PLC

Home

Brighton Central School District, Rochester,NY
 * **Mana'o** || **Resources** ||
 * **Engaging** **Professional Communities in Conversations about Student Learning Through Program Evaluation**, Deborah Baker,

As a PLC, the Brighton Central School District uses a program evaluation process as a means of accessing and organizing information about student achievement and the role current curriculum and instructional practices play in supporting that achievement. She shares this process in the handout. || || The data is black and white from teachers who participated in weekly professional learning communities to focus on designing literacy lessons with specific learning targets and feedback strategies used with their students. Writing scores improved from 52% to 89% proficiency in one year, the second highest school score out of 44 schools. Gathering and compiling data from formative and summative assessments, writing samples, and criterion-reference and diagnostic scores helped to inform curriculum and instructional practices weeded out the non-essential learning, letting what needed to be addressed rise to the top and be uncovered. Teachers followed non-negotiables and agendas or templates to guide their focused discussions || || Craig Benes, Chicago Public Schools; Olimpia Bahena, Talcott Fine Arts and Museum Academy, Chicago IL
 * **Effective Teachers, Achieving Students with Robin Largue, Janet Pitcher, Studer Group, Pensacola, FL; Rebecca McBridge,**
 * Montclair Elementary School, FL.**
 * **Influence Teaching and Student Learning by Developing Professional Learning Communities** Margaret McGregor, Chicago, IL;

This session shares the implementation and relationships of professional learning communities within three levels of the Chicago Public Schools. The resources include protocols, various meeting structures and performance management. || || They affirm from personal experience and support with research, that a reflective dialogue leads to extensive and continuing conversations among teachers about curriculum, instruction, and student development, deprivatizing practice to make teaching public. They highly recommend the use of student data walls, both physically or electronically, as a source for a quick synopses on how kids are doing in reading and math, and behavior/attendance; this also helps to celebrate what we value in teaching as it is a public display of teacher data. This provides admin w/ a quick view of who might need additional support and who might be called upon to serve as mentors. At their schools, the principal personally review 500 sets of student data cards and is personally aware of each student's progress throughout the year; he also conferences regularly with each teacher about their students to improve their ability to support instruction with strategies which are tried and tested; he sees himself as more of a coach than an evaluator || || This group of presenters, which actually included a group of associate professors from WC of CO, maintained that effective PD Programs: They shared a process for improving teacher effectiveness in 7 steps or less I found this really interesting as we're in the process of piloting iObservation and Teachscape and here is an example of something customizable, useful for gathering data to determine PD needs, and best of all, FREE!
 * **PLCs; What We Learned with Lori Stollar,** **Lincoln Intermediate Unit#12,** N**ew Oxford, PA; Jody Nace, NE School of York County, Manchester, PA**
 * **Designing High-Quality, Customizable Professional Learning in the Digital World, Laura Tuthill and James Woytek, Western College of Colorado, Gunnison CO**
 * involve intensive training
 * are sustained over time
 * are embedded in teacher' day
 * related directly to teacher' work w/ students
 * regularly engage teachers in local PLCs
 * Create a baseline walkthrough form - use google docs/forms in connection w/ iPad; this helps identify general evidence, e.g. the percent of students who are actively engaged, types of teaching (lecture vs group work, etc.)
 * Collect data using baseline walkthrough form - graphs available via google forms
 * Determine improvement goal using baseline data
 * Provide PD opportunities for teachers - admin must provide customizable PD online; teachers have 24/7 access
 * Create an improvement goal walkthrough form - new form designed to just look at goal, e.g. active engagement, etc.
 * Collect data using improvement goal walkthrough form
 * Determine next steps - reevaluate progress and begin again

They recommend the following sites to support work in the classroom: BB, Soft Chalk, Google Sites, Docs, Blogger, Prezi, Glogster (virtual posters - pay site: $29/yr for 50 students), Go Animate || || These presenters share that historically, teaching has been done in isolation, whereby it is a freelance craft, a private act, they said, 'the second most private act'! They also share that education is historically egalitarian in that teachers are interchangeable, whereby teachers are equal in knowledge and ability, leadership is discouraged and there is low accountability.
 * **Teacher Teams as Loci for Improving Teaching and Learning, Katherine Boles, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA; Vivial Troen, Brandeis University, Boston, MA**

They pushed the idea that rather than waste time building trust, we just need trust during our teaming. They gave the example that, "I don't need to have coffee with you if I donj't like you. I just need to be able to sit at a table and be supportive in coming up with strategies for helping ALL kids. (I thought this was interesting as this is contrary to what we've been hearing; that being that trust is necessary for teaming.

You know your team is working well when teachers... || These presenters shared hew ways of structuring teachers' work. They maintain that there are 7 qualities of high-performing groups which drive powerful professional communities:
 * talk about teaching
 * observe each other
 * collaboratively plan, design, research
 * help each other to reach the goal || [[file:2130 ASCD Special Education Teacher's Observation.docx]]
 * **Seven Qualities of High-Performing Groups, Bruce Wellman, Laura Lipton, Center for Adaptive Schools, Guilfor, VT**
 * maintain a clear focus
 * embrace a spirit of inquiry
 * put data at the center
 * honor commitments to learners and learning
 * cultivate relational trust
 * seek equity
 * assume collective responsibility || [[file:3302 SevenQualities ASCDRevFinal.pdf]] ||