1. Professional Learning Community Team Meeting #1

2. Goals Together, we will: Develop a common understanding of Professional Learning Communities and their essential components. Understand the process of a collaborative team and the necessary steps to begin meaningful work..

3. Why Professional Learning Community?

4. Why PLCs for Council Rock It Just Makes Sense!

5. 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 student 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 and Many (2010)

6. Council Rock’s PLC Journey 2012-13- Professional Development Renewal Committee reads about PLCs and discusses possibility of PLC in CR. Summer 2013- Team attends PLC training to learn more. 2013-14- PLC Pilot begins. Seven teams across the district. Success reported by all teams. Steering Committee of administrators & team leaders meets monthly and agrees to further invest in PLC work. 2014-15- Number of PLC teams doubled. Schoolwide PLC at CES. Four teams at each high school. Team of administrators & team leaders to attend PLC training in November.

7. What a PLC Team is Not https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hKWM5Z1zds

8. Why a PLC is Different It’s job-embedded time. It’s based on data. It’s grounded in meaningful, viable curriculum. It breaks down walls of isolation & fosters collective responsibility for our students. It’s not group work; it’s teamwork. It demands differentiation. Teachers look at data- child by child, by name and by need, and plan how to address each. It focuses on Four Critical Questions of Learning.

9. PLC Big Ideas & Core Values Ensuring that Students Learn Learning for all A Culture of Collaboration Teamwork Focus on Results Data-Driven Decisions

11. Council Rock Mission Statement To empower all students with the knowledge, habits, and attitudes to become life-long learners and to lead and serve in a diverse, global society.

12. Council Rock’s Vision

13. Take a few minutes to chat about the connection between the principles of a PLC & our district’s philosophy.

14. Four Critical Questions of Learning  What is it that we expect students to learn?  How will we know when they have learned it?  How will we respond when they don’t learn?  How will we respond when they already know it?

15. Step 1: Identify Power Standards What do we really want students to know and be able to do? Step 2: Design/Use Assessments for Learning How will we know students are learning (before it’s too late)? Step 3: Design & Deliver Effective Instruction What are research-based practices that will lead to student learning of power standards and beyond? Step 4: Participate in ongoing data- driven decision making How do we respond when they aren't learning, or if they already know it? Cycle of a Collaborative Team © Capistrano Unified School District

16. To Improve Student Achievement Create a guaranteed and viable curriculum. Establish a limited number of power standards. Pursue clear and focused essential academic goals. Develop a compact list of learning expectations and tangible exemplars of student proficiency.

17. Guaranteed & Viable Curriculum Only happens when teachers--who are called on to deliver the curriculum--work collaboratively to: Study the intended curriculum and agree on priorities within the curriculum. Clarify how the curriculum translates into specific student knowledge and skills. Establish pacing guidelines for delivering the curriculum. Commit to one another that they will actually teach the curriculum. (DuFour and Marzano, Leaders of Learning, 2011)

18. Common Assessments …assess the learning of all students pursuing the same curriculum through the use of the same instrument and/or the same criteria. …are administered at the same time or within a narrow window of time. …are administered to special education students according to the adaptations and modifications specified in their IEPs.

19. Formative Assessment Process A formative assessment is assessment for learning while a summative assessment is an assessment of learning. Formative assessment is to summative assessment what a physical examination is to an autopsy. Summative assessments give students the chance to prove what they learned; formative assessments give students the chance to improve on their learning.

20. Why PLCs for Council Rock It Just Makes Sense!

21. Clarity Precedes Competence PLC Collaborative team Team norms Guaranteed and viable curriculum Common assessment Pre-assessment Four Critical Questions Formative Assessment Summative Assessment Performance-based assessment Systematic intervention SMART goal Four pillars of the PLC foundation

22. Team Defined A team is a group of people working interdependently to achieve a common goal for which members are mutually accountable.

23. What is Collaboration? A systematic process in which we work together interdependently to analyze and impact professional practice in order to improve our individual and collective results. (DuFour, DuFour, & Eaker, Getting Started: Reculturing Schools to Become Professional L earning Communities, 2002)

24. The Focus of Collaboration “Collaborative cultures, which by definition have close relationships, are indeed powerful, but unless they are focusing on the right things, they may end up being powerfully wrong.” - Fullan, Leading in a Culture of Change (2001)

25. A Key Question in PLCs The critical question in a PLC is not, “Do we collaborate?” but rather, “What do we collaborate about?” We must not settle for “Collaboration Lite.”

26. Seven Keys to Effective Teams  Embed collaboration in routine practices of the school with a FOCUS ON LEARNING.  Schedule time for collaboration into the school day and the school calendar.  Focus teams on critical questions.  Make products of collaboration explicit.  Establish team norms to guide collaboration.  Pursue specific and measurable team performance goals.  Provide teams with frequent access to relevant information.

27. Team Norms

28. The Significance of Team Norms When all is said and done, the norms of a group help determine whether it functions as a high-performing team or becomes simply a loose collection of people working together. (Goleman, Working With Emotional Intelligence,1998)

29. The Importance of Norms One thing is clear: Having clear norms gives teams a huge advantage. A key to effective teams is involving all members in establishing norms and then holding everyone accountable to what they have agreed on. (Lencioni, Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, 2005)

30. Criteria for Team Norms The norms have clarified our expectations of one another. All members of the team participated in creating the norms. All voices were heard. The norms are stated as commitments to act in certain ways. All members have committed to honoring the norms.

31. Example of One Team’s Norms Begin and end our meetings on time and stay fully engaged during each meeting Maintain a positive attitude at team meetings– no complaining unless we offer a better alternative Listen respectfully to each other Contribute equally to the workload Make decisions on the basis of consensus Encourage one another to honor our commitments Fully support each other’s efforts to improve student learning

32. PLCs Focus on Results PLC in Action

33. Professional Learning Communities Focus on Results to Identify….. 1. Each student who has not yet learned the essential skills and concepts. 2. Each student who has learned the essential; skills and concepts. 3. Strategies to improve upon our individual ability to teach each essential skill and concept. 4. Strategies to improve upon our collective ability to teach each essential skill and concept.

34. When Developing Goals… Teams Pursue Attainable Goals- intended to document incremental progress and build momentum through short-terms wins Focus on Results NOT Activities Goals should focus on what students will do, not what teachers will do

35. SMART Goals Strategic and Specific Measureable Attainable Results oriented Time bound

36. Suggested Timeline for Team Products By end of the: First month: Team norms Be sure to have a guaranteed and viable curriculum in place that all agree to teach. Then… Second month: Team SMART goal Third month: Common essential outcomes Fourth month: First common assessment Fifth month: Analysis of student performance on first common formative assessment

37. What We Need to Succeed Guarantee to keep team meeting time sacred. Be willing to engage in shared learning. Open communication with each other. Emphasize why collaboration (not competition) benefits all of us, especially our students. Have patience as we undertake further steps of CR’s journey into this powerful process. Be sure to celebrate successes!

38. Connect and Reflect What has changed about your understanding of PLC? What are you most looking forward to in the PLC process in Council Rock? What questions still remain?

39. Learning by Doing Capacity building…is not just workshops and professional development for all. It is the daily habit of working together, and you can’t learn this from a workshop or course. You need to learn it by doing it and having mechanisms for getting better at it on purpose. -Fullan, 2005

40. Review of Team Meeting Dates and Times Questions?