsibility for the students’ learning of the essential curricular goals. (Lezotte, 2002, p. 4)

17. Research to support PLC work BUILD A COLLABORATIVE CULTURE When people gather together and commit themselves to an idea, their relationship changes and they make promises to each other – then they are more likely to feel morally obliged to keep their promises. (Sergiovanni, 2005)

18. Research to support PLC work FOCUS ON RESULTS In schools that double student performance, teachers use common units and assessments to help members of collaborative teams to compare strategies and adopt those that are the most effective. (Odden & Archibald, 2009)

19. Research to support PLC work FOCUS ON RESULTS It is essential to establish a culture where results are carefully assessed and actions are taken based on these assessments. (Schlechty, 2005)

20. Research to support PLC work FOCUS ON RESULTS Teachers in gap-closing schools more frequently use data to understand the skill gaps of low-achieving students and when data points to a weakness in students academic skills, they are more likely to focus in on that area, making tough choices to ensure that the students are immersed in what they need most. (Symonds, 2004)

21. What does a PLC look like?

22. The 4 Critical Questions

23. *1. What do we want each student to learn? Collaborative teams, set norms, unpack standards into--EOs, Learning Targets, Pacing Calendars Instruction *2. How will we know if a student has learned it? CFAs Common Assessments & Analyze Data *3. How will we respond if a student hasn’t learned it? Interventions & Enrichments *4. How will we respond when a student has learned it?

24. Keys Each PLC works through this process at their own pace. You can not skip a step!