Building a Professional Learning Community

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Building a Professional Learning Community
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Yellow slidesLearning Community construct
developed last year.
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• White slides
• present the research and structures for school
  improvement developed by Carl Glickman

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• Blue Slides
• detail specific applications of this research to
  be implemented at SAS this school year.

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Schools as a Learning CommunityRoland Barth

• A good school is not a place where Big people
  who are learned teach little people who are
  learners.
• Rather a good school is a place where everyone is
  learning simultaneously under the same roof.
• Learning is at the heart of everything the school
  sets out to do

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Characteristics of a Learning Community

• Everyone is engaged in learning
• Risk taking is part of a shared ethos
• Collaboration is embraced by all members of the
  community
• Relationships are collegial in nature

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Risk Taking and Learning

• Water is coming over the gunwales
• No real learning takes place until some risk is
  involved
• Learning curve goes off the chart
• Safety net is in place everyone is supported in
  their efforts to improve

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SAS Community Risk Taking 05-06

• Board of Directors integrated planning model
• Mission
• Vision
• Core Values Statement
• Long Range Educational Plan
• Strategic Financial Plan

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Collegiality and Educational Change? (Michael
Fullan)

• Educational change is defined in terms of student
  performance and the capacity of the school to
  improve student performance

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Collegiality Change

• Schools that have the greatest success in
  implementing change have created a culture of
  collegiality which supports it
• Collegiality involves teachers working together
  to improve student performance

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Collegiality at SAS

• Formal Structures
• P.D. Committee
• Student Programs Committee oversight of many and
  varied task forces
• Curriculum development process
• ESOL/Academic Support
• Standards and Benchmarks
• Library/Media Center

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Collegiality is apparent when there is a high
frequency of ..

• Teachers talking concretely and precisely about
  teaching, instruction and the learning of
  students
• Teachers planning and developing curriculum
  materials together
• Teachers engaged together in experimenting with
  teaching practices

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• Teachers observing one another.
• Teachers teaching each other about the practice
  of teaching
• Teachers asking for and providing one another
  with assistance.

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Collegiality at SAS

• Informal Structures
• Daily individual teacher conversations about
  students and teaching
• Team or partner co-planning of curriculum
• Department, team and grade level meetings
• Faculty meetings where instructional issues are
  discussed

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Building Professional Learning Communities

• The qualities of relationships in an organization
  increases and promotes better results
• Collaborative, collegial relationships are
  valuable assets in professional learning
  communities

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Collaborative culture is essential and is
characterized by.

• A close linkage between student assessment and
  teacher pedagogy instruction
• Development of assessment literacy of faculty as
  a means to improve instruction

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Assessment Practices at SAS

• ESOL adopting WIDA/TESOL assessment
• Common assessment work at middle and high schools
• DRA and other reading diagnostic assessments
  tools at ES schools
• Collaboration between teachers and across
  campuses to achieve each of these initiatives

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• The capacity of teachers to examine student
  performance data and inform their instruction is
  the cornerstone of a professional learning
  community

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Leadership for Learning.Carl Glickman

• What is it that every student deserves?
• Teachers in every classroom who are the
  greatest learners of their own practice and an
  intellectually challenging, relevant education.

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(No Transcript)
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Instructional Leadership

• Whenever one person defines him/herself as the
  sole leader, provider and catalyst for improved
  classroom learning, any school with more than 15
  teaching faculty immediately confronts a lack of
  school wide instructional focus and assistance.

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New definition of faculty leadership at SAS

• At SAS teacher leaders engage peers in improving
  student learning through group processes and
  their individual actions that promote
• Solutions to problems
• Innovation to practice
• Reflection and inquiry related to student learning

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What makes a successful school?

• Continuous improvement for schools can become a
  reality if you understand the use of multiple
  structures with multiple leaders for assisting,
  focusing, and improving classroom teaching and
  learning.

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Structures at SAS

• Professional Development Committee work 05 - 06
• Standards based P.D. plan
• Critical Friends Groups
• Professional Study Groups
• Action Research teams

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What makes a successful school?

• Successful schools understand that direct
  improvement of teaching and learning in every
  classroom comes via a constellation of
  individuals and groups who undertake a myriad of
  activities and initiatives. These activities and
  initiatives provide continual reflection and
  changing of classroom practices guided by the
  educational aspirations of the school.

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National School Reform Faculty

• Critical Friends Groups
• Six to ten members
• Commit to learning together
• Hold each other accountable for adapting their
  practice and meeting needs of all students
• Share resources and ideas
• Support each other in implementing new practices

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• Faculty in successful schools that have high
  intellectual standards and educate virtually all
  of their students well, work in collegial,
  critical ways with each other, clearly knowing
  what they want of all students and strive hard to
  close the gap between the rhetoric of education
  aims and the hard professional work of practice.

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Critical Friends Groups

• Are committed to being reflective
• Make their practice public to others in group
• Frame meaningful questions and ask for
  substantive feedback
• Have focused conversation on data related to
  student learning
• Follow Critical Friends Group Protocols

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• Successful schools stand in great contrast to
  mediocre and low-performing schools where faculty
  work apart from each other, without common
  purpose, and with self-centered beliefs that they
  are doing the best they can. For these
  faculties, the source of the problem is always
  someone else the students, the parents, the
  schools board, and so on.

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Learn HOW to learn from each other

• Further develop capacity in our school
• Facilitate through formal structures SAS teachers
  learning from SAS teachers in sustainable fashion
• Provide leadership training for faculty
• Offer graduate credit for SAS school improvement
  initiatives

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• Successful schools typically have no greater
  amounts of time or resources than other schools.
  The difference for successful schools is
• how time, focus structure are used
• how staff development, school improvement,
  personnel evaluation and classroom assistance are
  used together and
• how instructional leadership is defined and
  employed.

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Learning Community Infrastructure

• P.D. Plan
• CFG, study groups, action research teams
• Consultant program (reading instruction,
  leadership skill set, curriculum work, CFG,)
• Technology Support
• Intranet
• Advanced video conferencing

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Some questions for us here at SAS

• To what degree do we
• engage actively in our own learning?
• work collaboratively towards common goals?
• work collegially with each other?
• focus on student performance to inform our
  practice?

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Roland Barth would state

• In times of change, Learners inherit the earth -
  learned find themselves prepared to deal with a
  world that no longer exists

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Michael Fulan would state

• Educational change is defined as improving
  student performance through teachers informing
  their practice based on student achievement data

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Carl Glickman would exhort us to

• Use student performance to inform our teaching
  and school improvement plans
• Provide for school improvement and renewal
• Develop structures and formats that improve
  teaching learning
• Connect evaluation, professional development and
  school improvement in meaningful ways

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At SAS this year we will

• Take risks to promote personal learning
  (Roland Barth)
• Develop formal structures to learn from each
  other (Carl Glickman)
• Critical Friends Groups,
• study groups,
• action research teams.
• Focus on student performance. (Michael Fullan)

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Community Goals for 06-07

• Develop core values statement for SAS community
• Document a written curriculum
• Develop long range educational plan
• Create formal performance evaluation program
  scholar in residence program.
• Use technology to improve communication and unite
  our professional learning community.