COLLABORATING FOR STUDENT SUCCESS: The Professional Learning Community

1. COLLABORATING FOR STUDENT SUCCESS:The Professional Learning Community

2. Collaborating Where You Work • The teachers and staff in a school form teams to maximize the talents of individuals. • Each individual must contribute to the collective work. • To lend your expertise to colleagues • To improve your own practice • To add to the decision-making synergy in a PLC school • It takes time and usually isn’t a smooth ride! • When the ride levels out, it’s exhilarating.

3. Collaborating Where You Work • Focus today on one site where you work. • The work site might or might not be implementing a professional learning community. • As you go through the day’s experiences, you’ll be asked to strategize within the context of your chosen work site.

4. Successful Schools Schools that disproportionately improve student learning have teachers and administrators who • Form professional learning communities. • Focus on student work (assessment); and • Change instructional practices (pedagogy) accordingly to get better results. • Have clearly defined, rigorous learning expectations (curriculum); and • Provide a supportive culture that encourages risk-taking, experimentation, deprivatization of practice, and knowledge sharing. (Bryk & Schneider, Newmann & Wehlage, Louis & Kruse, Little, Hord et al; Rosenholtz, McLaughlin & Talbert) JoellenKillion, Learning Forward

5. Collaborative Professional Learning Teams Teachers School-based Resource Staff and Supervisors Principal District Curriculum and PD Supervisors • Joellen Killion, Learning Forward

6. Key Attributes of Collaborative Professional Learning Teams Small groups of teachers (ideal: 5-8) • Who share responsibility for students and/or related curriculum • Working collaboratively on refining the curriculum, assessment, and instruction within their classrooms • Meeting frequently • Within the contract day (before, during, or after school) • To learn with and from each other • To improve student learning. JoellenKillion, Learning Forward

7. Collaborative Teams in Schools Teams working collaboratively in a PLC may be: A whole school A grade level team A department team An interdisciplinary team A content area team A thematic team A team across schools and disciplines An online network Other configurations as needed

8. Collaborative Teams in Schools Teachers have more opportunities for high-quality professional development focused on • deepening their content knowledge, especially in literacy and math • expanding their pedagogical repertoire • learning to differentiate instruction to meet the needs of all learners • increasing their use of ongoing assessment that allows them to know what their students know and can do • fine tuning instruction Adapted from JoellenKillion, Learning Forward

9. Benefits of Collaboration Enhance teachers’ technical competence As teachers work with students from increasingly diverse social backgrounds, and as the curriculum begins to demand more intellectual rigor, teachers require information, technical expertise, and social emotional support far beyond the resources they can muster as individuals working alone. When teachers collaborate productively, they participate in reflective dialogue to learn more about professional issues; they observe and react to one another’s teaching, curriculum, and assessment practices’ and they engage in joint planning and curriculum development. Newmann and Wehlage, 1995 Joellen Killion, Learning Forward

10. Benefits of Collaboration Createcollective responsibility for student success. A culture of collective responsibility puts more peer pressure and accountability on staff who may not have carried their fair share but it can also ease the burden on teachers who have worked hard in isolation but who felt unable to help some students. In short, professional community within the teaching staff sharpens the educational focus and enhances the technical and social support that teachers need to be successful. Newmann and Wehlage, 1995 Joellen Killion, Learning Forward

11. Benefits of Collaboration 1. Form groups of three or four. 2. Think of two key objectives you have related to teaching students. 3. How can collaborative teaming help reinforce your objectives by • Sharing instructional strategies? • Sharing information about specific students? 10 minutes

12. A PLC in Action Stults Elementary School

13. Configuring Teams • Small group of teachers who share students • Small group of teachers who share related curriculum • Who might they be? Identify possible team configurations that exist or could exist in your work site. • Where do specialists, teachers of deaf and hard-of-hearing and non-instructional, certificated staff fit? PAIR SHARE 3 min JoellenKillion, Learning Forward

14. Team Agreements (Norms) • Mutual agreements among team members about how they will act while in the team. • Designed to ensure fairness, safety, equity, and comfort among team members. • Formed though consensus decision involving all team members. Joellen Killion, Learning Forward

15. Sample Agreements • I agree to place the interest of students at the forefront of all discussions and decisions. • I agree to share responsibility of making and supporting decisions. • I agree to listen, honor, and respect all perspectives. • I agree to handle conflicts as they arise in a responsible way. • I agree to be accountable for the decisions and assignments. JoellenKillion, Learning Forward

16. Reporting Actionsand Results • Why do we report? • To whom do we report? • How do we report? Joellen Killion, Learning Forward

17. Teacher Leaders’ Role • Be the change you want to see. • Lead with your attitude. • Refuse to become defensive. • Seek to understand dissenters. • Accept that change is a process, not an event. JoellenKillion, Learning Forward

18. 1. Use a scale of 1 (low) to 4 (high) to describe your work site in relationship to: • School-based professional learning. • Collaborative professional learning teams. • Collaborative teams include teachers of DHH • Time built into the workday of teachers for collaborative professional learning. • The degree to which teams are functioning effectively and efficiently. • The degree to which teams use student data to inform decisions about teaching and learning. • The degree to which teams are working on “what matters” and producing results for students. 2. Share your current state with a colleague and provide evidence to support your scores. 6 min. adapted from: JoellenKillion, Learning Forward

19. Resources Collaborative Professional Learning in School and Beyond: A Tool Kit for New Jersey Educators Request access by emailing: TeachPD@doe.state.nj.us

20. Resources Team Building • Powerful Designs for Professional Learning. 2nd ed. (2008). Lois Brown Easton, ed., NSDC. • Protocols: www.nsrfharmony.org SMART Goals • Team to Teach. (2008). Anne Jolly., NSDC. • www.smartlearningcommunity.net The PLC in Action • Learning by Doing. (2006). R. DuFour & R. DuFour, Solution-Tree. • www.allthingsplc.info *NSDC has changed its name to Learning Forward.