PLC Facilitator Training September 12, 2007 Early Release Day

1. PLC Facilitator Training September 12, 2007Early Release Day “The most promising strategy for sustained, substantive school improvement is developing the ability for school personnel to function as professional learning communities. (DuFour & Eaker, 1998)

2. Materials • Icebreaker • Norm Form • PLC Log, SMART Goals, PLC Evaluation, and PD Needs Assessment from 06-07 • Unit Plan Template • PLC Plan Sheet • PD Request Form

3. Agenda Sept. 12 Early Out • Team Building Activity - PLC Overview • Share District Expectations • Develop Norms • Examine your current reality • PLC Needs • Develop tentative PLC Yearly Plan

4. Team Building Activity

6. Big Idea #3 For each term below explain the importance of each word in a PLC

7. Commitment and Persistence Sustaining PLC’s requires: • Hard work • Focus on learning rather than teaching • Collaboration on matters related to learning • Accountability for continuous improvement

8. District Commitment • 8 Early Outs • October 8 PD Day for Data Analysis • January 2 half day for PD • 2 half day Learning Teams for Core PLCs For professional development related to data analysis, curriculum development, common assessment development and analysis, instructional improvement, and development of interventions and enrichments.

9. PLC Organization Configuration of Teams—work with principals to make them meaningful, if across buildings we can help coordinate. • Leadership of Teams—several trained facilitators, share the leadership, identify new facilitators to be trained, decide who will go to principal/facilitator/PD Rep meeting

10. PLC Expectations PRODUCTS After September Early Out Norm Form Tentative Yearly PLC Plan Sheet After Each Early Out Monthly Log PLC Plan Sheet Yearly Log TBA (decided by building) 2 unit plans (Cores) Non-cores - what makes sense? TIME --All PLC members are expected to meet in the building with the PLC group on designated days from 1:15-3:30. Schedules on early out days should be the same as a regular school day for extra-curricular activities. --Facilitators and PD Representatives will have follow-up meetings with principals after each early out.

11. Rationale Unit Plan Unit plans answer the questions of a PLC: What do we want students to know? Essential Questions How will we know they learned it? Assessments, Scoring, Data Analysis C & C Question: How will we help them learn it? Instruction & Special Ed Adaptations What will we do when they didn’t learn? Interventions What will we do when they did learn? Enrichments

12. Unit Plan Template October PD Day • Identify the 2 units you will do • Make your unit development plan

13. Norms Why we need them? What they are? Samples/Categories Publishing the norms Enforcing them Periodic evaluation

14. Why Norms are Needed Norms are ground rules to identify behaviors that will help us do our work & discourage behaviors that interfere with a group’s effectiveness. • How we act • How we interact • How we conduct business • How we make decisions • How we communicate—to have honest discussions that enable everyone to participate & be heard. NORMS EXIST WHETHER OR NOT YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THEM

15. Categories of Norms • Time • Confidentiality • Decision Making • Participation • Leadership

16. SAMPLE NORMS FOR PLC’s TIME/ATTENDANCE: • Start & Stop on time • Stay on task • Attend all meetings CONFIDENTIALITY • Say what you need to here in the room, not in the parking lot • Individual comments are confidential DECISION MAKING • Reach decisions by consensus, fist to five • Use data to drive decisions • We will publicly support all decisions made by the group PARTICIPATION • Stay on task, focus on what we have control over and what moves the PLC forward • Listen and hear one another’s viewpoints—look at pros & cons • It is your responsibility to make sure your idea is put in the room • Speak directly to the person and you have issue with. • Address issues, not personalities • Commit to getting representative views, allow equal airtime for all participants • Focus on being a change agent • Be willing to experiment and make mistakes • Think creatively • Be responsible for the work of the PLC LEADERSHIP: • Assign and rotate roles of timekeeper, recorder/secretary, leader, etc.

17. ACTIVITY FOR DEVELOPING NORMS PURPOSE: • To ensure all members have the opportunity to contribute • To increase productivity & effectiveness • To facilitate the achievement of your goals PROCESS: • Put the categories for norms on the board, may want to add a miscellaneous • Each person records behavior you consider ideal for a group, one per slip of paper and place it under the appropriate category. • 1 or 2 people will work with each category to group those with similar ideas together. • For each group of cards, the group writes a norm, record on chart paper. • Determine support for the norms • Adopt final set of norms OPTIONAL ACTIVITY

18. Consensus occurs when… 1. All points of view have been heard 2. The will of the group is evident even to those who most oppose it. Use Fist to Five to get consensus All participants start with a fist and then put up the number of fingers to indicate their level of support for the topic. 5 = greatest support, fist=no support Those most opposed have the opportunity to voice their opposition

19. Publishing Norms How can you keep them visible? • Posted in meeting room • Copy for everyone • Review at the beginning of each meeting • Include on the top of each agenda

20. STOP & DEVELOP NORMS • Revisit Last Year’s Norms • Revise • Start from Scratch • A copy will be turned in at the • Principal/Facilitator/PD Rep meeting following the early out

21. Enforcing Norms WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? ALL GROUP MEMBERS Norms will be violated so talk about violations & how violations will be dealt with. If you don’t call attention to violations, you are creating a second set of norms. Ask: “How would you prefer to be notified you have violated a norm.” Keep it light hearted , like throwing foam balls at someone who comes in late. Use colored cards, flags, hankies. All members must agree to these methods. Periodically evaluate the adherence to the norm—How well did we do on this norm.

22. Stop and Develop Ways for Publishing & Enforcing Put this on your list of norms to turn in

23. 5 Principles of Successful Meetings Discuss only one topic at a time Use only one process at a time Achieve interactive and balanced participation Respect cognitive conflict by eliciting disagreements and respecting other viewpoints Have all understand and agree to meeting roles and responsibilities

24. Current Reality—using our data for comparison to continue the improvement cycle. PLC Yearly Log SMART Goals PLC Evaluation PD Needs Assessment from 06-07 What were our accomplishments last year? (Log, Smart Goals, back of PLC Evaluation) What needs did we identify? Are there others to add? (PD Needs Assessment) How did we function as a team last year? (PLC Evaluation)

25. FOCUS ON RESULTS… Questions for PLC Groups Where do we want to be? Where are we now? What questions do you have that data might answer? How will we get where we want to be? What are we learning? Where should we focus next?

26. PLC’sFocus on educational issuesnot school politicsnot student behaviornot personalities

28. PLC EARLY OUT MONTHLY LOG for _____, 200_ PLC GROUP NAME:___________________________________________ Members Present:____________________________________________ Members Absent:_____________________________________________ QUESTIONS TO BE ADDRESSED During today’s PLC timeNext PLC Time How will we know if they learned it? (Assessment, Data Analysis) What do we want students to learn? (Curriculum Objectives, Unit Development) What will we do if they didn’t learn it? (Instruction, Intervention) What will we do if they did learn it? (Instruction, Enrichment) TODAY’s GOAL: RELATED SMART GOAL: SUMMARY OF TODAY’s PLC TIME: (Include any data reported) AGENDA FOR THE NEXT PLC TIME: Date: Time: Place: Leader: GOAL: Materials to Bring: Individual Responsibilities:

29. PLC Facilitator Training Dates for OCT. 8 PD Day September 28 8:00 to 11:00: 6-12 Math 12:00 to 3:00: 6-12 Comm. Arts October 1 8:00-11:00: 7-12 Social Studies 12:00 to 3:00: 7-12 Science October 2 8:00 to 11:00 3rd-5th Grade 12:00 to 3:00 K-2nd Grade Specials—TODAY - after this meeting

30. “A successful face-to face team is more than just collectively intelligence. It makes everyone work harder, think smarter and reach better conclusions than they would have on their own.” James Surowiecki “If there is anything that the research community agrees on, it is this: The right kind of continuous, structured teacher collaboration improves the quality of teaching and pays, big, often immediate, dividends in student learning and professional morale in virtually any setting.” Mike Schmoker