1. Professional Learning Communities in Council Rock
Ann-Thank you for your time today and for your willingness to be involved with this exciting and meaningful work
Pilot approval.
Share key leanings
Provide turnaround training for you and for you to use with your teams.
We know you are aware of the power of the professional learning community and the extensive research that supports the PLC as the most beneficial form of professional development for teachers and the students whom they serve.

2. Goals Together, we will:
Understand why Council Rock is ready to embark on the Professional Learning Community journey.
Develop a common understanding of Professional Learning Communities and their essential components.
Understand the process of a collaborative team and the necessary steps to begin meaningful work.
Ann

3. Professional Learning Community Defined
An ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the student they serve.
PLCs operate under the assumption that the key to improved learning for students is continuous, job- embedded learning for educators.
DuFour, DuFour, Eaker and Many (2010)
Lynn- Many times the term PLC is used to describe work done in schools, but it is much more than just meeting as a group. Clarity precedes competence… 
PLC is not a workshop, program, book study, or meeting. It is an ongoing, never ending journey, a process in which educators engage…we go back to our classroom, test it out, see if the policy/program/Journeys is working…
The district is the PLC. Collaborative teams meet on an ongoing basis…ideally, every person is part of a collaborative team.

4. PLC Big Ideas & Core Values
Ensuring that Students Learn
Learning for all
A Culture of Collaboration
Teamwork
Focus on Results
Data-Driven Decisions
Alyssa- When talking as group about what is important from the PLC conference the three big ideas stuck out most. Fits beautifully with the mission of Council Rock

5. Alyssa

6. Council Rock Mission Statement
To empower all students with the knowledge, habits, and attitudes to become life-long learners and to lead and serve in a diverse, global society.
Alyssa

7. Why a PLC is Different It’s job-embedded time. It’s based on data.
It’s grounded in meaningful, viable curriculum.
It breaks down walls of isolation & fosters collective responsibility for our students.
It’s not group work; it’s teamwork.
It demands differentiation. Teachers look at data- child by child, by name and by need, and plan how to address each.
It focuses on Four Critical Questions of Learning.
Alyssa- We see PLC as a natural fit for CR. We have a collaborative culture and a staff that appreciates opportunities to work together. We know this from the success of Collaborative Colleagues, LYI, Deep Smarts, Paired Learning. We know this from the feedback of staff on the survey…they want more time to collaborate.
PLCs honor that and provide a structured means of collaborating that directly impacts student learning.

8. Four Critical Questions of Learning
What is it that we expect students 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?
Jill- It doesn’t matter what we teach…we all center our work around the four questions.
What are the most essential skills, concepts, etc. for our students to learn? Meaningful & viable curriculum
We must create systems to monitor if they have learned it- formative assessments.
What will we do differently?
What will we do to extend/enrich?
Previous notes- Common Curriculum, Common Assessment, Common Pacing
The ideal shift here with these critical questions would be to get teachers to the point that when things aren’t going well they look in the mirror to say what can I change? We want to move past the excuses of that is how he/she is, or a blame on parents.
Once teachers see these questions they may feel scripted or the need to teach identically to their neighbor. This however is not the case, the beginning is the same (focusing on the big ideas) the end is the same (formative assessment) it is the middle where the teacher gets to show their art of teaching.

9. Cycle of a Collaborative Team
Step 1: Identify
Power Standards
What do we really want students to
know and be able to do?
“Unwrap” Standards, Identify Big Ideas & Essential Questions
Adjust Instruction based on collaborative, ongoing data-analysis, including examination of student work.
Cycle of a Collaborative Team
Step 4: Participate in ongoing data-driven decision making
How do we respond when they aren't
learning, or if they already know it?
Step 2: Design/Use
Assessments for Learning
How will we know students are learning
(before it’s too late)?
Develop performance assessments, rubrics, and common formative assessments
Jill- We liked this visual that illustrates the ongoing process in which a collaborative team engages…we believe this process addresses many of the issues currently facing our district
Step 3: Design & Deliver Effective Instruction
What are research-based practices that will lead to student learning of power standards and beyond?
Design lessons to support attainment of power standards. Consider student engagement, research-based practices, student-involved assessment.
© Capistrano Unified School District

10. To Improve Student Achievement
Create a guaranteed and viable curriculum.
Establish a limited number of power standards.
Pursue clear and focused essential academic goals.
Develop a compact list of learning expectations and tangible exemplars of student proficiency.
Jill

11. Guaranteed & Viable Curriculum
Only happens when teachers--who are called on to deliver the curriculum--work collaboratively to:
Study the intended curriculum and agree on priorities within the curriculum.
Clarify how the curriculum translates into specific student knowledge and skills.
Establish pacing guidelines for delivering the curriculum.
Commit to one another that they will actually teach the curriculum.
(DuFour and Marzano, Leaders of Learning, 2011)
Jill

12. Common Assessments
…assess the learning of all students pursuing the same curriculum through the use of the same instrument and/or the same criteria. …are administered at the same time or within a narrow window of time. …are administered to special education students according to the adaptations and modifications specified in their IEPs.
Ann

13. Formative Assessment Process
A formative assessment is assessment for learning while a summative assessment is an assessment of learning.
Formative assessment is to summative assessment what a physical examination is to an autopsy.
Summative assessments give students the chance to prove what they learned; formative assessments give students the chance to improve on their learning.
Ann

14. Keys to a Common Formative Assessment Process
To determine if an assessment process is formative, ask:
Is it used to identify students who experience difficulty in their learning?
Do students receive additional time and support for learning when they experience difficulty?
Do students get an additional opportunity to demonstrate their learning?
Do teachers use the results to inform and improve their individual and collective practice?
Ann

15. Why PLCs for Council Rock
Current Issue/ Concern
Preferred Outcome
Not many people go into Performance Tracker
Teachers analyze data to improve student learning
Not enough time to rewrite meaningful curriculum maps
Students meet PA Core Standards
Little consistency in the use of common formative assessment
Teachers effectively assess students understanding before it is too late
Inconsistency in grading policies
All teachers use fair grading practices
Teachers unsure of ways to address needs of struggling learners
Teachers collaborate to analyze data & define best instructional strategies to reach all learners
Needs of Gifted not always being met
Teachers collaborate to analyze data & to define best instructional strategies to reach all learners
Middle of road students are at risk of slipping through the cracks
Julie

16. Why PLCs for Council Rock
Current Issue/ Concern
Preferred Outcome
Backwards mapping is not common practice
Teachers collaborate to identify essential knowledge & skills for each standard
Low incidence students are not always included with appropriate modifications
Teachers collaborate to analyze data & define best instructional strategies to reach all learners
New Teacher Effectiveness might foster competition rather than collaboration
Teachers collaborate to “make all teachers as good as our best”
Create sustainable systemic change to improve student learning
Engage all staff in a cycle of continuous learning
Success for all students on PSSA and Keystones
Teachers collaborate to identify essential knowledge & skills, & define best instructional strategies to reach all learners
Keep focus on student learning, not on teaching
Engage teachers in development of common formative assessment & analysis of results
Educators need to remain current on Best Practices
Teachers collaborate define best instructional strategies to reach all learners
Teachers curve mid-terms and finals
All assessments (including exams) fairly and accurately assess student learning
Julie

17. Why PLCs for Council Rock
It Just Makes Sense!
Julie

18. Proposed PLC Pilot for 13-14
Seven Collaborative Teams meet twice a month (see chart)
Same day of week at same time (twice a month)
Six out of seven teams will require sub coverage
System of collaborative subs will be devised.
Two sets of half day subs will be used.
Same sub will be used each time Collaborative Team meets.
Each Collaborative Team member has agreed to give up his/her professional days to participate in the PLC pilot.
Each team has a designated leader who will participate in training and lead team in this process.
Ann- Perfect for CR- this is the means by which we can live our mission, our values, our beliefs about children, about learning
Share what we saw in Montgomery Township School District

19. Proposed PLC Pilot for 13-14
Leadership Team consisting of team leaders, select building administrators and central office administrators will meet monthly to:
engage in shared learning
to discuss progress of collaborative teams
to celebrate successes.
Team leaders will report out at monthly meetings.
Share team progress, challenges and successes.
Ann- Steering Committee of sorts. All of us, all of you we hope along with…
Learning by Doing-copies

20. Clarity Precedes Competence
PLC
Collaborative team
Team norms
Guaranteed and viable curriculum
Common assessment
Pre-assessment
Four Critical Questions
Formative Assessment
Summative Assessment
Performance-based assessment
Systematic intervention
SMART goal
Four pillars of the PLC foundation
Ann- Chat with your table group. Do you have a common understanding of the following key PLC terms?

21. Team Defined
A team is a group of people working interdependently to achieve a common goal for which members are mutually accountable.
Alyssa- story of the chicago marathon runners…

22. 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.
(DuFour, DuFour, & Eaker, Getting Started: Reculturing Schools to Become Professional L earning Communities, 2002)
Alyssa- We co-labor together. This systematic process is tight. Eg. Safety checks at nuclear power plants…loose or tight?
Many like to collaborate on things that stop at the classroom door (Halloween parties, cell phones)

23. The Focus of Collaboration
“Collaborative cultures, which by definition have close relationships, are indeed powerful, but unless they are focusing on the right things, they may end up being powerfully wrong.”
- Fullan, Leading in a Culture of Change (2001)
Alyssa

24. A Key Question in PLCs
The critical question in a PLC is not, “Do we collaborate?” but rather, “What do we collaborate about?” We must not settle for “Collaboration Lite.”
Alyssa- Or “coblaboration”

25. Creating a Culture that is simultaneously TIGHT and LOOSE
Effective leaders of PLCs establish clearly articulated, non-discretionary parameters and priorities that individuals and teams must honor and observe. These aspects of the organization are tight.
Within these tight boundaries, individuals and teams are empowered and encouraged to work in creative and autonomous ways. These aspects of the organization are loose.
Julie- Art and Science

26. Tight About The Right Work
Educators work in collaborative teams and take collaborative responsibility for student learning rather than work in isolation.
Collaborative teams implement a viable and collaborative curriculum.
Collaborative teams monitor student learning through an on- going assessment process that includes frequent, team- developed common formative assessments.
Educators use the results of the common assessments to:
Improve individual practice.
Build the team’s capacity to achieve its goals.
Intervene/enrich on behalf of students.
The school provides systematic process for intervention and enrichment
Julie

27. Effective Leaders Clarify What is Tight….
Through ongoing dialogue, not monologue
Through conversation, not presentation
“Communicating during implementation is far more important than communicating prior to implementation.”
(Fullan, Motion Leadership, The Skinny on Becoming Change Savvy (2009), p.26)
Julie

28. Seven Keys to Effective Teams
Embed collaboration in routine practices of the school with a FOCUS ON LEARNING.
Schedule time for collaboration into the school day and the school calendar.
Focus teams on critical questions.
Make products of collaboration explicit.
Establish team norms to guide collaboration.
Pursue specific and measurable team performance goals.
Provide teams with frequent access to relevant information.
Lynn

29. Team Norms
Lynn

30. The Significance of Team Norms
When all is said and done, the norms of a group help determine whether it functions as a high-performing team or becomes simply a loose collection of people working together. (Goleman, Working With Emotional Intelligence,1998)
Lynn – Mention that we will be establishing our team norms at the initial meeting of our PLC Group. These will act as a code of conduct. This will ensure productivity and accountability.

31. The Importance of Norms
One thing is clear: Having clear norms gives teams a huge advantage. A key to effective teams is involving all members in establishing norms and then holding everyone accountable to what they have agreed on. (Lencioni, Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, 2005)
Lynn- Take time to establish the norms so that everyone is on board. Team leader will explain the process, the importance of norms and will facilitate discussion to create norms for the group.

32. Criteria for Team Norms
The norms have clarified our expectations of one another.
All members of the team participated in creating the norms. All voices were heard.
The norms are stated as commitments to act in certain ways.
All members have committed to honoring the norms.
Lynn- Creating team norms is one of the first steps in collaboration within the PLC.

33. Example of One Team’s Norms
Begin and end our meetings on time and stay fully engaged during each meeting
Maintain a positive attitude at team meetings– no complaining unless we offer a better alternative
Listen respectfully to each other
Contribute equally to the workload
Make decisions on the basis of consensus
Encourage one another to honor our commitments
Fully support each other’s efforts to improve student learning
Lynn- They are simple but they need to be re-visited at every meeting. It is very easy to bring one’s daily dilemmas with them and to get off topic with other departmental discussions. Honoring the norms is honoring the group and respecting one another’s willingness to collaborate and to work in an effort to engage student learning.

34. PLCs Focus on Results
Jill

35. Professional Learning Communities Focus on Results to Identify…..
Each student who has not yet learned the essential skills and concepts.
Each student who has learned the essential; skills and concepts.
Strategies to improve upon our individual ability to teach each essential skill and concept.
Strategies to improve upon our collective ability to teach each essential skill and concept.
Jill

36. Consider How Your Team Is Using Results
What is your team currently doing well?
What needs the most attention when it comes to using results to identify the above?
Jill- Using the four on the slide above…

37. Pursue Both Attainable Goals & Stretch Goals
Attainable Goals- intended to document incremental progress and build momentum through short-terms wins
Stretch Goals- intended to inspire, stimulate creativity, and stimulate action
Focus on Results NOT Activities
Goals should focus on what students will do,
not what teachers will do
Pursue Both Attainable Goals & Stretch Goals
Julie

38. SMART Goals Strategic and Specific Measureable Attainable
Results oriented
Time bound
Julie

39. Are These SMART Team Goals?
Strategically aligned with the schoolwide goal of improving student achievement, by the end of the school year we will:
Develop and administer at least six common assessments.
Implement the Common Core Standards in the 100% of the classrooms.
Increase the percentage of students achieving and exceeding the target score (80% +) on each strand of our end-of-year assessment, from 81% last year to at least 90% this year.
Julie- Which are SMART Goals?
Give handout page 97-99

40. Suggested Timeline for Team Products
By end of the:
First month: Team norms
Second month: Team SMART goal
Third month: Common essential outcomes
Fourth month: First common assessment
Fifth month: Analysis of student performance on first common formative assessment
Ann

41. PLC Leaders at All Levels Are Most Effective When They…
Work collaboratively with others and take collective responsibility for achieving shared goals for which they are mutually accountable.
Provide clarity regarding the work to be done.
Monitor and support others to help them succeed at what they are being asked to do.
Sustain their focus on a limited number of goals and initiatives.
Acknowledge and celebrate small wins.
Ann

42. What We Need to Succeed
Honor tight vs. loose to insure fidelity of the PLC process.
Guarantee to keep team & leadership meeting time sacred.
Be willing to engage in shared learning.
Support the learning process as we explore how PLCs can help move CR from good to great (or great to greater).
Emphasize why collaboration (not competition) benefits all of us, especially our students.
Be the PLC supporter!
Have patience as we undertake first steps of CR’s journey into this powerful process.
Ann- And most importantly…
Supporter (spread the word, be the cheerleader, have conversations about it, share how lucky we are to engage staff in this way, assist with logistics)

43. Clarity Precedes Competence
PLC
Collaborative team
Team norms
Guaranteed and viable curriculum
Common assessment
Pre-assessment
Four Critical Questions
Formative Assessment
Summative Assessment
Performance-based assessment
Systematic intervention
SMART goal
Four pillars of the PLC foundation
Ann- Chat with your table group. Do you have a common understanding of the following key PLC terms?

44. Connect and Reflect What has changed about your understanding of PLC?
Describe your role in the PLC process in Council Rock. What do you see as your greatest responsibility?
Ann

45. Learning by Doing
Capacity building…is not just workshops and professional development for all. It is the daily habit of working together, and you can’t learn this from a workshop or course. You need to learn it by doing it and having mechanisms for getting better at it on purpose.
-Fullan, 2005
Ann- CR is in good hands
Michael Fullan- 8 forces for leaders of change
We believe the PLC could be CR’s mechanism for getting better and better- on purpose.

46. Discuss Master Schedule for Team Meeting Time
Questions, Concerns, etc.

47. -Childress, Elmore, Grossman, & Johnson, 2007
“District Leaders must find a way for these pockets of excellence to become the norm rather than the exception.”
-Childress, Elmore, Grossman, & Johnson, 2007

48. Why do institutions created for and devoted to learning not call upon the professionals within them to become more proficient in improving the effectiveness of schools by actually doing the work of school improvement?

49. Cycle of a Collaborative Team
Step 1: Identify
Power Standards
What do we really want students to
know and be able to do?
Cycle of a Collaborative Team
Step 4: Participate in ongoing data-driven decision making
How do we respond when they aren't learning, or if they already know it?
Step 2: Design/Use
Assessments for Learning
How will we know students are learning (before it’s too late)?
Jill- We liked this visual that illustrates the ongoing process in which a collaborative team engages…we believe this process addresses many of the issues currently facing our district
Step 3: Design & Deliver Effective Instruction
What are research-based practices that will lead to student learning of power standards and beyond?
© Capistrano Unified School District

50. Notes: ________________________________________ ______________________________________________