Laying the Groundwork for Effective PLCs ESEA/Odyssey Conference

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Laying the Groundwork for Effective
PLCsESEA/Odyssey Conference

• Facilitated by
• Liz Durant Dianne Greif
• School Improvement Specialist Principal
• InterMountain ESD Stella Mayfield Elementary
• Elgin School District

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PLC Lite or PLC Right?

• Meeting as time allows
• Meeting during scheduled, sacred time
• Picking and choosing PLC practices youre most
  comfortable doing
• Analyzing student work
• Discussions about upcoming field trips,
  assemblies, computer lab schedule, Oriental
  Trading catalog
• Discussions about effective instructional
  practices
• No one is in charge
• Team leader facilitates the meeting

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• PLC time is a significant investment

How can the time be used most effectively?
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The Four PLC Questions

• 1. What do we expect students to learn?
  
• Essential outcomes, power standards, learning
  targets, pacing
• 2. How will we know if they learn it?
  
• Common assessments, quick checks for
  understanding, results analysis
• 3. How do we respond when students experience
  difficulty in learning?
• Differentiated instruction, targeted
  interventions, RTI, and PBIS
• 4. How do we respond when students do learn?
  
• Differentiated instruction, enrichment

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Highly Effective Teams How?

• Collaboration is embedded into routine practices.
• Time for collaboration is built into the school
  day and school calendar.
• Products of collaboration are made explicit.
• Team norms guide collaboration.
• Teams pursue specific and measurable goals.
• Teams focus on key questions associated with
  learning.
• Teams have access to relevant information.

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Build Shared Knowledge As a Team

• All teams need to
• Examine state standards and engage in dialogue
  about what students should learn.
• Analyze data to make decisions.
• Clarify essential common outcomes by
  course/content area.
• Develop and administer common formative
  assessments.
• Analyze results.
• Establish specific measurable standards or goals.
• Identify and implement improvement strategies.

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Happy PLC Meetings

• Willingness to consider matters from anothers
  perspective
• Accurate understanding of spoken and unspoken
  feeling and concerns of members
• Willingness to confront a team member who does
  not participate/contribute
• Communicate positive regard, caring and respect
• Willingness and ability to evaluate the teams
  own effectiveness

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Happy PLC Meetings - Continued

• Seeking feedback about and evidence of team
  effectiveness from internal and external sources
• Maintaining a positive attitude and outlook
• Solving problems -be proactive
• Awareness of how group contributes to the purpose
  and goals of the larger organization
• Establishes own protocols-reviews and addresses
  violations

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The BIGGEST Idea

• Are all kids learning?
• We dont know if all kids are learning unless we
  work together and talk about the evidence of
  their understanding.
• My students become Our students

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• On a collaborative team, EVERYONE plays an
  important role.

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Team Member Responsibilities
Come prepared to meeting
Assume a role
Participate honestly, respectfully, constructivel
y
Be punctual
Engage fully In the process
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Team Leaders

• Plan and distribute the team meeting agenda
• Facilitate the process and meetings
• Meet with principal and other team leaders

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Limits of Team Leaders Responsibilities

• PLC Team Leaders should not be expected to
• Serve as pseudo-administrators
• Shoulder the responsibilities of the whole team
• Address peers and colleagues who do not want to
  cooperate
• Evaluate colleagues performance

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Roles of Team Members
Recorder Takes minutes Distributes to PLC team leader, colleagues, administrators Focus Monitor Reminds members of tasks and purpose Refocuses dialogue on processes and agenda items
Timekeeper Follows time frames allocated on the agenda Informs group of time frames during dialogue Data Technician Gathers data from team member Creates tables/charts/graphs that represent assessment results
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Non-negotiables

• Norms
• Assigned roles
• PLC Agenda and Minutes form
• SMART goals
• Common Formative Assessments

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Data Driven Conversation within your PLC

• Q What do we mean by data?
• A Evidence of student learning (a.k.a.
  assessment data)
• You should spend most of your time analyzing
  teacher -generated common formative assessment
  data that indicates students understanding of
  power standards.

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Common Formative Assessments

• An assessment typically created collaboratively
  by a team of teachers responsible for the same
  grade level or course.  CFAs are frequently
  administered throughout the year to identify (1)
  individual students who need additional time and
  support for learning, (2) the teaching strategies
  most effective in helping students acquire the
  intended knowledge and skills, (3) program
  concerns areas in which students generally are
  having difficulty achieving the intended standard
  and (4) improvement goals for individual
  teachers and the team.  
• Learning by Doing, p 214

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Parameters for Designing CFAs

• Align each item on the assessment to a power
  standard
• Assess the level of cognitive demand (Blooms
  taxonomy) listed in the power standard
• Specify proficiency (what will the students work
  look like? What must students score?)
• Clarify the conditions for administering the test
  consistently
• Assess a few key concepts frequently rather than
  many concepts infrequently

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Options for CFA items

• Selected response questions (multiple choice,
  True/False, matching)
• Construction response questions (short answer,
  essay)
• Performance assessment with rubric (real world
  task)
• Personal communication (interview, individual
  reading inventory)

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Use of a Data Analysis Protocol

• Why is it important to have some type of protocol
  when looking at data?
• - To remind us of the minimum necessary steps
  and make them explicit
• - To instill a discipline of higher performance
• - To keep us on track
• Adapted from The Checklist Manifesto by Gawande
• Data Analysis Example

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Resources

• www.allthingsplc.info
• http//plc.sdcoe.net/Resources/PLC-Rubric_041712_v
  2.pdf
• or google San Diego PLC rubric
• http//www.rti4success.org/
• http//www.interventioncentral.org/