Putting Professional Learning Communities into Action

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Putting Professional Learning Communities into
Action

• AES as a Professional Learning Community

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Henry Ford Said

• Success is merely a function of solving one
  simple, manageable problem at a time.

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Professional Learning Communities

• The most promising strategy for sustained,
  substantive school improvement is developing the
  ability of school personnel to function as
  professional learning communities.
• Milbry McLaughlin

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What Are Professional Learning Communities

• A group of people who take an active, reflective,
  collaborative, learning-oriented, and
  growth-promoting approach toward the mysteries,
  problems and perplexities of teaching and
  learning
• Mitchell and Sackney (2000)

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Effective PLCs

• An effective professional learning community has
  the capacity to promote and sustain the learning
  of all professionals in the school community with
  the collective purpose of enhancing pupil
  learning.

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Effective PLCs have an impact on

• pupils learning process and progress, attitudes,
  attendance
• individual teachers and other staffs practice,
  morale, recruitment and retention
• individual leadership practice
• organisational learning practices among groups or
  across the whole school

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Staff Benefits

• Reduced teacher isolation
• Collective responsibility for student success
• Increased understanding of the roles teachers
  play in helping all students achieve
• More satisfaction, higher morale, less absenteeism

Southwest Educational Development Laboratory -
Austin, TX
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Student Benefits

• Decreased dropout rate
• Less absenteeism
• Greater academic gains in comparison to
  traditional schools
• Smaller achievement gaps between students from
  different backgrounds

Southwest Educational Development Laboratory -
Austin, TX
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Characteristics of Professional Learning
Communities

• Shared mission, vision, values, goals
• Collaborative teams have an unrelenting FOCUS ON
  LEARNING
• Collaborative inquiry into best practice
• Action orientation
• Commitment to continuous improvement
• Results orientation

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Shared mission, vision, values, goals

• Why do we exist, what is our fundamental purpose?
• What kind of department do we hope to become?
• How must we behave in order to create the kind of
  department we hope to become?
• What steps are we going to take and when will we
  take them?
• By what criteria will we assess our improvement
  efforts?

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A Collaborative Culture

• 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 and Lewis

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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.
• Michael Fullan

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A collection of parts that do not connect is not
a system. It is a heap. OConnor and McDermott
(1997)
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Essentials of Collaboration

• TIME
• DEFINED PRODUCTS
• NORMS
• FOCUS ON LEARNING
• GOALS
• RELEVANT INFORMATION
• ACTION ORIENTATION

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TIME

• Regularly scheduled time must be made for
  departments, teams, and grade levels to meet
  during the school day and school calendar
• The expectation is that all school staff will be
  part of a Professional Learning Community

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DEFINED PRODUCTS

• Products of collaboration must be explicit and
  expected
• Monitoring products and artifacts assist in
  assessing the effectiveness of the team

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Norms of High Performing Teams

• Willingness to consider matters from anothers
  perspective
• Maintaining an action-oriented attitude
• Seeking feedback about evidence of the teams
  effectiveness
• Engages in proactive problem solving
• Willingness to confront a team member that
  violates the norms

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FOCUS ON LEARNING

• Teams focus on key questions
• What do we want our students to know and be able
  to do?
• How will we know if they know it?
• What will we do if they dont know it?
• What will we do if they come to us already
  knowing it?

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When Teams Focus on Learning

• They Must
• Clarify the essential outcomes for students in a
  course, subject or grade level
• Determine by month, quarter or semester when the
  essential outcomes will be taught and assessed
• Develop common assessments

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When Teams Focus on Learning

• They
• Establish specific targets/benchmarks for
  proficiency
• Analyze results
• Identify and implement improvement strategies
• Monitor student progress

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Quadrant C - Assimilation Students extend and refine their acquired knowledge to be able to use that knowledge automatically and routinely to analyze and solve problems and create solutions. Quadrant D - Adaptation Students have the competence to think in complex ways and to apply their knowledge and skills. Even when confronted with perplexing unknowns, students are able to use extensive knowledge and skill to create solutions and take action that further develops their skills and knowledge.
Quadrant A - Acquisition Students gather and store bits of knowledge and information. Students are primarily expected to remember or understand this knowledge. Quadrant B - Application Students use acquired knowledge to solve problems, design solutions, and complete work. The highest level of application is to apply knowledge to new and unpredictable situations.
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GOALS

• Are translated into specific and measurable
  performance standards
• Are based on how each team, department or grade
  level will assist the school in advancing toward
  its vision and EPSS goal
• Are monitored continuously
• Are designed to produce short-term wins and
  long-term success

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SMART Teams useS.M.A.R.T. Goals

• Team goals are
• S- strategic and
• specific
• M- measurable
• A- attainable
• R- results-oriented
• T- time bound

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RELEVANT INFORMATION

• Collecting data is on the first step toward
  wisdom, but sharing data is the first step toward
  community.
• Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

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To inform and impact professional practice,
ensure all teachers

• Receive timely and frequent information on the
  achievement
• of their students
• Meet an agreed-upon standard of performance or
  proficiency
• Compare results to agreed-upon
• standard
• Act upon the analyzed information

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ACTION ORIENTATION

• Schools, departments, teams and grade levels
  must
• take action based on the information gleaned from
  the data.
• design systematic support systems for those
  students who are struggling.
• Work constantly toward continuous improvement.

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Growing a learning culture
Working towards sustainability
Nurturing trust and relationships
Professional learning community
Ensuring supportive structures
Offering learning opportunities
Creating and transferring knowledge
Promoting inquiry mindedness
Making connections
Louise Stoll (2004)
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AES as a PLC
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Shared mission, vision, values, goals

• Why do we exist?
• What kind of department do we hope to become?
• How must we behave in order to create the kind of
  school we hope to become?
• What steps are we going to take and when will we
  take them?

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AES Mission

• AES Mission Statement Advanced Education
  Services addresses gifted students right to be
  provided with direction, time, encouragement, and
  resources to realize their potential in order to
  become confident productive adults.

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Vision

• The vision of AES is to be an exemplary gifted
  program, to advocate for and meet the needs of
  each gifted student in the Las Cruces Public
  Schools, and to be an inspiration for all gifted
  educators.

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Professional Values-7 Habits of Highly Successful
People

• AES Facilitators are expected to act with
  character and competence.
• Sow a thought, reap an action Sow an action,
  reap a habit Sow a habit, reap a character Sow
  a character, reap a destiny. Samuel Smiles

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Habit 1 Be Proactive (The Habit of Personal
Vision)

• AES facilitators are expected to make responsible
  choices.
• AES facilitators are expected to be a Transition
  Figure. A person who stops the negative
  transmission of negative behaviors to others.
• AES facilitators are expected to be prepared for
  IEPs and other AES responsibilities.
• I know of no more encouraging fact than the
  unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life
  by a conscious endeavor. Henry David Thoreau

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Habit 2 Begin with the end in mind. (The Habit
of Personal Leadership)

• AES facilitators are expected to make principled
  decisions based on the four critical questions
• What do you want your students to know and be
  able to do?
• How will you know when they know it?
• What will you do if they dont know it?
• What will you do if they already know it?
• Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the
  mind as a steady purpose a point on which the
  soul may fix its intellectual eye. Mary
  Wollstonecraft Shelly

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Habit 3 Put first things first. (The Habit of
Personal Management)

• AES facilitators are expected to follow the six
  step process to help them act on the basis of
  importance to organize and execute around
  priorities. They are expected to share their
  plans with their administrators.
• AES facilitators are expected to put
  relationships first.
• AES facilitators are expected to relate with
  students, parents, colleagues and administrators
  with trust and respect.
• What is important to another person must be as
  important to you as the other person is to you.
  Steven Covey

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Habit 4 Think Win-Win. (The Habit of
Interpersonal Leadership)

• AES facilitators are expected to advocate for
  their students with maturity (i.e. with courage
  and consideration).
• AES facilitators should never side with the
  parent against school staff or school staff
  against parent.
• AES facilitators are expected to communicate
  equally with the all parties with courage and
  consideration. To truly advocate for the
  student, the AES facilitator is expected to help
  negotiate a win-win.
• Win-win is a belief in the Third Alternative.
  Its not your way or my way its the better
  way. Steven Covey

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Habit 5 Seek first to understand than to be
understood. (The Habit of Empathic Communication)

• AES facilitators are expected to listen before
  they react.
• AES facilitators are expected to use courage and
  consideration in problem solving. Communication
  is the key.
• The key to listening is through the eyes and
  heart. Steven Covey

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6 Synergy (The Habit of Creative Cooperation)

• AES facilitators are expected to seek to
  understand their schools culture and needs.
• AES facilitators are expected to come to their
  building administrator with a win-win attitude to
  design a collaboration component that will not
  only serve gifted education but be a valuable
  asset to the school community as well. You have
  something to offer to your school. The school
  has something to offer your students. By
  combining those resources, our students will
  receive the best education possible.
• The essence of synergy is to value differences
  to respect them, to build on strengths, to
  compensate for weakness.

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Habit 7 Sharpen the Saw (The Habit of Renewal)

• AES facilitators are expected to
• Live!
• Learn!
• Love!
• Leave a legacy!
• A long healthy, happy life is the result of
  making contributions, of having meaningful
  projects that are personally exciting and
  contribute to and bless the lives of others.
  Hans Selye

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Goal 1

• Advanced Education Services offers gifted
  students flexible pacing options and
  opportunities including accelerated curriculum,
  creativity and critical thinking skills and
  transition planning designed to encourage
  individual progress.

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Goal 2

• Advanced Education Services develops in gifted
  students an understanding of individual gifts and
  talents, which leads to
• Valuing themselves and others
• Recognizing and accepting personal differences
• Using positive communication
• Strengthening self-efficacy and life resiliency
  skills

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Goal 3

• Advanced Education Services provides gifted
  students a framework and forum to explore the
  benefits of developing leadership skills and
  investing in their community

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Goal 4

• Advanced Education Services Facilitators serve as
  consultants to teachers, providing support that
  focuses on the needs of gifted students

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Goal 5

• Advanced Education Services Facilitators
  collaborate with parents and community to
• To enhance the awareness of academic, social and
  emotional needs of gifted students
• To advocate for gifted education

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Data from 2003-2004 Evaluations

• Program Evaluations completed by AES facilitators
• Program Evaluations completed by principals
• Program Evaluation completed by elementary
  students
• Program Evaluation completed by parents of
  elementary students
• Program Evaluation completed by Middle School
• Program Evaluation completed by parents of Middle
  School students

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2004-2005 Objectives and Expected Outcomes

• AES Program Goals, Objectives and Outcomes

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Policy

• Case Manager Responsibilities
• Review acceleration policy
• Review assignment policy
• Mileage
• Supplies
• Transportation

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CELEBRATE

• Promote student learning through celebration
• Celebrate the learning of teachers

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Hand in Hand, We All Learn

• Ultimately there are two kinds of schools
  learning enriched schools and learning
  impoverished schools. I have yet to see a school
  where learning curvesof the adults were steep
  upward and those of students were not. Teachers
  and students go hand in hand as learnersor they
  dont go at all!
• Roland Barth

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We know how to do this job!-Debra Pickering

• Lets focus on what makes a difference and go out
  there and do it!