A Professional Learning Community is a popular model for

professional development but is quickly becoming another buzz word sprayed everywhere. Because of this universal usage,

a professional learning community is in danger of losing

its meaning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wp3m1vg06Q

So what analogies can we draw here?

Is this just one more thing?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ged6hKZOTqw&feature=related

An exercise in communication – one of the most important aspects of successful PLCs

Pick a partner One of you will receive a completed puzzle which you will

describe to your partner. Their goal is to mimic your design, without looking. Sit back to back and begin. You have 4 minutes and 23 seconds…

An exercise in observation; learning to see the sublime (ie your students )

With your partner – One of you observes everything about your partner for 30

seconds. Turn your back while they change something about themselves. Try to figure out what they changed. Switch roles.

A simple answer is …………………………………..

Teachers working together to talk about learning, to experiment with and implement common strategies based on results so that all students can learn more effectively.

“Throughout our ten-year study, whenever we found an effective school or an effective department within a school, without exception that school or department has been a part of a collaborative professional learning community.”

Milbrey McLaughlin

“If schools want to enhance their organizational capacity to boost student learning, they should work on building a professional community that is characterized by shared purpose, collaborative activity, and collective responsibility among staff.”

(Some of the big ideas of a PLC) Newman and Wehlage

Building Learning Communities http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aDev-

z0efM&feature=related

We will examine the results at the end of the presentation.

Keep in mind the BIG IDEAS of a PLC. We will apply the BIG IDEAS to the 21 questions present in the survey.

What do we want students to learn? (Planning and pacing instruction)

How will we know if they have learned it? (Collect data / common assessments)

What do we do if they do not learn it? (Interventions!!!!!!! )

What do we do if they do learn it? (Enrichment)

A Professional Learning Community is NOT:

A program to be implemented (Fad) A package of reforms to be adopted A step-by-step recipe for change A sure-fire system borrowed from another

school (Site dependent) One more thing to add to an already

cluttered school agenda

I. Shared mission, vision and values and goals

II. Collective inquiryIII. Collaborative teamsIV. Action orientation / experimentationV. Commitment to continuous

improvementVI. Results orientation

1. Shared mission, vision and values and goals

Develop a philosophical base that guides teaching and learning.

Are we all on the same path? Do we understand the direction? What is it that we are trying to accomplish?

2. Collective inquiry

◦Teachers working together to analyse learning: curriculum, instructional strategies, assessment, results, data, etc.

◦Members are relentless in examining and questioning the status quo, seeking new methods, and reflecting on the results.

◦There is a focus on what we teach and on student learning!

A PLC narrows the curriculum to its essence.

“In a professional learning community, time is viewed as a precious resource, so attempts are made to focus our efforts on less, but more meaningful content. The time that is saved allows the teaching of more meaningful content at a greater depth.”

Getting Started, page 19

3. Collaborative teams

“The simple separateness of the educational enterprise—each teacher in his or her own classroom—stands in the way of an intelligent organization.”

David Perkins, King Arthur’s Round Table

The increasing isolation of teachers in the system, primarilydue to technology and increasing demands, has effectively hamstrung the opportunities to engage in professional collaboration.

“Isolation is the enemy of learning. Principals who support the learning of adults in their school organize teachers schedules to provide opportunities for teachers to work, plan, and think together.” NAESP, Leading Learning Communities: Standards for What Principals Should Know and Be Able to Do

A PLC shares best practices as a means of improving instruction through collaboration.

“The PLC concept is specifically designed to develop the collective capacity of a staff to work together to achieve the fundamental purpose of the school: high levels of learning for all students. Leaders of the process purposefully set out to create the conditions that enable teachers to learn from one another as part of their routine work practices. Continuous learning becomes school based and job embedded.”

On Common Ground, page 18

4. Action orientation / experimentation

“Until we do things differently there is little reason to expect changed results.” Dufour

“In a professional learning community…attempts at school improvement are judged on the basis of how student learning is affected.” Robert Eaker, Richard DuFour, and Rebecca DuFour, Getting Started: Reculturing Schools to Become Professional Learning Communities

“…ultimately, a learning organization is judged by results.”Peter Senge, Schools that Learn

But this takes time…plan on 3 – 5 years to see measurable progress.

A PLC is always focused on student learning.

“Our objective in writing this book is not to help schools raise test scores and avoid sanctions. We should…promote high levels of learning for every child entrusted to us, not because of legislation or fear of sanctions, but because we have a moral and ethical imperative to do so…test scores will take care of themselves if educators commit to ensuring that each student masters essential skills and concepts in every unit of instruction…”

Whatever It Takes, page 27

A PLC is always focused on student learning.DuFour identifies these questions as critical to the PLC work.

Exactly what is it that we want all students to learn?

How will we know when each has acquired the essential knowledge and skills?

What happens in our school when students do not learn?

5. Commitment to continuous improvement

“… becoming a learning community is less like getting in shape

than staying in shape; it is not a fad diet but a commitment to

an essential, healthier way of life.” Dufour

A PLC distributes leadership responsibilities.

“In professional learning communities, administrators are viewed as leaders of leaders. Teachers are viewed as transformational leaders.” Getting Started, page 22

“The norms of behavior for any organization are shaped by what the leaders tolerate.” Whatever It Takes, page 145

6. Results orientation (Data Driven)

• Collect and analyse data to determine rates of success in student learning.

• Data collection must focus on data that informs about student learning.

• Analyse what the data is telling us about what or how students learn.

• Adapt or set new goals and practices based on what the data is telling us.

A PLC uses “assessment for learning” in addition to “assessment of learning.”

Research reveals that significant improvement occurs in studentlearning when the following classroom assessment practices arein place. Sharing clear and appropriate learning targets with students from the beginning of learning. Increasing the accuracy of classroom assessments of the

stated targets Making sure that students have continuous access to

descriptive feedback Involving students continuously in classroom assessments,

record keeping, and communication processes.

Rick Stiggins as quoted in On Common Ground, page 67

Working as a team, PLCs typically: Develop common assessments. Develop a common rubric. Examine student work. Strategize common interventions. Provide objective feedback to one another. Use student results to revise assessment

instrument.

An impressive list

But how do we accomplish it?

by Rick DuFourJournal of Staff Development, Spring 1998 (Vol. 19, No. 2)

“When the challenge of creating a professional learning community is reduced to a recipe or formula, it's easy to overlook the fact that this task is fundamentally a passionate endeavor. A school does not become a professional learning community simply by advancing through the steps on a checklist, but rather by touching the wellspring of emotions that lie within the people of that school.

A professional learning community makes a conscious effort to bring those emotions to the surface and to express explicitly what often is left unsaid.”

1. A PLC is a collaborative venture.2. A PLC is always focused on student learning.3. A PLC distributes leadership responsibilities.4. A PLC narrows the curriculum to its essence.5. A PLC shares best practices as a means of

improving instruction.6. A PLC uses “assessment for learning” in

addition to the usual “assessment of learning.”

What is it we expect them to learn? Content, process, skills, knowledge, etc.

How will we know when they have learned it?

Assessments results, evaluation

How will we respond when they don’t? Interventions, supports

How will we respond when they do? Enrichment

Provide opportunities for teachers to work

collaboratively to focus on learning.

Allow teachers to collect and analyse data that will allow them to set goals and adapt practices resulting in improved student learning. (Focus on Learning)

Teachers working together to talk about learning and implementing common strategies to make it more effective so that all students can learn.

What role does the Principal play?

• The Principal sets the pace. She /he is responsible for leading.

• Functions as a staff developer, motivator and coach.

• Holds high expectations for staff.

• Communicate school’s purpose, goals andprogress. Keeps people informed and focussed.

 The identification of teacher leaders and the development of

a leadership team focused on teaching and learning is integral to the sustainability of PLCs.

The leadership team is specifically involved in improving the curriculum as it relates to student achievement. The leadership team’s sole function is to study data and to improve and enhance student performance.

Effective communication and collaboration among staff members supports and maintains the professional learning community.

Teachers and administrators have opportunities to come together and communicate/brainstorm ideas.

 Key to remember: it is not the meeting that counts

– it is what they are meeting about that counts.

This would and should require significant training to be effective (could use board mentors as well)

 The PD retention graph illustrates that only5 % implementation from traditional PD…

Focus is on implementation in the classroom.

 Time must be built into the structure of a

school day and calendar where staff can regularly come together for learning, decision-making, and problem-solving.

1. School is not organized to respond to the needs and interests of all students

2. School has developed strategies and supports to assist students in acquiring prerequisite knowledge and skills if required.

3. The School has few incentives–and fewer rewards–to improve learning results

4. Change is viewed as unproductive - not based on the core of teaching & learning.

5. School life seems to be an endless process of establishing and then abandoning new initiatives. Teachers are left with the impression that the system doesn’t know what it is doing.

6. Teachers believe it is their job to teach, but it is the student's job to learn. Teachers are not responsible for learning.

7. Typical classroom instruction is dominated by "teacher talk." Teachers work very hard, and students sit and watch them work.

8. Teachers work in isolation. There is little opportunity for serious professional collegiality in which teachers share ideas, observe each other teaching, or assist each other in professional development.

9. Students studying the same subject with different teachers in the same school often are exposed to content and experiences that may be vastly different.

10. Subjects are taught in isolation with little effort made to connect content (cross-curricular) into some meaningful conceptual framework – to see the Big Picture.

11. Schools often have no meaningful curricular goals. They focus on means (programs, instructional arrangements) rather than ends–student outcomes.

12. Schools are typically unable to offer valid evidence that they are achieving their intended purpose (i.e., student learning), and are not clear on the outcomes they are trying to achieve.

13. The inability to establish a results orientation means procedures for continuous improvement do not exist in schools.

14. Schools have no structure. They are a convenient location for a bunch of individual teachers, like independent contractors, to come to teach discrete groups of students.

15. Schools have no infrastructures to support teacher collaboration in attacking school-wide problems. Teachers, like their students, carry on side-by-side with similar but essentially separated activities.

16. Schools are structured as top-down bureaucratic hierarchies with heavy reliance on rules for teachers who, behind their classroom doors, can readily ignore much of the top-down direction.

17. The school has analyzed student achievement data and established SMART goals to improve upon this level of achievement we are working interdependently to attain.

18. Teachers of the school are clear on the knowledge, skills, and the essential learning that students will acquire as a result of (a) course or grade level and (b) each unit of the course or grade level.

19. Teachers of the school have identified strategies and created instruments to assess whether students have the prerequisite knowledge and skills.

20. Teachers of the school use the results of common assessments to assist each other in building on strengths and addressing weaknesses. This is viewed as part of an ongoing process of continuous improvement to help student achievement.

21. Teachers of the school have taught students the criteria they will use in judging the quality of their work and provided them with examples.

Final overview of PLCs and assessment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9QD6xMnshA&feature=related

Solution Tree: Rick DuFour on Groups vs. Teams

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hV65KIItlE&feature=related

Solution Tree: Rebecca DuFour PLC Keynote

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jpl5hJWQ_mc&feature=related