Transcript PLC -Pre-Conference-Session3. ppt

“Making the Case for Professional
Learning Communities”
Placer County Office of Education
Renee Regacho-Anaclerio- Assistant Superintendent Educational Services
Gerald Williams- Coordinator Professional Development
Schools Don’t Make a Difference
 Schools have little influence on a child’s
achievement that is independent of the background
and social content of that student.
James Coleman, Equality in Educational Opportunity, 1966
Schools Do Make a Difference
Effective Schools Research of Ron Edmonds, Larry
Lezotte, Wilbur Brookover, Michael Rutter, and others
included:
all children can learn; and the school controls the
factors to assure student mastery of the core
curriculum.
Correlates of Effective Schools
 Strong Instructional Leadership
 Clear and Focused Mission
 Safe and Orderly Environment
 Climate of High Expectations
 Frequent Monitoring of Student Progress
 Positive Home/School Relations
 Opportunity to Learn & Student Time on Task
Schools Do Make a Difference
 An analysis of research conducted over a thirty-five
year period demonstrates that schools that are highly
effective produce results that almost entirely overcome
the effects of student backgrounds.
Robert Marzano, What Works in Schools, 2003
Sustained & Substantive School
Improvement
 The most promising strategy for sustained, substantive
school improvement is building the capacity of school
personnel to function as a professional learning
community. The path to change in the classroom lies
within and through professional learning
communities. - Milbrey McLaughlin
Secondary School Principals Endorse
PLCs
 Breaking Ranks II outlines the need for current high
schools to engage in the process of change that will
ensure success for every student. Its first set of
recommendations and tools focuses on the
development of professional learning
communities. – NASSP, Breaking Ranks II, 2004
NSDC Endorses PLCs
 Staff development that improves the learning of all
students organizes adults into learning
communities whose goals are aligned with those of
the school and district.
NSDC. Standards for Staff Development, 2001
National Board for Professional Teaching
Standards Endorse PLCs
 “In order to take advantage of the broad range of
professional knowledge and expertise that resides
within the school… Teachers are Members of
Learning Communities.”
-What Teachers Should Know and Be Able to Do: The Five Core
Propositions of the National Board
National Commission on Teaching and
America’s Future
 “The commission recommends that schools be
restructured to become genuine learning
organizations for both students and teachers;
organizations that respect learning, honor teaching,
and teach for understanding.”
- National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, 1996
NEA KEYS Initiative:
A Reflective, Data-Driven Strategy for Continuous School Improvement
 Shared understanding and commitment to high goals
 Open communication and collaborative problem-
solving
 Continuous assessment for teaching and learning
 Personal and professional learning
 Curriculum and instruction
On Common Ground: The Power of Professional
Learning Communities
(Solution Tree, 2005)
 Roland Barth
 Rebecca DuFour
 Richard DuFour
 Robert Eaker
 Barbara Eason-Watkins
 Michael Fullan
 Lawrence Lezotte
 Douglas Reeves
 Mike Schmoker
 Dennis Sparks
 Rick Stiggins
A Powerful Guiding Principle
 Great organizations simplify a complex world into a
single organizing idea or guiding principle. This
guiding principle makes the complex simple, helps
focus the attention and energy of the organization on
the essentials, and becomes the frame of reference for
all decisions - Jim Collins
What is a Professional Learning
Community?
PLC Defined:
Educators committed to working collaboratively in
ongoing processes of collective inquiry and action
research in order to achieve better results for the
students they serve. PLC’s operate under the
assumption that the key to improved learning for
students is continuous, job-embedded learning for
educators. - DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, 2006
We do PLC’s!
The term, “Professional Learning Community”
has become so common place and has been
used so ambiguously to describe any loose
coupling of individuals who share a common
interest in education that it is in danger of
losing all meaning. DuFour, DuFour, Eaker,many, 2006
Death of a PLC in the Making
They opt out for “sorta PLC’s” and the concept
begins a slow but inevitable death from
constant compromise of its core principles. DuFour,
DuFour, Eaker, 2008
One of the most damaging myths about
school leadership is that the change process,
if managed well, will proceed smoothly. DuFour,
DuFour, Eaker, 2008
Common Understanding
“Clarity precedes competence”
Schmoker 2004
It is difficult enough to bring these concepts to
life in a school or district where there is shared
understanding of their meaning.
It is impossible when there is no common
understanding and the terms mean very
different things to different people within the
same organization. DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, Many, 2006
Characteristics of a Professional
Learning Community
1. Shared Mission (Purpose), Vision (Clear Direction),
Values (Collective Commitments), Goals (Targets)
2. Collaborative teams Focused on Learning
3. Collective inquiry into “best practice” and “current
reality”
4. Action orientation/experimentation: Learning by
Doing
5. Commitment to continuous improvement
6. Results orientation
First Big Idea of PLCs:
Focus on Learning
 We embrace high levels of learning for all students as
the reason the organization exists and fundamental
responsibility of those who work within it and
therefore are willing to examine all practices in light of
their impact on learning.
Taught vs. Learn
Whereas many schools operate as if their
primary purpose is to ensure that all children
are taught, PLC’s are dedicated to the idea
that their organization exists to ensure that
all children learn. DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, Many, 2006
Focus on Learning
Members of a PLC:
Are guided by a clear and compelling vision
of what their district/school must become to
help all students learn
Make collective commitments that clarify
what each member
Use results-oriented goals to mark their
progress
If the purpose of school is truly to ensure high levels of
learning for all students, then schools will:
 Clarify what each student is expected to learn
 Monitor each student’s learning on a timely basis
 Create systems to ensure students receive additional
time and support if they are not learning
What Happens When Kids Don’t Learn?
 High expectations for success will be judged not only
by the initial staff beliefs and behaviors, but also by
the organization’s response when some students do
not learn.
- Larry Lezotte, 1991
Whatever It Takes: How PLCs Respond When Kids
Don’t Learn
 In the four schools studied there was no ambiguity and
no hedging regarding each school’s fundamental
purpose. Staff members embraced the premise that the
very reason their school existed was to help all of their
students – the flawed, imperfect, boys and girls who
come to them each day – acquire knowledge and skills
given the current resources available to them. Period! –
DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, Karhnek, Solution Tree, 2004
PLCs Create systems to ensure students receive additional time
and support that are:
 Directive
 Timely
 Systematic
Assess Your School’s Response
When Kids Don’t Learn
 Are our students assured EXTRA TIME AND SUPPORT for
learning?
 Is our response TIMELY? How quickly are we able to identify the
kids who need extra time and support?
 Is our response DIRECTIVE rather than invitational? Are kids
invited to put in extra time or does our system ensure they put in
the extra time?
 Is our response SYSTEMATIC? Do kids receive this intervention
according to a school-wide plan rather than at the direction of
individual teachers?
Second Big Idea of PLCs:
A Collaborative Culture With a Focus on
Learning for ALL
We can achieve our fundamental purpose of high levels
of learning for all students only if we work together.
We cultivate a collaborative culture through the
development of high performing teams.
Need for a Collaborative Culture
Throughout our ten-year study, whenever we found an
effective school or an effective department within a
school, without exception that school or department
has been a part of a collaborative professional
learning community.
- Milbrey McLaughlin
Need for a Collaborative Culture
Improving schools require collaborative
cultures… Without collaborative skills and
relationships, it is not possible to learn and
to continue to learn as much as you need to
know to improve. - Michael Fullan
Need for a Collaborative Culture
Creating a collaborative culture is the single most
important factor for successful school improvement
initiatives and the first order of business for those
seeking to enhance the effectiveness of their schools.
Eastwood and Lewis
-
Need for a Collaborative Culture
 If schools want to enhance their capacity to boost
student learning, they should work on building a
collaborative culture…When groups, rather than
individuals, are seen as the main units for implementing
curriculum, instruction, and assessment, they facilitate
development of shared purposes for student learning
and collective responsibility to achieve it.
- Fred Newmann
Means vs. End
Collaboration is a means to an end, not the
end itself. DuFour, Dufour, Eaker, Many, 2006
A collaborative culture can be powerful, but
unless people are focusing on the right
things they may end up being powerfully
wrong. Fullan, 2001
Advantages of Teachers Working in Collaborative
Teams
 Gains in Student Achievement
 Higher Quality Solutions to Problems
 Increased Confidence Among All Staff
 Teachers Able to Support One Another’s Strengths and
Accommodate Weaknesses
 Ability to Test New Ideas
 More Support for New Teachers
 Expanded Pool of Ideas, Material, Methods
Judith Warren Little
Group IQ
 There is such a thing as a group IQ. While a group can
be no smarter than the sum total of the knowledge and
skills of its members, it can be much “dumber” if its
internal workings don’t allow people to share their
talents. - Robert Sternberg
What is Collaboration?
 A systematic process in which we work together,
interdependently, to analyze and impact professional
practice in order to improve our individual and
collective results.
 A PLC is composed of collaborative teams whose
members work interdependently to achieve common
goals- goals linked to the purpose of learning for allfor which members are held mutually accountable.
- DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, 2006
Critical Corollary Questions:
If We Believe All Kids Can Learn
 What is it we expect them to learn?
 How will we know when they have learned it?
 How will we respond when they don’t learn?
 How will we respond when they already know it?
Keys to Effective Teams
 Collaboration, with a FOCUS ON LEARNING, is
embedded in routine practices
 Time for collaboration built in school day and school
calendar
 Teams focus on key questions
 Products of collaboration are made explicit
 Team norms guide collaboration
Hand in Hand, We All Learn
 Ultimately there are two kinds of schools: learning
enriched schools and learning impoverished schools. I
have yet to see a school where the learning curves…of the
adults were steep upward and those of the students were
not. Teachers and students go hand in hand as learners..
or they don’t go at all.
-Roland Barth
Third Big Idea of PLCs:
Collective Inquiry Into Best Practice and
Current Reality
Members of a PLC engage in Collective Inquiry:
Into best practices about teaching and learning
For candid clarification of their current practices
To gain an honest assessment of their students’ current
levels of learning
To build shared knowledge
To make better, more informed decisions
To increase likelihood they will arrive at consensus
Fourth Big Idea of PLCs:
Action Orientation: Learning by Doing
 Members of PLC’s are action oriented
 Value engagement and experience as the most effective
teachers
 Recognize that learning by doing develops a deeper,
and more profound knowledge as well as a greater
commitment
 Engage in collective inquiry and action research
Learning by Doing
Professional Learning Communities
recognize that until members of the
organization “do” differently, there is
no reason to anticipate different
results. DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, Many 2006
Change or Comfort?
Traditional schools have developed a variety
of strategies to resist meaningful action,
preferring the comfort of the familiar. DuFour,
DuFour, Eaker, Many, 2006
Fifth Big Idea of PLCs:
A Commitment to Continuous Improvement
PLC’s display a persistent disquiet with the
status quo and a constant search for a better
way to achieve goals and accomplish the
purpose of the organization which is high
levels of learning for all students.
Commitment to Continuous
Improvement
Systematic processes engage members of a PLC in an
ongoing cycle of:
 Gathering evidence of student learning
 Developing strategies and ideas that build on
strengths and address weaknesses in learning
 Implementing those strategies and ideas
 Analyzing the impact of the changes
 Applying new knowledge in the next cycle of
continuous improvement
Commitment to Continuous
Improvement
Action Research – where innovation and experimentation
are viewed not as tasks to be accomplished but as a way
of conducting day-to-day business, forever.
Sixth Big Idea of PLCs:
Results Orientation: Focus on Results
 We assess our effectiveness on the basis of results
rather than intentions.
 Individual, teams and schools seek relevant data and
information and use that information to promote
continuous improvement.
 Unless initiatives are subjected to ongoing assessment
on the basis of tangible results, they represent random
groping in the dark. DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, 2008
Focus on Results Rather Than Activity
 Unless you can subject your decision-making to a
ruthless and continuous judgment by results, all your
zigs and zags will be random lunges in the dark. James Champy
 Without data you are just another person with an
opinion.
Focus on Results
 Today’s school leaders shift both their own focus and
that of the school community from inputs to outcomes
and from intentions to results. - Rick DuFour
 By the end of the 2008-09 school year all teachers will
be trained in and incorporate cooperative learning
strategies into their instructional day.
Keys to Effective Teams
 Collaboration embedded in routine practices
 Time for collaboration built in school day and school
calendar
 Teams focus on key questions
 Products of collaboration are made explicit
 Team norms guide collaboration
 Teams pursue specific & measurable performance
goals
SMART Goals Contribute to a Results-Orientation
 Strategic and Specific
 Measurable
 Attainable
 Results-Oriented
 Time-Bound
- Conzemius & O’Neil
Are these SMART Goals?
Strategically aligned with the school-wide goal of improving student
performance in language arts, by the end of the 2006-2007 school
year we will:
 Create and administer 4 common assessments in writing.
 Increase the use of cooperative learning activities in our Language
Arts lessons by 25%.
 Increase the number of students achieving the target score (80% or
higher) on the district reading assessment from 81% to 90%.
Keys to Effective Teams
Collaboration embedded in routine practices
Time for collaboration built in school day and
school calendar
Teams focus on key questions
Products of collaboration are made explicit
Team norms guide collaboration
Teams pursue specific and measurable
performance goals
Teams have access to relevant information
How can we do this work!
Asking how is a favorite defense against taking
action. Peter Block, 2003
Our own work with schools has confirmed that
a group that is determined not to act can
always find a justification for inaction. DuFour, Fufor,
Eaker, Many, 2006
Verbal persuasion rarely works against
resistors who don’t merely believe you are
wrong; they need you to be wrong to preserve
the status quo. Patterson
Something to Think About
We can, whenever and wherever we choose,
successfully teach all children whose
schooling is of interest to us. We already
know more than we need to do that.
Whether or not we do it must finally depend
on how we feel about the fact that we
haven’t so far. Ron Edmonds- Effective Schools Researcher, 1987