1. Step 0: Common Assessments
How will we know if students are learning what we want them to learn?

2. Cultural Shifts in a PLC

3. Common Formative Assessments: Key to Improving Schools
In two years of working in collective teams, there was no gains.
It wasn’t until the teams…
Established a guaranteed curriculum
Monitored student learning through common assessments
Used the evidence of student learning to identify and solve problems through new instructional strategies
…that student achievement soared.

4. Tight About the Right Work
Collaborative teams monitor student learning through an ongoing assessment process that includes frequent, team-developed common formative assessments.

5. Keys to a Common Formative Assessment Process
To determine if an assessment process if formative, ask:
Is it used to identify students who experience difficulty in learning?
Do students receive additional time and support for learning when they experience difficulty.
Do students get and additional opportunity to demonstrate their learning?
Do teachers use the results to inform and improve their individual and collective practice?

6. Why Common Formative Assessments?
Efficiency: By sharing the load, teachers save time.
Fairness: They promote common goals, similar pacing and consistent standards to assess student proficiency.
Effective monitoring: Monitoring provides timely evidence of whether the guaranteed and viable curriculum is being taught and learned.
Team capacity: Collaborative teacher teams can identify and address problem areas in their programs.
Collective response: They support timely systematic interventions for students.
Informed teacher practice: Individual teachers obtain the basis of comparison that enables them to identify strengths and weaknesses of their teaching.

7. Characteristics of Common Assessments
Measure essential student learning (includes formative and summative uses)
Generated/created by teachers
Clearly defined essential understanding and student performance outcomes exist for every unit of instruction
Include all students taking the same course or grade level assessment across classes/teachers
Administered in a systematic and timely manner
Allows for analysis of results within PLC
Item analysis is planned and occurs immediately following each assessments
Clearly defined assessment criteria exist

8. Characteristics of Embedding Common Assessments
Assessment for Learning/Common Assessment Prompts
How can student demonstrate proficiency as the lesson is being taught?
Rubrics and Scales (Marzano)
How can we utilize common student friendly scales to assess essential student learning?

9. A Key Component to Effective Leadership of PLCs at ALL Levels
Unless you are using evidence of student learning to lead to better instructional practices, you are not fully engaged in the PLC process!

10. Two Essentials of Performance-Based Assessment
Can we agree on the criteria by which we will judge the quality of student work?
Can we apply those criteria consistently (inter-rater reliability)?
For an example of a writing rubric for Common Core go to

11. Defining S.M.A.R.T. Goals Specific – detailed outcomes criteria
The goal should state the exact level of performance expected.
Measurable – measurement criteria
To achieve objectives, people must be able to observe and measure their progress.
Attainable – realistic criteria
Goals should challenge people to do their best, but they need also be achievable.
Realistic (Results-Oriented, Relevant) – significance criteria
Goals need to pertain directly to the performance challenge being managed.
Time-bound – answers “by when?” criteria
Deadlines help people to work harder to get a task completed.

12. S.M.A.R.T. Goals: Specific
Specific: A specific goal has a much greater chance of being accomplished than a general goal. To set a specific goal you must answer the six “W” questions: *Who: Who is involved? *What: What do I want to accomplish? *Where: Identify a location. *When: Establish a time frame. *Which: Identify requirements and constraints. *Why: Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal. Example: A general goal would be, “Get in shape.” But a specific goal would say, “Join a health club and workout 3 days a week.”

13. S.M.A.R.T. Goals: Measurable
Measurable - Establish concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of each goal you set.
When you measure your progress, you stay on track, reach your target dates, and experience success which maintains motivation in a PLC.
Always set a criteria for success: This allows you to evaluate your work and impact on student growth
To determine if your goal is measurable, ask questions like:
How much?
How many?
How will I know when it is accomplished?

14. S.M.A.R.T. Goals: Attainable
Attainable – When you identify goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true.
You can attain most any goal you set when you plan your steps wisely and establish a time frame that allows you to carry out those steps.
Example questions:
Are these steps doable?
Can we find the time?
What resources and supports will make this likely to happen?

15. S.M.A.R.T. Goals: Realistic, Results Oriented, & Relevant
Realistic- To be realistic, a goal must represent an objective toward which the PLC is both willing and able to work. A goal can be both high and realistic; you are the only one who can decide just how high your goal should be. But be sure that every goal represents substantial progress. A high goal is frequently easier to reach than a low one because a low goal exerts low motivational force. Research shows that teams choosing higher outcomes for students (rather than setting lower bars) often achieve better results

16. S.M.A.R.T. Goals: Time-Bound
Timely – A goal should be grounded within a time frame. With no time frame tied to it there’s no sense of urgency.
Example questions:
Now that we set a specific criteria for success, what is the target date?
When do we want to evaluate the success of this plan?
What short term progress monitoring dates can we pick?
When do we want to reach our goal?

17. Criteria for Establishing Team SMART Goals
Address all points on the SMART acronym
Align team goal(s) to school and district goals.
Focus on results, not activities. To achieve your goal, more students should learn at higher levels.
Create a goal that fosters a collective efforts and an interdependent relationship.

18. Tips for Establishing SMART Goals
Limit the number of district, school, and team goals (2-3 goals).
Team goals should be established by teams rather than for teams.
Aviod establishing goals that are too narrow or too broad.
Ensure measureable targets demonstrate continuous improvement
Monitor work toward a goals by creating team products directly related to the goal and establishing, benchmarks to assess progress.
Celebrate progress, then establish a new goal.

19. The Importance of Short-Term SMART Goals
“People can become so caught up in big dreams that don’t manage the current reality. Short-term goals are needed to establish credibility for a change initiative over the long haul. Major change takes time. Zealots will stay the course no matter what. Most of us want to see some convincing evidence that all the effort is paying off. Nonbelievers have even higher standards of proof. We want clear data indicating changes are working.”
Kotter, 1996, pp

20. Assessment Map Example
When Given
Given to Whom
Admin Procedures
Reading Pre/Post Assessments
10/1-10/7
11/14-11/19
12/10-12/15
1/30-2/5
3/1-3/6
4/14-4/19
All Students
Computer-Based
Formative Reading Assessments
Prompts,
Work Sample
Performance Tasks
TBD based upon PLC discussions
Embedded within instruction
Math Pre Post Assessments
Every 5 weeks
Students take pre tests during third week or prior chapter test. Test is given whole group
Have participants stop and process this slide