Transcript Lee County PLC PPT.pptx

Lee County
Professional Learning
Community
Administrators and Instructional Coaches
ACLD approved PLU provided by AMSTI
Welcome
 Please sign-in
Why are we here?
 Building a professional Learning Community (PLC)
across the school district.
 To improve professional practice.
 Review the PLU outline.
 ACLD approved
 Standard 2: Teaching and Learning
Standard 2
 Standard 2: Teaching and Learning
 Promotes and monitors the success of all students in
the learning environment by
 collaboratively aligning the curriculum; by aligning the
instruction and the assessment
 processes to ensure effective student achievement;
and by using a variety of benchmarks,
 learning expectations, and feedback measures to
ensure accountability.
Requirements
 Five 3-hour meetings, plus one instructional round at a
school other than yours
 Professional Readings
 Journal – reflections; wonderings; plans
 Apply and practice targeted leadership skills
 Classroom visits
 Self-reflect using a video
Meetings
 Today – August 5, 2013
 September 24 or 25, 2013
 November 14 or 15, 2013
 February 25 or 26, 2014
 Instructional Rounds Discussion
 June 4, 2014
NORMS
 Cell phones on silent or vibrate
 Be open to other’s ways of thinking
 All conversations are confidential
 This is a “No Griping Zone”
 Take Bio Breaks as needed
CARDS
 Look at the number on your card.
 Identify where the table with the same number as your
card is located.
 Move to the table that matches the number on your
card. Take all your things with you.
Self-Reflection
 This will go into your journal. You may glue, tape or
staple this page into your journal.
 You are not expected to share what you write, but you
may share out if you would like.
Using Instructional Rounds
Adapted from the Medical Rounds process
used by doctors and medical students
“Learning to See,
Unlearning to Judge”—
Chapter 4
“The discipline of description is the core
practice on which rounds are based and is
quite novel and counterintuitive for most
educators. It must be learned, and some
other habits—like using general or
judgmental language or jargon—must be
unlearned.”
(Instructional Rounds, p. 24)
© Alabama Best Practices Center, 2010
“Learning to See”
“The kind of observing we’re talking
about here focuses not on teachers
themselves but on the teaching, learning,
and content of the instructional core.
What is the task that students are
working on. . ? . . .by description we
mean the evidence of what you see--not what you think about what you
see.”
(Instructional Rounds, p. 84)
© Alabama Best Practices Center, 2010
Why Be Descriptive? (p. 86)
“The basic reason is that we are searching
for cause-and-effect relationships between
what we observe teachers and students
doing and what students actually know and
are able to do as a consequence.”
Use descriptive language, rather than
judgments, because “cause and effect
relationships” begin “with a common
evidentiary basis.”
“Description asks for just the facts;
that is, the evidence. . . .”
 What do you see?
 What are the students doing?
 What kind of work is on the students’ desks?
 What do you hear?
 What are the students saying?
 What kinds of questions do you hear?
 Who is talking to whom?
Description requires you to leave
your assumptions at the door. . . .
 Slow down; be in the moment.
 Erase expectations.
 Record what you see, not what you think
about what you see.
 Remember that you cannot record everything
that’s going on in the classroom. Just relax,
and write down what you can.
Description can be informed by
“The Ladder of Inferences”
7. I take actions based on my beliefs
6. I adopt beliefs
5. I draw conclusions
4. I make assumptions
3. I add meanings
2. I select “data”
1.
I have experiences and make
observations that give me data
about the world
The Ladder of Inference
You are driving down the road at a sedate 40 miles
and hour in fairly heavy traffic. A small, beat up
sedan comes up from behind you, zigzagging in and
out of traffic, traveling far too fast for conditions. He
cuts in front of you, almost taking off your front
bumper. Hanging his head out the driver’s side
window, he shouts something at you, and speeds
away, continuing to quickly weave through traffic
What are your first thoughts?!?
Record them in your journal now.
 1. I observe objectively.
 2. I select data from what I observe.
 3. I add meaning to what I have selected.
 4. I make assumptions based on the meaning I have
added.
 5. I draw conclusions which prompt feelings.
 6. I adopt beliefs about the world.
 7. I take action based on my beliefs and feelings.
In case you are curious:
The fellow driving the beat up sedan was on the way to
the hospital with his wife who was seven months
pregnant. Her labor started unexpectedly while riding
in the car. The hospital was only 2 blocks away. The
life of both the mother and the baby were at risk. What
he shouted out of his window was “I’m sorry, please
excuse me.”
Why will it be so hard for us to stay
at level 1 of the ladder during our
observations?
 Strongly held beliefs
 Past experiences in observing classrooms
 Seeing through our own lenses; that is, judging
someone based on what we would do
 Culture of “nice-ness”—felt need to praise or say
something nice about what we see
What is Evidence?
“By evidence, we mean descriptive statements of what you
see … However, not all forms of evidence are equally
valuable … So we speak of evidence as having large, medium,
or small grain size – that is, being fuzzy or sharp.” (p. 92)
Description calls for
more fine-grained, not
large-grained observations.
 Relates to the level of specificity; finegrained evidence as detailed and
specific.
 Categorizations and generalizations
compromise specificity.
Large-Grained & Fine-Grained
Evidence (p. 93)
Fine-Grained
Large-Grained
• Lesson on the 4 causes of
the Civil War.
• Students answer questions
about the passage they just
read.
•
Students talked with a partner
about “How volcanoes and
earthquakes are similar and
different?”
•
Prompt for student essays:
“What role did symbolism
play in foreshadowing the
main character’s dilemma?”
•
Trios of students created
graphic organizers to explain
their problem solving process.
• Students worked in groups.
• Students talked to each
other.
Feedback Tips (p. 94)
 Ask yourself “How is that relevant for what was
happening in the classroom?”
 Avoid the “dog that didn’t bark”
description: describing what you didn’t see:
 “There were no objectives on the board.
 “The teacher didn’t call on anyone who wasn’t
raising their hand.”
Sorting Evidence
 Each table has twelve EVIDENCE Cards
 As a table group determine if the evidence is:
 judgmental or non-judgmental
 fine-grained or large-grained
 Whole Group Discussion
Record Evidence
 What are students
saying?
 What are students
doing?
 Video Break up Letter
 <script
src='https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teachingdeclaration-of-independence/embed?format=js'
type='text/javascript'></script>
 Video: 7th and 8th grade mathematics class in the
middle of a lesson on equations, inequalities and
expressions.
 http://www.insidemathematics.org/index.php/classroom
-video-visits/public-lesson-equations-inequalitiesproperties/250-equations-inequalities-a-propertiesproblem-2-part-a?
Sort your evidence
 Write evidence on sticky notes: one piece of evidence
per note
 At your table, discuss the evidence. Is it fine-grained?
Is it non-judgmental?
 What does this evidence tell you about student
learning? What do students know? What can students
do?
Now What?
 Practice gathering fine-grained, non-judgmental
evidence from classrooms.
 Grade Level Leaders; Department Chair; Others
 Record evidence, thoughts, comments, wonders,
conversations in your journal.
 Bring evidence with you to the next PLC meeting.
Plan your Next Steps
 Think: Pair: Share
 What information will I need to record with my
evidence so that I can have conversations with others
about my observations?
 What conversations might I need to have with teachers
before and after classroom observations?
Take and Do
 On your exit card (index card) answer the following two
questions:
 What are you taking away from today’s professional
learning?
 What will you do with the learning from today?