Professional Learning Community

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Professional Learning Community

• Absegami High School
• 2007-2008

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Professional Learning Communities

• Focus on Learning
• What do we expect students to learn?
• How will we know what students learn?
• How do we respond when they dont?

• Work Collaboratively
• To develop values and goals
• To work independently to achieve goals
• To focus on results

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Expectations What Makes AHS Great?

• Common Curricula
• Intended
• Implemented
• Attained

• Common Assessments
• Midterms/Finals
• Departmental unit tests

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Expectations What Could Improve AHS?

• Develop and Sustain a Common Culture
• Common rules, procedures, consequences
• Shared High Expectations
• Celebrate Success of Academic Achievement
• Public Data Displays of Student Achievement

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Professional Learning Communities Have Sustained
Collaboration

• Embedded into routine practices
• Develop and Agree to Lessons/Assessments
• Analyze student work
• Revise Lessons/Assessments
• Recognize improvement

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Collaboration What Makes AHS Great?

• Common Planning Time
• Inclusion/Cohorts
• Assess Lessons
• Develop and review assessments
• Monitor student Progress

• Professional Development Time
• Provides
• Workshops
• Collegial Study Groups
• Discussion Groups

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Collaboration What Could Improve AHS?

• Ongoing, Sustained Teamwork
• Focusing on Student Achievement
• Share Best Practice
• Student work
• Assessments
• Lessons
• Threaded throughout Professional Development and
  embedded in the school day

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When the student is failing What Makes AHS
Great?

• Maximizes Intervention
• Mandatory extra help
• Activity period
• Late study
• NHS tutors
• Weekly progress reports
• Agenda book check

• Minimizes Remediation
• Changing course level
• Repeating course
• Attending summer school

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When the student is failing What Could Improve
AHS?

• Making the student do the work
• Mentoring
• Mastery Learning

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Professional Learning CommunityHow do we begin?

• What kind of school do we hope to become?
• How do our procedures and behaviors change to
  create this kind of school?
• What steps are we going to take and when will we
  take them?

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Year Long Agendas

• September 21
• Assign Group Roles and Set Goals
• Review of Data
• October 5
• Strategies and Assessment
• Develop tool to measure success
• February 27
• Review and Revise
• Review results and revise assessment/strategies

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Data Dont be scared

• Measure of student learning
• Quantitative or Qualitative
• Eliminates guesses and assumptions

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Quantitative Means Numbers

• HSPA results
• Clusters
• Final exam
• Midterm exam
• Unit test
• Performance assessment project
• Writing samples
• Time to complete a task
• SAT results

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Qualitative Data is Non-Numerical

• Descriptions and categories.
• Open-ended interviews
• Observe events
• Questions with open-ended answers
• Log what is said and/or done
• Interpret
• Personal reactions, speculations or hypotheses
• Draw conclusions

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Todays Agenda

• Introduction
• Professional Learning Communities Article
• Absegami Professional Learning Communities
• Listening Protocol
• Summary