I set-up this blog to introduce technology into the school leadership courses that I teach for the University; I hope it will increase communication and thinking about the topics we discuss and school leadership in general.
Best books for educational leaders
A brief guide to cloud computing by Barnatt
A whole new mind by Pink
Dealing with difficult teachers by Whitaker
Drive by Pink
Education nation by Chen
Failure is not an option by Blankstein
Focus by Schmoker
Getting things done by Allen
Leadership & the force of love by Hoyle
Leading school change by Whitaker
Mastery of management by Kahler
Playing for pizza by Grisham (just for fun)
Results now by Schmoker
School leadership that works by Marzano
Teacher evaluation that makes a difference by Marzano & Toth
The global achievement gap by Wagner
The manufactured crisis by Berliner
The wizard and the warrior by Bolman & Deal
Visible learning by Hattie
Where have all the leaders gone by Iacocca
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Sunday, February 28, 2010
PLC
Much has been written and said regarding the use of the PLC model as the best way to increase achievement for all students. Do you buy it? Has more been said then done??? Why or why not? What is working and/or not working within schools that you know about? Share the data if you have any to support your opinion.
I feel that communication is important for people in leadership positions. I feel that Transmitting information is very important in leading a school For example, If I lead a faculty meeting and say only one word "to". Then I ask each faculty member to define the word. Some may give the definition of to, too, or the number two. But if you use a projector with the word "to" on it. Then ask for the definition from the faculty. You will get the same outcome. Therefore, its important to use multiple channels, technology, and repition to communicate a message or assignment to a large group. That way you can effectively communicate a message and the receiver gets the message the way you intended.
The PLC model can be successful if the entire staff buys into it. When I say buy into it, I mean actively and willingly participating in PLCs. I think the shift from teaching to focusing on learning is what stifles some teachers.
My building has so called PLC meetings on Friday. We discuss data and ways to increase student achievement. The downfall is that there are teachers who sit through the meeting and leave and do the same thing that they have been doing--focusing on teaching, not learning. These teachers do not use the strategies that the team has collaborated on and decided to use.
A couple of years ago, when we started having PLC, we did see an increase in student achievement. The staff was excited and eager to learn from each other. We had professional development that was conducted by staff members. It was phenomenal to learn from fellow staff members and to also see their strengths as educators. So, I think that PLC can work. Is it best for all students, it can be if students get the individual attention that they need.
I like the PLC Model's Big Ideas that were listed in the article we read: "What is a Professional Learning Community"
Big Ideas: #1 Ensuring that students learn #2 A Culture of Collaboration #3 A Focus on Results
For a PLC to be successful whole staff meetings and grade level meetings need to be meaningful and relative to all of the staff members and some sort of accountability established for the staff and teachers for this model to be effective.
In my staff meetings grade levels all sit by each other, special ed, and specials teachers in another area. As a K-5 art teacher it seems like the main focus is on the grade levels and about 95% of the meeting does not pertain to what I do. More and more they want me to support them by teaching reading and math within art which is something that I do support by having the students write art statements and using a ruler to measure their artwork when they complete it among other things.
As an art teacher I am passionate about art and there are art standards that I have to cover as well so I am kind of torn between supporting the grade levels and giving the students the opportunity to experience a differentiated approach to art education that I provide through art making centers. There has to be a balance where I am doing both things integrating academics and supporting the classrooms while still covering the art standards.
It just seems to me that many times the whole staff meetings could be somehow made more relevant and focus on the grade level teams and specials teams integrating more and breaking out of our comfort zones to see what other grade levels and specials and special ed are doing so we could gel even more as an entire Professional Learning Community to support one another more effectively. For this to happen there needs to be accountability on some level as people can sit through meetings and just continue in their own way of doing things in their classroom.
As the Big Idea #1 states that all students learn-it is important to realize that not only teaching the students but to make sure they are learning is the key to a successful PLC. The Big idea #2 says collaborating and I feel as I stated above I see collaboration taking place by grade level but that needs to be expanded somehow where the entire school community is working together to support each other. Big idea #3 focus on results I believe that we have a ton of data from test scores that give us lots of data on results but there should be accountability where results of an entire PLC are measured. Where not only grade levels are collaborating but the entire school.
As I was reading the article about the Professional Learning Communities, it made so much sense to me. I found bits and pieces that sounded like things that we are doing at our school but we were not and are not taking it as far as what I was reading about. We do have departmental meetings but these do not include collaborative planning times. We do a grade level benchmark test at the end of the 9 weeks but we do not necessarily do unit test anymore. We give the benchmark once every nine weeks and at the end we do error analysis. We spend so much time trying to shove the standards down their throats but yet we don’t spend the time making sure that they understand them fully. I think this is where teaching to the test comes in. We focus on them passing the CRCT while we are losing them in the back stretch because they don’t understand the concepts that we were to teach and that had we taught them with a common goal in mind we would be teaching them the concepts and would not have to teach to the test. I was very interested in what I read in the book when I read of the different things that the schools were doing with the students who after sitting through a class were still not absorbing the concepts being taught. They stopped at nothing to make sure that the students would succeed. If we had more schools like that and they would really take this serious, I believe we would have fewer schools not making AYP. With me being an 8th grade Language Arts teacher on top of my band duties, the requirements of me as teacher are hard to keep up with. I do not have planning with neither the connections teachers nor the 8th grade teachers. Because of this, I do most of my own thing and hope that I am with the other teachers as far as units. I try my best to keep all of my work as close to theirs as possible but even that is sometimes hard. I could see where using PLC’s would make this so much easier. I believe that many schools mean well and the try to act the part but are they really putting for the effort. On the other side, we as schools are so busy trying to make what works at others schools work at our school that we lose sight of what really need to do and that is teach the children and make sure that they succeed. I believe that if we got back to some “old school tactics” we would see some results. I know at our school, it seems like every time we turn around they want us to do something new or teach using this concept or this program. New things are evolving as we speak. If we could stay with one concept and work it right, I think we would be more successful. I do feel that if the PLC’S were implemented and totally followed that we would see great success taking place. I think that teachers and students alike would leave school everyday feeling like they had accomplished something.
In my experiences, the term Professional Learning Community is misused according to the article. Firstly, we have a PLC group meeting each week. The group reads a chapter each week and a person summarizes the chapter at the meeting. (We are reading a book on motivation now). Afterwards, we discuss the chapter and how we can use it as teachers. Then we leave. But, we dont follow the steps suggested in the article that lead to student achievement. Yet, we have a group called the design team that functions more like a PLC according to the article. The group meets each week with a person from each grade. They collaberate on how to help students and techers succeed. They also meet with teachers from other schools in the district once a month to collaberate and discuss best practices. I would rename the Design Team at our school the Professional Learning Community.
All, Great responses. I appreacite your thinking and it is clear that you understand the concepts. For more info on real PLCs Google "DuFour" or get a copy of Blankstein's book as listed on this site. Bye.
I am a part of our school design team. It is supposed to function as a Professional Learning Community, but I believe it tends to move in another direction. We spend most of our time critiquing grade level boards, making schedules, and creating charts. I think I am going to go to my principal, so I can get clarification on what our true purpose is.
The article we read concerning communication exemplified some key strategies that we can use as leaders to enhance communication, and breakdown barriers that exist within and between the school, students, parents and the community.
As I perused through the communication ideas, I found that several of them tweaked had been implemented at schools where I’ve worked. The one that I thought had the greatest impact was when administrators and teachers visited the student’s neighborhoods and distributed reading books. I think this effort screamed volume saying, “We care about you”. Another idea that we implemented, was giving the gifted students volunteer hours for tutoring their peers during weekly tutorial classes. One that I am willing to try is to establish a recognition program for parents who contribute to the school or work especially hard with their youngster.
As effective communicators, the article I thought promoted an attitude that we must foster an environment that promotes equity of voice where all stakeholders feel their concerns are valued. We must also improve the delivery of how we disseminate information effectively concerning the organization.
I truly believe if we can increase the communication in our schools between the parents, community and school, it will increase student achievement. We can’t help but to improve in this area, because now we’ve placed a microscope, and will inspect what we expect.
What is a “Professional Learning Community”? I conquer with Richard DuFour, I believe that a PLC should focus on learning rather than teaching. In DeKalb County, I think a paradigm shift took place maybe six years ago where teachers were expected to share the responsibility of learning with the student. What is meant by that is, the teacher was expected to introduce the standard and model the lesson. From that point, the student would be given the opportunity to explore the concepts individually, then collectively. The student initially grows through this process, and experiences self gratification as he/she become independent thinkers. After about twenty minutes of think, action time, selected students are chosen to share their strategy on how to work through the assignment using multiple representations to their peers. Yes, this has caused pain for some teachers because educators were born to give the answer, and now they’re told to just facilitate. Now because of this shift, students are beginning to think analytically, and teachers are forced to wing students off of the similac, and put them on whole milk.
I believe as the adults become more comfortable facilitating lessons, they are able to teach students the same.
Is it working? For some classrooms it is working, and in others, it is not. It is not close to being fine tuned and systematically structured as Adlai Stevenson High School. In most places districts attempt to solve many problems at once, and in return nothing is completed in excellence because you’re trying to address too many concerns all at once. Even though there may be many concerns within a school or district I personally feel you can only effectively monitor at most three initiatives.
As I continued to perused the PLC article, I was able to reflect on some of the efforts in action at Adlai, were also mirrored in my county. These included monitoring the student’s progress. We measure students’ achievement by looking at benchmark data, having student conferences, portfolio review, data talks, peer tutor, study buddy and a computer program that was purchased to enhance and remediate individual students learning profile. On page two the author spoke of various students being invited to attend tutorials. At our school to participate in any extracurricular activity, you must have earned a grade of C or better. Tutorial is mandatory for all participants for the first 30 minutes. It is a formality, based on intervention, but mastering the concepts is not its total goal. For struggling students we have implemented a remediation program to assist with misconceptions. We’ve offered students volunteer hours to tutor their peers in the area of math.
In Big Idea #2 we’ve gravitated to operational duties rather than PLC. We’re getting better at working collaboratively; however, the time is not sacred, so other things may interfere with corroborating perpetually. Some departments have created study groups, where select teachers participate, and then they are expected to go back and redeliver to the masses. We also have vertical and horizontal meetings to try to meet the needs of our students.
As stated previously, a lot has been initiated, and much is expected. However, I don’t think we’re going to get the results we need until we continue to make the necessary changes deliberately, systematically, and intentional narrow the focus.
In closing, I too like DeFour, believe the element of improvement rest and abide on the shoulders of the dedicated and committed educator. As leaders, we can explore the extrinsic rewards to complement the powerful intrinsic driving forces, and as others come into the organization the culture of excellence would not be compromised because of the forces that preceded to establish the foundation. Reign excellence, reign.
I believe in PLC's simply becase this is the type of framework that I work in/participate in on a daily basis at my school. I do not think more has been said than done concerning PLC's. It's just a matter of getting schools to jump on the bandwagon of PLC's. I think it does improve teaching and learning, which leads to school improvement; you must have a strategy focused on instruction, teacher teaming and leadership. I also believe in teachers working together as a team, meeting frequently to review data which should drive instruction, setting goals, and sharing best practices after strategies have been implemented to find out what worked and what did not. Teachers should also focus on common curriculum standards. Again, this is the model used at my school. That's how I am able to attest to the fact that it does work as far as student achievement. The professional learning communities concept requires the school staff to focus on learning rather than teaching, work collaboratively on matters related to learning, and be accountable for the kind of results that produce continued improvement. This initiation and sustainability starts with the leader of a school.
Having very little experience with PLC's I have noticed that they work great if the group buys into the belief that they are benefical to student achievement. On the flip side if the group feels that they are a waste of time or merely used to meet contract terms then they do not work so well.
While I have little professional experience working in PLC's, I did have the opportunity to attend a PD session on PLC's during my student teaching semester. The session was very informative with regards to the usefulness of PLC's. In my position at Old Mission I will be joining a PLC, but at this time I have not made a decision as to which group to join.
I have done the PLC thing for each of the 4 years now that I've taught and think it can definitely be advantageous. The key in my experience is having all team members on board and actually willing to buy into the PLC model. You can learn so much from your colleauges and can save so much time by sharing materials, thoughts, experiences, etc. The problem is often times it's tough to have your entire PLC group excited and motivated to work together.
I am a believer in the PLC movement. We are involved in critical friends work (a version of PLC work)at Traverse City West Senior High. Too often as teachers we work alone. We are not used to having teachers come in to our classrooms, examine our student work, share lesson plan ideas, etc. Our work becomes better if we share it with other professionals for whom we have respect. We need to get over the fear of having our work public.
I feel that communication is important for people in leadership positions. I feel that Transmitting information is very important in leading a school For example, If I lead a faculty meeting and say only one word "to". Then I ask each faculty member to define the word. Some may give the definition of to, too, or the number two. But if you use a projector with the word "to" on it. Then ask for the definition from the faculty. You will get the same outcome. Therefore, its important to use multiple channels, technology, and repition to communicate a message or assignment to a large group. That way you can effectively communicate a message and the receiver gets the message the way you intended.
ReplyDeleteThe PLC model can be successful if the entire staff buys into it. When I say buy into it, I mean actively and willingly participating in PLCs. I think the shift from teaching to focusing on learning is what stifles some teachers.
ReplyDeleteMy building has so called PLC meetings on Friday. We discuss data and ways to increase student achievement. The downfall is that there are teachers who sit through the meeting and leave and do the same thing that they have been doing--focusing on teaching, not learning. These teachers do not use the strategies that the team has collaborated on and decided to use.
A couple of years ago, when we started having PLC, we did see an increase in student achievement. The staff was excited and eager to learn from each other. We had professional development that was conducted by staff members. It was phenomenal to learn from fellow staff members and to also see their strengths as educators. So, I think that PLC can work. Is it best for all students, it can be if students get the individual attention that they need.
I like the PLC Model's Big Ideas that were listed in the article we read: "What is a Professional Learning Community"
ReplyDeleteBig Ideas:
#1 Ensuring that students learn
#2 A Culture of Collaboration
#3 A Focus on Results
For a PLC to be successful whole staff meetings and grade level meetings need to be meaningful and relative to all of the staff members and some sort of accountability established for the staff and teachers for this model to be effective.
In my staff meetings grade levels all sit by each other, special ed, and specials teachers in another area. As a K-5 art teacher it seems like the main focus is on the grade levels and about 95% of the meeting does not pertain to what I do. More and more they want me to support them by teaching reading and math within art which is something that I do support by having the students write art statements and using a ruler to measure their artwork when they complete it among other things.
As an art teacher I am passionate about art and there are art standards that I have to cover as well so I am kind of torn between supporting the grade levels and giving the students the opportunity to experience a differentiated approach to art education that I provide through art making centers. There has to be a balance where I am doing both things integrating academics and supporting the classrooms while still covering the art standards.
It just seems to me that many times the whole staff meetings could be somehow made more relevant and focus on the grade level teams and specials teams integrating more and breaking out of our comfort zones to see what other grade levels and specials and special ed are doing so we could gel even more as an entire Professional Learning Community to support one another more effectively. For this to happen there needs to be accountability on some level as people can sit through meetings and just continue in their own way of doing things in their classroom.
As the Big Idea #1 states that all students learn-it is important to realize that not only teaching the students but to make sure they are learning is the key to a successful PLC. The Big idea #2 says collaborating and I feel as I stated above I see collaboration taking place by grade level but that needs to be expanded somehow where the entire school community is working together to support each other. Big idea #3 focus on results I believe that we have a ton of data from test scores that give us lots of data on results but there should be accountability where results of an entire PLC are measured. Where not only grade levels are collaborating but the entire school.
By the way today is my 39th Birthday!! And I am doing my homework-grin
ReplyDeleteAs I was reading the article about the Professional Learning Communities, it made so much sense to me. I found bits and pieces that sounded like things that we are doing at our school but we were not and are not taking it as far as what I was reading about. We do have departmental meetings but these do not include collaborative planning times. We do a grade level benchmark test at the end of the 9 weeks but we do not necessarily do unit test anymore. We give the benchmark once every nine weeks and at the end we do error analysis. We spend so much time trying to shove the standards down their throats but yet we don’t spend the time making sure that they understand them fully. I think this is where teaching to the test comes in. We focus on them passing the CRCT while we are losing them in the back stretch because they don’t understand the concepts that we were to teach and that had we taught them with a common goal in mind we would be teaching them the concepts and would not have to teach to the test. I was very interested in what I read in the book when I read of the different things that the schools were doing with the students who after sitting through a class were still not absorbing the concepts being taught. They stopped at nothing to make sure that the students would succeed. If we had more schools like that and they would really take this serious, I believe we would have fewer schools not making AYP.
ReplyDeleteWith me being an 8th grade Language Arts teacher on top of my band duties, the requirements of me as teacher are hard to keep up with. I do not have planning with neither the connections teachers nor the 8th grade teachers. Because of this, I do most of my own thing and hope that I am with the other teachers as far as units. I try my best to keep all of my work as close to theirs as possible but even that is sometimes hard. I could see where using PLC’s would make this so much easier.
I believe that many schools mean well and the try to act the part but are they really putting for the effort. On the other side, we as schools are so busy trying to make what works at others schools work at our school that we lose sight of what really need to do and that is teach the children and make sure that they succeed. I believe that if we got back to some “old school tactics” we would see some results. I know at our school, it seems like every time we turn around they want us to do something new or teach using this concept or this program. New things are evolving as we speak. If we could stay with one concept and work it right, I think we would be more successful.
I do feel that if the PLC’S were implemented and totally followed that we would see great success taking place. I think that teachers and students alike would leave school everyday feeling like they had accomplished something.
In my experiences, the term Professional Learning Community is misused according to the article. Firstly, we have a PLC group meeting each week. The group reads a chapter each week and a person summarizes the chapter at the meeting. (We are reading a book on motivation now). Afterwards, we discuss the chapter and how we can use it as teachers. Then we leave. But, we dont follow the steps suggested in the article that lead to student achievement. Yet, we have a group called the design team that functions more like a PLC according to the article. The group meets each week with a person from each grade. They collaberate on how to help students and techers succeed. They also meet with teachers from other schools in the district once a month to collaberate and discuss best practices. I would rename the Design Team at our school the Professional Learning Community.
ReplyDeleteAll, Great responses. I appreacite your thinking and it is clear that you understand the concepts. For more info on real PLCs Google "DuFour" or get a copy of Blankstein's book as listed on this site. Bye.
ReplyDeleteI am a part of our school design team. It is supposed to function as a Professional Learning Community, but I believe it tends to move in another direction. We spend most of our time critiquing grade level boards, making schedules, and creating charts. I think I am going to go to my principal, so I can get clarification on what our true purpose is.
ReplyDeleteThe article we read concerning communication exemplified some key strategies that we can use as leaders to enhance communication, and breakdown barriers that exist within and between the school, students, parents and the community.
ReplyDeleteAs I perused through the communication ideas, I found that several of them tweaked had
been implemented at schools where I’ve worked. The one that I thought had the greatest impact was when administrators and teachers visited the student’s neighborhoods
and distributed reading books. I think this effort screamed volume saying, “We care about you”. Another idea that we implemented, was giving the gifted students volunteer hours for tutoring their peers during weekly tutorial classes. One that I am willing to try is to establish a recognition program for parents who contribute to the school or work especially hard with their youngster.
As effective communicators, the article I thought promoted an attitude that we must foster an environment that promotes equity of voice where all stakeholders feel their concerns are valued. We must also improve the delivery of how we disseminate information effectively concerning the organization.
I truly believe if we can increase the communication in our schools between the parents, community and school, it will increase student achievement. We can’t help but to improve in this area, because now we’ve placed a microscope, and will inspect what we expect.
What is a “Professional Learning Community”? I conquer with Richard DuFour, I believe that a PLC should focus on learning rather than teaching. In DeKalb County, I think a paradigm shift took place maybe six years ago where teachers were expected to share the responsibility of learning with the student. What is meant by that is, the teacher was expected to introduce the standard and model the lesson. From that point, the student would be given the opportunity to explore the concepts individually, then collectively. The student initially grows through this process, and experiences self gratification as he/she become independent thinkers. After about twenty minutes of think, action time, selected students are chosen to share their strategy on how to work through the assignment using multiple representations to their peers. Yes, this has caused pain for some teachers because educators were born to give the answer, and now they’re told to just facilitate. Now because of this shift, students are beginning to think analytically, and teachers are forced to wing students off of the similac, and put them on whole milk.
ReplyDeleteI believe as the adults become more comfortable facilitating lessons, they are able to teach students the same.
Is it working? For some classrooms it is working, and in others, it is not. It is not close to being fine tuned and systematically structured as Adlai Stevenson High School. In most places districts attempt to solve many problems at once, and in return nothing is completed in excellence because you’re trying to address too many concerns all at once. Even though there may be many concerns within a school or district I personally feel you can only effectively monitor at most three initiatives.
As I continued to perused the PLC article, I was able to reflect on some of the efforts in action at Adlai, were also mirrored in my county. These included monitoring the student’s progress. We measure students’ achievement by looking at benchmark data, having student conferences, portfolio review, data talks, peer tutor, study buddy and a computer program that was purchased to enhance and remediate individual students learning profile. On page two the author spoke of various students being invited to attend tutorials. At our school to participate in any extracurricular activity, you must have earned a grade of C or better. Tutorial is mandatory for all participants for the first 30 minutes. It is a formality, based on intervention, but mastering the concepts is not its total goal. For struggling students we have implemented a remediation program to assist with misconceptions. We’ve offered students volunteer hours to tutor their peers in the area of math.
In Big Idea #2 we’ve gravitated to operational duties rather than PLC. We’re getting better at working collaboratively; however, the time is not sacred, so other things may interfere with corroborating perpetually. Some departments have created study groups, where select teachers participate, and then they are expected to go back and redeliver to the masses. We also have vertical and horizontal meetings to try to meet the needs of our students.
As stated previously, a lot has been initiated, and much is expected. However, I don’t think we’re going to get the results we need until we continue to make the necessary changes deliberately, systematically, and intentional narrow the focus.
In closing, I too like DeFour, believe the element of improvement rest and abide on the shoulders of the dedicated and committed educator. As leaders, we can explore the extrinsic rewards to complement the powerful intrinsic driving forces, and as others come into the organization the culture of excellence would not be compromised because of the forces that preceded to establish the foundation. Reign excellence, reign.
I believe in PLC's simply becase this is the type of framework that I work in/participate in on a daily basis at my school. I do not think more has been said than done concerning PLC's. It's just a matter of getting schools to jump on the bandwagon of PLC's. I think it does improve teaching and learning, which leads to school improvement; you must have a strategy focused on instruction, teacher teaming and leadership. I also believe in teachers working together as a team, meeting frequently to review data which should drive instruction, setting goals, and sharing best practices after strategies have been implemented to find out what worked and what did not. Teachers should also focus on common curriculum standards. Again, this is the model used at my school. That's how I am able to attest to the fact that it does work as far as student achievement. The professional learning communities concept requires the school staff to focus on learning rather than teaching, work collaboratively on matters related to learning, and be accountable for the kind of results that produce continued improvement. This initiation and sustainability starts with the leader of a school.
ReplyDeleteHaving very little experience with PLC's I have noticed that they work great if the group buys into the belief that they are benefical to student achievement. On the flip side if the group feels that they are a waste of time or merely used to meet contract terms then they do not work so well.
ReplyDeleteWhile I have little professional experience working in PLC's, I did have the opportunity to attend a PD session on PLC's during my student teaching semester. The session was very informative with regards to the usefulness of PLC's. In my position at Old Mission I will be joining a PLC, but at this time I have not made a decision as to which group to join.
ReplyDeleteI have done the PLC thing for each of the 4 years now that I've taught and think it can definitely be advantageous. The key in my experience is having all team members on board and actually willing to buy into the PLC model. You can learn so much from your colleauges and can save so much time by sharing materials, thoughts, experiences, etc. The problem is often times it's tough to have your entire PLC group excited and motivated to work together.
ReplyDeleteI am a believer in the PLC movement. We are involved in critical friends work (a version of PLC work)at Traverse City West Senior High. Too often as teachers we work alone. We are not used to having teachers come in to our classrooms, examine our student work, share lesson plan ideas, etc. Our work becomes better if we share it with other professionals for whom we have respect. We need to get over the fear of having our work public.
ReplyDelete