New Insights on How Effective PLCs at Work Improve...

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December 12, 2011 !

Presented by Richard DuFour [email protected]

and

Rebecca DuFour [email protected]

New Insights on How Effective PLCs at Work

Improve Schools

Follow the webinar on Twitter with #atplc solution-tree.com 800.733.6786

Today’s moderatorer

Katie Gentry-Funk Western Region Sales Manager Primary phone: 800.733.6786 ext. 415 Secondary phone: 505.301.7382 Email: [email protected]

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Tips for Today’s Presentation !  Use your Chat dialogue box for technical questions. Send them to the user

named HOST (Solution Tree). !  You can follow the webinar on Twitter with #atplc. Be sure to add #atplc to

your tweets.

!  You will be placed on mute during the webinar. Type content-related questions in the Chat dialogue box and send the question to the user named HOST (Solution Tree).

!  The presenters will get to as many questions as they can during a question-and-answer session at the end of the presentation.

!  Webinar recording and handouts will be available for 60 days at solution-tree.com/web-events.html. You will receive an email with this link within the next five business days.


Today’s Presenter

Richard DuFour !  Public school educator for 34 years, serving as a

teacher, principal, and superintendent

!  Served as the principal of Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois, from 1983 to 1991

!  Superintendent of the district from 1991 to 2002

!  Department of Education described Stevenson as “the most recognized and celebrated school in America”

!  One of three schools in the nation to win the USDE Blue Ribbon Award on four occasions

!  One of the !rst comprehensive schools designated a New America High School by USDE as a model of successful school reform

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Today’s Presenter

Rebecca DuFour !  Served as a teacher, school administrator, and

central of!ce coordinator

!  As an elementary principal, helped her school earn state and national recognition as a model professional learning community

!  Coauthor of many books and video series on the topic of professional learning communities

(re)de!ning professional development building schools where everyone learns

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Assumptions Driving This Webinar

!  Developing the capacity of educators to function as members of a high-performing PLC is our most promising strategy for improving schools.

!  Team-developed common formative assessments represent a high-leverage strategy for implementing the PLC process.

!  Implementation of the PLC process is dif!cult because of: –  A lack of clarity regarding the PLC process –  The tendency to seek shortcuts to avoid doing the real

work of PLCs

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The World’s Best School Systems Embrace the PLC Process

!  The quality of any school system cannot exceed the quality of people within it.

!  Therefore, the most effective school systems in the world use professional learning community concepts to provide the ongoing, collaborative, data-driven, job-embedded professional development essential to continued adult learning (Barber, 2007).

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A Professional Learning Community is...

!  An on-going process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve

!  PLCs operate under the assumption that the key to improved learning for students is continuous, job-embedded learning for educators (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many, 2010).

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The Big Ideas of a PLC

!  We accept learning as the fundamental purpose of our school and therefore are willing to examine all practices in light of their impact on learning.

!  We are committed to working together to ful!ll our fundamental purpose. We cultivate a collaborative culture through development of high-performing teams.

!  We assess our effectiveness on the basis of results rather than intentions. Individuals, teams, and schools seek relevant data and information and use that information to promote continuous improvement.


PLCs Focus on the Critical Questions of Learning

1.  What is it we expect them to learn? 2.  How will we know when they have

learned? 3.  How will we respond when they

don’t learn? 4.  How will we respond when they

already know it?

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What Is the Right Work? !  Educators work collaboratively and take collective

responsibility for student learning. !  Collaborative teams implement a guaranteed and

viable curriculum, unit by unit. !  Collaborative teams monitor student learning

through ongoing common formative assessments. !  Educators use the results of common assessments

to: –  Improve individual practice. –  Build the team’s capacity to achieve its goals. –  Intervene on behalf of students.


If We Implemented What We Know to Be the Most Promising Practice… Collaborative teacher teams would establish a guaranteed and viable curriculum, unit by unit, to ensure all students have access to the same knowledge and skills, regardless of the teacher to whom they are assigned.

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We Undermine the PLC Process When We Settle for...

Taking the seductive shortcut and merely distributing documents to individual teachers, pretending that documents create a guaranteed and viable curriculum

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Step One in the PLC Process: Build Shared Knowledge

!  A cardinal rule: PLCs always attempt to answer critical questions by !rst building a shared knowledge—engaging in collective inquiry—and learning together.

!  If people make decisions based on the collective study of the same pool of information, they increase the likelihood that they will arrive at the same conclusion.


A Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum...

Only happens when teachers—who are called upon to deliver the curriculum—work collaboratively to: !  Study the intended curriculum and agree on priorities

within the curriculum. !  Clarify how the curriculum translates into speci!c

student knowledge and skills. !  Establish pacing guidelines for delivering the

curriculum. !  Commit to one another that they will actually teach

the curriculum (DuFour & Marzano, 2011).

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If We Implemented What We Know to Be the Most Promising Practice…

1.  Collaborative teacher teams would establish a guaranteed and viable curriculum, unit by unit, to ensure all students have access to the same knowledge and skills, regardless of the teacher to whom they are assigned.

2.  Collaborative teams of teachers would develop frequent common formative assessments to monitor their students’ learning.


Resources to Help Teams Build Common Formative Assessments !  List of essential outcomes or pacing guides for each course/subject !  Recommendations from Stiggins, Reeves, Ainsworth, and Wiliam on high-

quality assessments !  Released items from district, state, and national assessments (e.g., ACT,

SAT, ITBS, NAEP, etc.)

!  Websites such as: –  masteryconnect.com

–  nces.ed.gov/nationasreportcard/

!  Data from past indicators of student achievement !  Methods of alternative assessment

!  Examples of rubrics

!  Assessments from other high-performing teams !  Textbooks and other published assessments and tests

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Common Assessments

! Monitor the learning of students who are expected to acquire the same knowledge and skills.

!  Use the same instrument or a common process that applies the same criteria to assess the quality of student work.


Keys to a Formative Assessment Process

To determine if an assessment process is formative, ask: !  Is it used to identify students who experience

dif!culty learning? !  Do students receive additional time and support

for learning when they experience dif!culty? !  Do students get an additional opportunity to

demonstrate learning? !  Do teachers use the results to inform and improve

their individual and collective practice?

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Why Common Formative Assessments?

!  Ef!ciency: By sharing the load, teachers save time. !  Fairness: They promote common goals, similar pacing, and

consistent standards to assess student pro!ciency. !  Effective monitoring: Monitoring provides timely evidence of

whether the guaranteed and viable curriculum is being taught and learned.

!  Team capacity: Collaborative teacher teams can identify and address problem areas in their programs.

!  Collective response: They support timely, systematic interventions for students.

!  Informed teacher practice: Individual teachers obtain the basis of comparison that enables them to identify strengths and weaknesses of their teaching.


Why Common Assessments?

!  Common formative assessments provide the most powerful stimulus for changing adult practice.

!  To improve schools, we must change adult practice.

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It Comes Down to Changing Behavior.

“The central challenge and core problem of all substantive change initiatives is changing people’s behavior. Change efforts must focus on what people do and the need for signi!cant shifts in what people do” (Kotter & Cohen, 2002, p. 2.).


What Might Motivate a Teacher to Change Practice?

!  Sending her to a workshop or graduate course on using different teaching strategies?

!  Pointing out that students in other classes earn higher grades?

!  Having the principal visit the class to evaluate her teaching and suggest changes?

!  Poor student performance on a test?

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We’re Okay…They’re Not Okay.

!  According to a 2009 Metlife survey of teachers in the United States, 84% of teachers are “very con!dent that I have the knowledge and skills to enable all of my students to succeed academically.”

!  According to that same survey, only 36% of teachers believe that all of their students have the ability to succeed academically.

—Markow & Pieters, 2010

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Concrete Evidence of Irrefutably Better Results

!  “Nothing changes the mind like the hard, cold world hitting it with actual real-life data” (Patterson et al., 2008, p. 51).

!  “Teachers have to believe there is some compelling reason for them to change practice, with the best direct evidence being that students learn better. The key to enduring change in teacher practice is demonstrable results in terms of student achievement” (Elmore, 2003, p. 38).

!  Transparency of results creates an aura of positive pressure that is actionable in that it points to solutions and pressure that at the end of the day is inescapable (Fullan, 2008, p. 14).

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The Power of Positive Peer Pressure to Bring About Change !  Positive peer pressure is a powerful and accessible tool to

in"uence the behavior of others. The approval or disapproval of our colleagues can do more to assist or destroy a change effort than any other source (Patterson et al., 2008).

!  Effective PLCs “get amazing results” because “peers are supporting and pressuring each other to do better” (Fullan, 2011).

!  Peer pressure and the distaste for letting down a colleague or the team is a powerful motivator (Lencioni, 2005).

!  In high-performing teams, members hold each other accountable. Everyone carries his or her own weight (Blanchard, 2007).


Common Assessments: Key to Improving Schools

In every case (of schoolwide or districtwide signi!cant improvement) we have seen so far, leaders focused on common assessment frameworks linked to individualized instructional practices. Problems were transparent, with corresponding discussions of how to improve results (Fullan, 2011, p. 45).

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The Most Powerful Strategy for Improving Student Learning

Teachers work together in collaborative teams to: !  Clarify what students must learn. !  Gather evidence of student learning. !  Analyze that evidence. !  Identify the most powerful teaching strategies. Re"ective teaching must be based on evidence of student learning. Re"ection is most powerful when it is collaborative

(Hattie, 2009).


The Heart of the PLC Process

!  Two years of working in collaborative teams: no gains

!  It wasn’t until the teams… –  established a guaranteed curriculum –  monitored student learning through common

assessments –  and used the evidence of student learning to identify

and solve problems through new instructional strategies !  that student achievement soared.

(Gallimore, Emerling, Saunders, & Goldenberg, 2009)

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The Right Work Can’t Be Left to Chance

!  “When teachers…interpret assessment data in order to become more responsive to their students’ learning needs, the impact is substantive. Teachers, however, cannot do this alone....”

!  Creating conditions where teachers systematically use data to inform their practice requires that they teach in schools where such practices are part of the organizational routine (Timperley, 2009, p. 24).


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We Undermine the PLC Process When We Settle for…

!  Substituting textbook assessments, commercial assessments, or occasional district assessments for team-developed common assessments

!  Using common assessment results merely to assign grades

!  Doing nothing with common assessments results


The Crux of Work in a PLC !  The heart of work in a PLC is when educators

collectively analyze evidence of student learning to:

–  Inform individual professional practice. –  Improve a team’s ability to achieve its SMART goals.

–  Intervene on behalf of individual students.

!  The other steps on the PLC journey are designed to help teams engage in this essential work.

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Learning by Doing is included with your institute registration.

Order today! solution-tree.com 800.733.6786

The second edition of Learning by Doing is an action guide for closing the knowing-doing gap and transforming schools into PLCs. It also includes seven major additions that equip educators with essential tools for confronting challenges.

NEW! Announcing the !rst book coauthored by Richard DuFour and Robert J. Marzano! Leaders of Learning is included with your summit registration.

Start the booking process! Call 888.763.9045

Our speakers are carefully chosen for their knowledge as well as their ability to interact and provide hands-on experience in schools.

Customized Professional Development

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The webinar recording and handouts will be available for 60 days at solution-tree.com/web-events.html. You will receive an email with this link within the next five business days.

Learning by Doing © 2006, 2010 Solution Tree Press • solution-tree.comVisit go.solution-tree.com/PLCbooks to download this page.

REPRODUCIBLE | 71

One of the most significant factors that impacts student achievement is that teachers commit to implementing a guaranteed and viable curriculum to ensure no matter who teaches a given class, the curriculum will address certain essential content (Marzano, 2003).

To improve student achievement, educators must determine the power standards–learning standards that are most essential because they possess the qualities of endurance, leverage, and readiness for success at the next level; “the first and most important practical implication of power standards is that leaders must make time for teachers to collaborate within and among grade levels to identify the power standards” (Reeves, 2002, p. 54).

One of the keys to improving schools is to ensure teachers “know the learning intentions and success criteria of their lessons, know how well they are attaining these criteria for all their students, and know where to go next in light of the gap between students’ current knowledge and understanding and the success criteria”; this can be maximized in a safe and collaborative environment where teachers talk to each other about teaching (Hattie, 2009, p. 239).

“The staff in the effective school accepts responsibility for the students’ learning of the essential curricular goals.” (Lezotte, 2002, p. 4, emphasis added)

Professional learning communities are characterized by an academic focus that begins with a set of practices that bring clarity, coherence, and precision to every teacher’s classroom work. Teachers work collaboratively to provide a rigorous curriculum that is crystal clear and includes a compact list of learning expectations for each grade or course and tangible exemplars of student proficiency for each learning expectation (Saphier, 2005).

“[Effective teachers] clarify . . . goals and assessment criteria in ways that will help students understand what they need to learn and what strategies are likely to be most useful in enabling them to do so.” (Brophy, 2004, p. 79, emphasis added)

“Implementing a strategy of common, rigorous standards with differentiated resources and instruction can create excellence and equity for all students.” (Childress, Doyle, & Thomas, 2009, p. 133, emphasis added)

Why Should We Ensure Students Have Access to a Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum?


REPRODUCIBLE | 77

Effective use of formative assessment, developed through teacher learning communities, promises not only the largest potential gains in student achievement but also a process for affordable teacher professional development (Wiliam & Thompson, 2007).

“There is strong and rigorous evidence that improving formative assessment can raise standards of pupils’ performance. There have been few initiatives in education with such a strong body of evidence to support a claim to raise standards.” (Black & Wiliam, 1998, p. 20)

“Assessment for learning . . . when done well, this is one of the most powerful, high-leverage strategies for improving student learning that we know of. Educators collectively at the district and school levels become more skilled and focused at assessing, disaggregating, and using student achievement as a tool for ongoing improvement.” (Fullan, 2005, p. 71)

“Studies have demonstrated assessment for learning rivals one-on-one tutoring in its effectiveness and that the use of assessment particularly benefits low-achieving students.” (Stiggins, 2004, p. 27)

“Formative assessments are one of the most powerful weapons in a teacher’s arsenal. An effective standards-based, formative assessment program can help to dramatically enhance student achievement throughout the K–12 system.” (Marzano, 2006, back cover)

“Formative assessment is a potentially transformative instructional tool that, if clearly understood and adroitly employed, can benefit both educators and their students . . . formative assessment constitutes the key cornerstone of clearheaded instructional thinking. Formative assessment represents evidence-based instructional decision-making. If you want to become more instructionally effective, and if you want your students to achieve more, then formative assessments should be for you.” (Popham, 2008, p. 3, 15)

Why Should We Use Formative Assessments?

78 | REPRODUCIBLE


Reviews of accountability data from hundreds of schools reveal the schools with the greatest gains in achievement consistently employ common assessments, nonfiction writing, and collaborative scoring by faculty (Reeves, 2004).

Powerful, proven structures for improved results are at hand. “It starts when a group of teachers meet regularly as a team to identify essential and valued student learning, develop common formative assessments, analyze current levels of achievement, set achievement goals, and then share and create lessons and strategies to improve upon those levels.” (Schmoker, 2004b, p. 48).

“[Common formative assessments provide] regular and timely feedback regarding student attainment of the most critical standards . . . [and] also foster consistent expectations and priorities within a grade level, course, and department regarding standards, instruction, and assessment. . . . Most importantly, common formative assessment results enable educators to diagnose student learning needs accurately in time to make instructional modifications.” (Ainsworth, 2007, pp. 95–96)

The schools and districts that doubled student achievement added another layer of testing—common formative or benchmark assessments. These assessments were designed to provide detailed and concrete information on what students know and do not know with respect to specific learning targets (Odden & Archibald, 2009).

The key to improved student achievement was moving beyond an individual teacher looking at his or her classroom data. Instead, it took getting same-grade teacher teams to meet, analyze the results of each interim assessment to understand what concepts in the curriculum were posing difficulty for students, share ideas, figure out the best interventions, and actually follow up in their classrooms (Christman et al., 2009).

In schools that help students burdened by poverty achieve remarkable success, teachers work in collaborative teams to build common formative assessments and use the data to identify which students need help and which need greater challenges. But they also use data to inform teachers’ practice, to discuss why one teacher is having success in teaching a concept and others are not, and what the more successful teacher can teach his or her colleagues (Chenoweth, 2009).

Why Should We Use Common Assessments?

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New Insights on How Effective PLCs at Work Improve...

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Transcript of New Insights on How Effective PLCs at Work Improve...