Professional Learning Communities
Professional Learning Communities
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"The fundamental purpose of a school is learning, not teaching" - Richard Dufour
Start with Setting Norms
Start with Setting Norms
Effective teams generally have a set of norms that govern individual behavior, facilitate the work of the group and enable the group to accomplish its task.
Each year, your team norms should be reevaluated. The norms will help PLC teams:
Increase productivity
Ensure that all members have the opportunity to contribute
Keep the dialogue open and respectful, even when members diagree
Here is an exemplar of team norms from Solution Tree.
Here is the PLC Self-Assessment and PLC Checklist.
Question 1 (Tier One)
Question 1 (Tier One)
A highly effective collaborative team has identified Essential Standards. What do we want students to know and be able to do? Within your team, identify essential standards, pace them across the calendar, and identify evidence-based instructional practices to ensure your students master the essentials.
What do we want the students to learn?
How will we know when they learned it?
Question 2 (Tier One)
Question 2 (Tier One)
Every teacher on the same-subject team should administer common formative and summative assessments. Without a common assessment plan for the essential standards, a PLC collaborative cannot provide students with intervention and enrichment support.
Once there are common assessments, the team of teachers can then analyze the data collectively and collaboratively reteach and enrich instruction for specific students.
Assessment results should be sent home with the student. A detailed report of the student's proficiency on the essential standards assessed must be provided. Here is a simple example of a cover page that would clearly communicate to the student how they're progressing.
Mastery of Standards - Cover Page for Assessment
After the Assessment - Data Analysis Protocol #1 & Data Analysis Protocol #2
Essential Standard Tracking Tool
Question 3 (Tier Two)
Question 3 (Tier Two)
At this time, teachers have given the end-of-unit common assessment and have analyzed the results, and some students are still not able to demonstrate mastery of the summative assessment. PLC teams now design supplemental interventions based on the results of the common assessments.
These interventions should not replace tier one instruction. However, this is in addition to tier one. Therefore, the building's master schedule will need to provide extra time/support for tier 2 instruction. Our recommendation is that this tier 2 time is scheduled at least twice a week, for about thirty minutes.
Teacher teams take the lead in designing and implementing tier 2 interventions based on the essential standards not learned by the students identified for extra time.
How will we respond when some students do not learn?
How will we extend the learning for students who are already proficient?
Question 4 (Tier Two)
Question 4 (Tier Two)
Do you have some students that have mastered the essential standards based on the common assessment? If so, what do you do for this group of students while those that need more time to master the content receive tier 2? You accelerate!
As a collaborative team of teachers, provide opportunities for your learners that extend the standards up Bloom's Taxonomy.
Remember, this enrichment time is in addition to the essential standards being taught in tier 1. There should be no new essential standards during this time. Therefore, the building's master schedule will need to provide extra time/support for tier 2 instruction.
Citation: Buffum, Austin. Mattos, Mike. Malone, Janet. Taking Action A Handbook for RTI. Bloomington, Solution Tree Press, 2018.
Citation: Buffum, Austin. Mattos, Mike. Malone, Janet. Taking Action A Handbook for RTI. Bloomington, Solution Tree Press, 2018.
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