Lau PLC
Post by Lisa Kwong, Assistant Principal of Gordon J. Lau, in thought partnership with Jessica Pederson, Digital Learning Integration Designer for SFUSD
Embedded Files
Gordon J. Lau Elementary is the largest elementary school in San Francisco, serving about 720 students of which 58% are English learners. As the assistant principal, I’ve been actively involved in the Personalized Learning Pilot, working side by side with a team of teachers to reimagine teaching and learning for the 21st century.
Gordon J. Lau Elementary is the largest elementary school in San Francisco, serving about 720 students of which 58% are English learners. As the assistant principal, I’ve been actively involved in the Personalized Learning Pilot, working side by side with a team of teachers to reimagine teaching and learning for the 21st century.
Why a PLC?
As we continue our second year in the pilot, our team decided to create a professional learning community (PLC) that would meet monthly to engage more teachers in the new mindset shifts. We wanted to create a safe space for interested teachers to learn no matter where they are in their personalized learning journey. A PLC is important to move this work forward because teachers like students need to have choice in their own professional growth. Also, a PLC that meets regularly is a perfect structure to introduce new learning in smaller chunks to teachers, with time in between to try out the strategies.
How to Determine Content for PLC
When we first proposed this idea to the school, we had a small group of teachers who showed interest. That was the easy part. Now what would we talk about at these PLCs? We decided to take advantage of the resources that’s already been created for the pilot. We spent some time reviewing all the documents and videos and decided to use the “Four mindsets for Personalized Learning” as the anchor for our PLC. These became the central topics for our first 4 meetings. We also had a general idea of what we want to do and came up with a skeletal format.
- Review previous learning
- Introduce new learning
- Q&A with host about classroom management
- Actionable next steps at the end of each session
Key Learnings from PLC
So far we have completed four sessions. Each session became a learning experience for the next. What didn’t work was quickly scrapped. For example, we started off each session by entering our reflections into a learning journal but that became too tedious. We decided that our time was better spent on partner interactions, small-group learning and whole-group discussions. We also found that incorporating the use of short videos was a great way to condense new learning in a short amount of time. Another principle we followed was integrating our mindset shifts into how we engaged in the PLC: interaction, movement, choice in product, choice in process. Our goal was to design learning experiences for adults that matched the experiences we wanted for our students.
Role of Pilot Teacher in PLC
When we first began organizing the PLC, we had not planned to include our pilot teachers since they were already committed to the pilot requirements in terms of time and workload. We were also worried that the pilot teachers might find the PLC content redundant. When two of our pilot teachers participated in the first session of our PLC, we quickly changed our minds. As someone who’s a little further along in their personalized learning journey, their invaluable insights gave other teachers hope and inspiration. From then on, we made a point of inviting our pilot teachers to all our sessions and designed the learning to be differentiated for teachers at various levels of implementation.
Brenda Barbers, a PLE pilot teacher, shared some of her thoughts on what makes our PLC exciting. “[I like] seeing how it benefits our specific school site because these are the people and this is a population I'm invested in. It's one thing to hear ideas from people you don't have personal connections with, [... but] it's another too see it happening among colleagues at your site, people who’ve had relationships with for a while.”
Tips for Others Schools on Launch Their Own PLCs
Do:
- Include resources to support teacher learning. Can the school provide extended hours? Is there a budget for flexible furniture so that teachers can implement what they have learned?
- Keep PLC participation voluntary. Teacher attendance and participation is not an issue because they want to be here.
- Include PLC as part of school-wide PD plan and not schedule other meetings on the same day and time
- Identify one or two teacher leaders to help facilitate the PLC
- Rotate meeting locations to see as many classrooms as possible. Teachers want to hear and learn from their colleagues.
Don’t:
- Be rigid and tied to a set agenda or set curriculum. Be open to listening to teachers so they can take charge of their own learning.
- Throw away existing traditional furniture. Table legs can be removed to create low seating area or raised to create standing tables.
- Be discouraged if there’s only a few teachers who participate. They will be your cheerleaders and share the learning with the rest of the school.
What’s Next?
At this time, we haven’t determined the actual agenda for the next session. That’s the beauty of our PLC. We have a germ of an idea for each session and this idea evolves after each previous session. Similarly, the content of the spring sessions have not been determined as by design. As we move beyond the learning stage into implementation, our hope is that our teachers will have a say in determining what our focus will be as we continue on this journey together.
Report abuse