1. ISLLC Standard #2 Implementing Professional Learning Communities Workshop Facilitator

2. Welcome  Name of Superintendent  Welcome  Why Important © AZ Board of Regents, BEST Professional Development, All rights reserved, 2012.

3. Overview & Introductions  Name of Facilitator  Introductions  Overview / Agenda  Guiding Questions  Targeted Objectives  ISLLC Standards © AZ Board of Regents, BEST Professional Development, All rights reserved, 2012.

4. Proposed Norms & Expectations  Stay focused and fully engaged  no competing conversations please  Participate to grow  share openly and monitor your listening  Be a learner  create your own meaning and application  Get your needs met  ask questions that benefit the group  personal questions on breaks  Housekeeping  silence cell phones  handle business later  share ONE point …then next person

5. Leadership Model A Systems Thinking Approach: ISLLC Standards and improvement strategies are managed through Key Processes Student Achievement Teacher Quality Instructional Leadership ImplementingMonitoring Supporting CommunicatingAdvocatingPlanning

6. ISLLC Standards  A principal may choose to implement specific strategies to meet the ISLLC Standards and/or improve his/her performance relevant to the ISLLC Standards. The standards are: 1.Facilitating the development, articulation, implementation, and stewardship of a vision of learning 2.Advocating, nurturing, and sustaining a school culture and instructional program conducive to student learning and staff professional growth 3.Ensuring management of the organization, operation, and resources for a safe, efficient, and effective learning environment 4.Collaborating with faculty and community members, responding to diverse community interests and needs, and mobilizing community resources 5.Acting with integrity, fairness, and in an ethical manner 6.Understanding, responding to, and influencing the political, social, economic, legal, and cultural context

7. Key Processes An education leader advocates, nurtures, and sustains a school culture and instructional program conducive to school learning and staff professional growth. ISLLC Standards  Planning: Articulate shared direction and coherent policies, practices and procedures for realizing high standards of student performance.  Implementing: Engage people, ideas and resources to put into practice the activities necessary to realize high standards for student performance.  Monitoring: Systematically collect and analyze data to make judgments that guide decisions and actions for continuous improvement.  Supporting: Create enabling conditions; secure and use the financial, political, technological, and human resources necessary to promote academic and social learning.

8. Application Focus

9. Handout: Application Focus At the conclusion of this module you will identify key concepts and plan your application focus In the column labeled “Current Reality” –Rate yourself on a scale of 1-5  5 = Highly effective  3 = Satisfactorily Effective  1 = Ineffective –Describe the evidence that supports your application of this concept

10. Guiding Questions  What are the key components of a Professional Learning Community?  What actions/activities build a strong school culture through collaboration and a focus on student learning?  How can Professional Learning Communities build staff capacity?

11. Activity: List the components of PLC  Work with a partner and list the important components of Professional Learning Community.  Share with your table and discuss.  As a table come up with a definition of Professional Learning Communities.

12. Video: Solution Tree: Rick DuFour on the Importance of PLCs-YouTube  http://www.youtube.com/embed/IMeUp7MK pmU?rel=0 http://www.youtube.com/embed/IMeUp7MK pmU?rel=0

13. Reaction to DuFour  What was the most significant comment you heard? WHY?  Review the table’s definition of PLC and determine what adjustments you need to make to the definition.  What might you need to do to get staff at your school more engaged in PLC practices in order to realize higher standards for student performance?

14. What is a PLC?  A Professional Learning Community has educators committed to working collaboratively in ongoing processes of collective inquiry and action research in order to achieve better results for the students they serve.  PLC’s operate under the assumption that the key to improved learning for students is continuous, job-embedded learning for educators. -DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many (2006)

15. Characteristics of a Professional Learning Community  Shared mission, values, goals  Collaborative teams focused on learning  Collective inquiry into best practice and current reality  Action orientation and experimentation  Commitment to continuous improvement  Results orientation

16. Collective Responsibility “The best organizations are places where everyone has permission, or better yet, the responsibility to gather and act on quantitative and qualitative data, and to help everyone else learn what they know.” -Pfeffer & Sutton (2006)

17. “The reason professional learning communities increase student learning is that they produce more good teaching by more teachers more of the time. Put simply, PLCs improve teaching, which improves student results, especially for the least advantaged students.” -Jonathan Saphier, ( 2005) Collective Improvement

18. Collective Results-Orientation “Leaders foster effective teams when they help teams establish specific, measurable, results-oriented performance goals. Promoting teams for the sake of teams or focusing on team-building exercises does little to improve the effectiveness of the organization. There is nothing more important than each member’s commitment to common purpose and a related performance goal to which the group holds itself jointly accountable.” _Katzenbach & Smith (1993)

19. Developing a Professional Learning Culture Handout: Developing a Professional Learning Culture As you read this article consider: 1 How could you increase your opportunities for involvement in a learning community either within or outside your school? 2 What issues do you face in your professional practice which an investigative stance could help you understand and change?

20. PLC Learning Teams Focus on Four Critical Questions of Learning  What is it we expect students to learn?  How will we know when students have learned it?  How will we respond when students don’t learn?  How will we respond when students already know it? How will you ensure that all staff understand and consider these questions? HANDOUT: PLC Focus

21. Working as a Table Group  Develop a plan to engage ONE grade level or department in establishing a true PLC learning team  What resources do you need to provide?  What concepts/ideas need to be learned? (including what mental models need to change)  Who needs to be engaged?  How will you engage those persons?  How would you guide them to put into practice the focus on the “Critical Questions”?

22. Working in Pairs  Develop a SAMPLE agenda that provides a “picture” of your vision of an effective PLC Learning Team Meeting  What are the key parts/sections?  How are the “Critical Questions” addressed?  What adult learning might take place?  How will you engage the learning team in the practice of using this agenda format?

23. Sharing

24. Application Focus  Consider the guiding question, and think about connections between the ISSLC Standard and workshop’s key concepts  Use column labeled “Strategies/Ideas”  List at least THREE things per box  Pair Share ONE strategy/idea you learned today and how you plan to use it at your school. 24

25. Workshop Closure  Review the following…  Targeted Objectives  ISLLC Standard (Elements, Criteria, or Targeted Behavior list on Application Focus)  Next Steps  What additional data do you need?  Who will you involve in process?  What resources do you need?  Application Focus  Do what?  By when?

26. Workshop Closure  Please complete “Participant Feedback” form  Grant research  Improve future workshops  Thanks for your hard work