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)