The Why, The What, and The How of Implementing PLC’s.
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Transcript of The Why, The What, and The How of Implementing PLC’s.
PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
COMMUNITIES
The Why, The What, and The How of Implementing
PLC’s
WHY BE A COMMUNITY OF PROFESSIONAL LEARNERS?
The process is a good form, a user friendly form of INNOVATION in a school
The approach is centered on student learning, student achievement, and acquisition of knowledge and skills by students
The approach is centered on a team of teachers and administrators supporting each other, and reflecting on and calibrating their methods
If done correctly, and over time, it becomes the culture of relationships among colleagues
Going from doing good work, to great work!
“GOOD” TO “GREAT”
“Good is the enemy of great…..good organizational performance can cause complacency and inertia instead of inspiring the continuous improvement essential to sustained greatness.”
Jim Collins, 2001
PLCS: THE “YEAH, BUT…” RESPONSES
“Yeah, but how are we going to have the time to work in a PLC?”
“Yeah, but how can we find the time to give students extra time and support learning with our current schedule?”
“Yeah, but how can a PLC work in a school this small, or this big, or this poor, or this rural, or this suburban, or this inner city, or this low achieving and despondent, or this high achieving and complacent?”
“Yeah but how can we make this work with our ineffective leadership. Or our ineffective teachers, or central office, adversarial teacher association, and so on?”
A SCHOOL STAFF NEEDS TO UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
FIRST ORDER AND SECOND ORDER CHANGE
What is first order change? What is second order change? Have you heard of them before? Do they apply to this school
district? At what stages are you?
A QUICK PAUSE: REMEMBER, CHANGE IS GOOD IF-- IT IS
INNOVATIVE, STUDENT-CENTERED, AND THE BENEFIT
IS TANGIBLE
HEALTHY, NATURAL CHANGE
UNHEALTHY, UNNATURAL CHANGE
FIRST ORDER CHANGE Proceeds the next most obvious step to
take After a need for a healthy change is
identified, the steps to making this change are incremental, gradual, subtle, and perhaps even comfortable
A huge element of effectiveness for First Order Change is as follows:
Incremental change fine-tunes the system (Your school and system) through a
series of small steps that do not depart radically from the past set of
procedures, expectations, and experiences
Lets discuss a couple of examples.
SECOND ORDER CHANGE Dramatic departure from the
expected or usual routine, process, course of action
A deep change which alters the system in fundamental ways
A dramatic shift in direction Requires new ways of thinking Requires new ways of acting Often requires new, expansive,
and extensive training
FIRST ORDER AND SECOND ORDER CHANGE: THE CONTRASTS
An extension of the past
Fits with existing beliefs
Is consistent w/prevailing values and norms here
Can be implemented with existing knowledge, skills, and resources
Usually has common agreement that the change is necessary
A break from the past Does not fit with
existing beliefs Conflicts with
prevailing values and norms
Requires having new knowledge, skills and resources
May be resisted because only those with a broad perspective of the school see it as needed
SYNERGY, DIRECTION, TEAMWORK, PROCESSES, BECOMING ONE WHILE
MAINTAINING AUTONOMY AND UNIQUE STYLE
“Merging is change, but can be autonomous”
THE “WHAT” OF PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES: WHAT
DOES A PLC DO?
Determines the characteristics of the school which colleagues desire to create (Address the current reality of your program here)
Builds consensus on purpose and most important focuses of the PLC work (Among this is universal understanding of terms, concepts, and actions taken)
Establishes and keeps collective commitments to others in the PLC
Establishes and tracks specific goals to monitor progress
Crafts strategies for achieving these goals (each member is accountable to each other for utilizing these strategies)
Focuses on results through ongoing assessment, not on activities or intentions
RESULTS DRIVEN: LETS DISCUSS WHAT THIS MEANS
The rationale for any strategy for building a learning organization revolves around the premise that this organization will produce dramatically improved results.”
Peter Senge, 1994, p.44
DETERMINES THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SCHOOL WHICH COLLEAGUES DESIRE TO CREATE
“Remember […] if you are to move your school and district towards greatness, you must have the discipline to confront the facts of your current reality, whatever [those] facts might be.” Collins, 2001, p.13
Culture vs. Climate
BUILDS CONSENSUS ON PURPOSE AND MOST IMPORTANT FOCUSES
OF THE PLC WORK
ESTABLISHES AND KEEPS COLLECTIVE COMMITMENTS TO OTHERS IN THE PLC
ESTABLISHES AND TRACKS SPECIFIC GOALS TO MONITOR PROGRESS
Clarify as a team, what your priorities are
Based on your priorities, Identify a limited set of focused goals, obviously embedded in student learning
Establish indicators of progress to be monitored with watchful eyes
Use well-defined processes to establish these goals in each classroom, and to be spoken of and used by each team member (remember, consensus and collective commitments
CRAFTS STRATEGIES FOR ACHIEVING THESE GOALS (EACH MEMBER IS ACCOUNTABLE TO EACH OTHER FOR UTILIZING THESE STRATEGIES)
FOCUSES ON RESULTS THROUGH ONGOING ASSESSMENT OF THE TEAM’S
ACTIONS, NOT ON ACTIVITIES OR INTENTIONS
THE PLC BY NATURE IS AN UMBRELLA: IT SHOULD NOT
PROTECT YOU FROM HAVING TO WORK TOGETHER, IT SHOULD PROVIDE A SAFE
VENUE TO BE ACCOUNTABLE AND TO WORK TOGETHER
YOUR ROLES AS A TEAM Determines the characteristics of the school
which colleagues desire to create (Address the current reality of your program here)
Builds consensus on purpose and most important focuses of the PLC work (Among this is universal understanding of terms, concepts, and actions taken)
Establishes and keeps collective commitments to others in the PLC
Establishes and tracks specific goals to monitor progress
Crafts strategies for achieving these goals (each member is accountable to each other for utilizing these strategies)
Focuses on results through ongoing assessment, not on activities or intentions
THE “HOW” OF PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
COMMUNITIES
A USER FRIENDLY SYSTEMATIC PROCESS TO FOLLOW AS A GROUP Gather evidence of current levels of student learning Develop strategies and ideas to build on strengths
and weaknesses in both instruction and student learning
As a team, implement, monitor, and evaluate implementation and actions taken
Analyze the impact of those steps and strategies on student achievement and instructional practice, determining whether they were effective and why, or not effective and why
Apply in practice the new knowledge, strategies, etc., learned from this
Measure the impact of implementation on student learning and achievement through observation, reflection, and multiple forms of assessment
ELIMINATE ANYTHING FROM YOUR COLLABORATION WHICH IS NONESSENTIAL TO STUDENT
LEARNING
Most of us have an ever expanding “to-do” list, trying to build momentum by doing, doing, doing---and doing more. And it rarely works. Those who build good to great [teams and organizations] make as much use of “stop doing lists” as they can with “to-do” lists. They have the discipline to stop doing all the extraneous junk.”
Jim Collins, Good to Great, p.139
3 ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS BECOME YOUR UMBRELLAS FOR ALL CONVERSATION IN
YOUR PLCS: ESSENTIAL LEARNING
ESSENTIAL QUESTION 1:
What are they supposed to be learning? What knowledge and skills should every student acquire as a result of this lesson, unit, etc.? What are we using to determine this? (Idaho State Standards and Objectives, Pacing, etc.)
ESSENTIAL QUESTION 2:
How will we know when they have learned it? In other words, how will we know when/that each student has acquired the essential concepts, knowledge, skills, and ability to apply new concepts and skills? What are our indicators? What determines when we are satisfied constant learning is happening?(Classroom based assessments, observation, formative assessment, summative assessment, attentiveness to the Spiraling curriculum)
ESSENTIAL QUESTION 3: What are we going to do if they are not learning the knowledge and skills? What determines when we either step in and intervene, or trust they will pick it up through repetition and mastery? What determines the types of and frequency of interventions?
THE TASKS OF CLARIFYING WHAT STUDENTS MUST LEARN
Total Instructional Alignment
Instruction
Curriculum
Evaluation
E
C
I
THE TASKS OF CLARIFYING WHAT STUDENTS MUST LEARN, CONT’D
Vertical curriculum alignment which leads to
Common understanding by each teacher/administrator, of what each teacher teaches, what the goals are
which leads to The creation of common
assessmentsand
The creation of common interventions
CREATING COMMON ASSESSMENTS
Measures common or congruent concepts Provides similar data driven by congruent
concepts Vastly enhances the commonality of dialogue
about student learning an progress when teachers and administrators can relate to each others’ students and data information
Are efficient, and are equitable for students A best strategy taken by a team for determining
whether the curriculum is being taught, and is aligned to state objectives
Builds a team’s capacity to improve the program Show individual teachers how their students are
performing due to their instruction, compared to other members of the team
THE TASKS OF DETERMINING IF STUDENTS ARE
EXPERIENCING KNOWLEDGE AND SKILL ACQUISITION
THE TASKS OF RESPONDING WHEN STUDENTS ARE NOT
ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS
Response to Intervention
Determines the characteristics of the school which colleagues desire to create (First, address the current reality of your program here)
Builds consensus on purpose and most important focuses of the PLC work (Among this is universal understanding of terms, concepts, and actions taken)
Establishes and keeps collective commitments to others in the PLC
Establishes and tracks specific goals to monitor progress
Crafts strategies for achieving these goals (each member is accountable to each other for utilizing these strategies)
Focuses on results through ongoing assessment and debriefing, not on activities or intentions
Getting started
REVIEW OF THE SYSTEMATIC PROCESSES DISCUSSED:
QUESTIONS THAT KEEP YOU FOCUSSED
1. What are the students to supposed to be learning?2. How do we know they
are learning?3. What are we doing if they are not learning?
REVIEW OF THE SYSTEMATIC PROCESSES DISCUSSED: KEEPING THE CYCLE GOING
Gather evidence of current levels of student learning
Develop strategies and ideas to build on strengths and weaknesses in both instruction and student learning
As a team, implement, monitor, and evaluate implementation and actions taken
Analyze the impact of those steps and strategies on student achievement and instructional practice, determining whether they were effective and why, or not effective and why
Apply in practice the new knowledge, strategies, etc., learned from this
Measure the impact of implementation on student learning and achievement through observation, reflection, and multiple forms of assessment
BABY STEPS….….BUT ABSOLUTELY FORWARD WITH EACH STEP
“The most effective change processes are incremental—they break down big problems into small, doable steps and get a person to say ‘yes’ numerous times, not just once. They plan for small wins that form the basis for a consistent pattern of winning that appeals to people’s desire to belong to a successful venture. A series of small wins provides a foundation for stable building blocks for change.”
-James Kouzes and Barry Posner (1987, p.210)