Building a Professional Learning in Inver Grove Heights Schools

1. Building a Professional Learning in Inver Grove Heights Schools November 1, 2012 Susan Huff susan.huff@nebo.edu

2. Transforming a school to a professional learning community is a journey that takes time and effort.

3. Three objectives: • Review the big picture of a professional learning community • Confirm great things happening at your individual schools • Look for areas of growth

4. Norms for Us • Listen to learn and apply • Participate fully • Paraphrase, clarify • Focus--pay attention to signal

5. What is a PLC? “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, & Many, 2006)

6. Why PLCs? “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)

7. 3 Big Ideas of PLC • Unwavering focus on student learning • Collaborative teaming • A results orientation (DuFour & Eaker, 1998)

8. Four Crucial Questions: (DuFour, 2006) • What do we want each student to learn? • How we will know when each student has learned it? • How will we respond when a student experiences difficulty in learning? • How can we enrich and extend their learning when they already know it?

9. In a professional learning community the focus shifts from ensuring that students are taught to ensuring that students learn.(Bryk et al., 1999; Newmann & Wehlage, 1995; Hord 1997; Louis et al., 1996)

10. A professional learning community is dependent upon a culture of collaboration, where teachers must have embedded time for frequent, structured collaboration among teachers on the same grade level or teaching the same content. (DuFour, 2007)

11. Focus on results: • Goal and results orientation • Common assessments that hold all students to a common standard • Data-based decision making • Formative and summative assessments • Collective reflection on current reality

12. “There is clear consensus among leading educational researchers as to the best practices for improving schools. When staff work together as a professional learning community–when they work together to clarify purpose and priorities, establish and contribute to collaborative teams, participate in continuous improvement cycles of gathering data on student achievement, identify areas of concern, generate strategies for improving students’ performance . . .

13. . . . support each other as they implement those strategies, and gather new data to assess the impact of their collective efforts–and when they are relentless in their efforts to improve achievement for all students, they increase the likelihood of sustained, substantive school improvement. The research is clear and compelling on this point.” (DuFour, 2003)

14. Nebo’s Non-Negotiablesfor all schools . . . all teams • Team Norms • “I Can” Statements for Student Learning • Common Curriculum Map • Common Formative Assessment for Each “I Can” Statement • Data Assessment • SMART Goals

15. Here’s what . . . why . . . how. . . • Essential concepts / common curriculum • Common assessments • Collaboration • Data analysis • SMART Goals

16. Module 1 Essential Concepts & Common Curriculum

17. Focus on Learning • What do students need to learn? • How do we know they know it? • What are we going to do if they don’t get it? • What are we going to do if they already know it? Focus on Results Collaborative Culture

18. Here’s what . . . “What knowledge, skills, and dispositions should each student acquire as a result of this course and each unit of instruction within this course?” (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many, 2006, p. 43) -a guaranteed and viable curriculum-

19. Here’s why . . . As teachers assume collective responsibility for student learning, what unites them is a common curriculum. (Lee, Smith, & Croninger,1995)

20. Here’s why . . . A common curriculum eliminates the instructional lottery that results when teachers are free to teach whatever they desire. (McLaughlin & Talbert, 2001)

21. Here’s why . . . Without a common curriculum, any individual student’s chance of receiving standards based curriculum depends on which teacher he draws in the lottery of class or teacher assignments. (McLaughlin & Talbert, 2001)

22. Here’s how . . . Understanding By Design (UbD) 1. Identify desired results. (What do we want students to know and be able to do? Standards . . . Outcomes) 2. Determine acceptable evidence. (Assessment) 3. Plan learning experiences and instruction. (Design lessons) (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005)

23. Marzano: • Intended Curriculum • State standards • District curriculum adoptions • Implemented Curriculum • Curriculum taught by teacher • Attained Curriculum • Curriculum learned by the student

24. Criteria for Identifying Essential Common Outcomes • ENDURANCE – • are students expected to retain the skills/knowledge long after the test is completed • LEVERAGE – • is this skill/knowledge applicable to many academic disciplines • READINESS FOR THE NEXT LEVEL OF LEARNING – • is this skill/knowledge preparing the student for success in the next grade/course (Reeves, 2005)

25. Protocol to Clarify & Address Priority Standards(Erkens, 2012) • Examine all of your state standards. • Deconstruct standards for team clarity. • Identify your power standards using three criteria: endurance, leverage, readiness. • Reach team consensus on power standards. • Document standards, including recorded numbers and letters of selected standards.

26. Check for vertical alignment and sequence standards. • Identify targets within standards. • Design assessments to align. • Identify curriculum materials to support required learning, to address standards, and to help learners be successful on assessments. • Identify instructional strategies that will best help you teach the curriculum.

27. Module 2 Common Assessments

28. Focus on Learning • What do students need to learn? • How do we know they know it? • What are we going to do if they don’t get it? • What are we going to do if they already know it? Focus on Results Collaborative Culture

29. Here’s what . . . Common ongoing formative team-made assessments made from multiple sources given by a team of teachers with the intention of collaboratively examining the results for • shared learning • instructional planning for individual students • curriculum, instruction, and/or assessment modifications

30. Here’s why . . . Team-developed common assessments: • Are more efficient. • Promote equity. • Monitor and improve student learning. • Inform and improve the practice of individual teachers and teams of teachers. • Build team capacity to achieve at higher levels. • Are essential to systematic interventions when students do not learn. (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, 2008)

31. Here’s why . . . Team-developed common assessments: • Increase accuracy and reliability. • Promote continued development of assessment literacy for teachers. • Increase collective efficacy. (Cassandra Erkens)

32. Formative vs. Summative It isn’t the method that determines whether the assessment is summative or formative, it is how the results are used.

33. Here’s how . . . to write CAs • Teacher teams write new assessments based on standards. • Teams use multiple sources for assessment items (parts of textbook assessments, parts of computer test item pools, as appropriate). • Teams revise assessments for future use as they evaluate their effectiveness.

34. Sample common assessment – usually about 10 questions.Name ______________Write the number sentence you would use to solve the problem.1. Kelsy went to the store and bought 56 pencils. She broke 20 of them. How many did she have left?2. In the park there were 7 trees. Each tree had 4 branches. How many branches did the trees have in all?3. Mr. Fox has 5 tables in his room. 3 students sit at each table. How many students does Mr. Fox have in all?4. Pete bought 14 mice at the pet store to feed his snake. He went back and bought 9 more. How many mice did Pete buy altogether?5. We learned 18 cursive letters before Christmas and 22 after. How many cursive letters have we learned in all?

36. Here’s how . . . to use CAs Seek evidence of student learning: • What does this student work tell us about what students know and can do? • What does this student work tell us about what students are still missing? • What indicators, if any, offer insight into student misconceptions and highlight potential intervention strategies?

37. Common Assessments Reflections • Discuss the assessment task with team. • Examine data and identify areas for team discussion. -As a team: Which learning targets from the assessment require more attention? -As a team: Which students require additional support?

38. -As an individual teacher: Which area was my lowest, and how can I improve? -As a team or individual: Which students did not master which targets? 3. What is your team’s plan of action to address results?

39. Module 3 Collaboration

40. Here’s what . . .Collaboration Defined 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, 2007)

41. What is a team? “A group of people working interdependently toward a common goal for which members are mutually accountable.” (DuFour, 2007)

42. Here’s why . . . Improving schools requires 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)

43. Here’s why . . . 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 & Lewis)

44. Here’s why . . . Enhanced teaching and learning result through collaboration. (Peterson, McCarthey, & Elmore, 1995; Fullan, 1993; McLaughlin & Talbert, 2001; Kruse, Louis, & Bryk, 1994, Bryk; Camburn, & Louis, 1999; Newmann, 1994; Newmann & Wehlage, 1995; Lee, Smith, & Croninger, 1995; Sebring, Bryk, Easton, Luppescu, Thum, Lopez, & Smith, 1995; Shellard, 2004)

45. Here’s how: create teams “The best team structure is simple: a team of teachers who teach the same course or grade level.” (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many, 2006, p. 93)

46. Here’s how . . .Make Teams Effective • Embed collaboration in routine practices of the school with focus on learning. • Time for collaboration is built into the school day and school calendar. • Products of collaboration are made explicit.

47. (More Keys to Effective Teams) • Team norms guide collaboration. • Teams focus on key questions. • Teams pursue specific and measurable performance goals. • Teams have access to relevant information. (DuFour, DuFour, & Eaker)

48. Here’s how . . . Structure time for the work of collaborative teams. (see Simple Ways Schools Find Time to Work Together)

49. Here’s how . . . Focus on the right things “The fact that teachers collaborate will do nothing to improve a school. The pertinent question is not, ‘Are they collaborating?’ but rather, ‘What are they collaborating about?’” (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many, 2006, p. 91)

50. Unfocused Collaboration . . . • May be instruments for preserving the status quo, inhibiting analysis and innovation. • May mutually reinforce poorly formed habits. • May force teachers to consider beliefs and practices based on bad practice. • May be about storytelling—mostly complaint. (Little, 1990)