Many of you who follow Education Innovation know that I am in the midst of a school change initiative I call The Victory Project. Part of any change initiative is influencing people to use “best practices.” Collaboration through what we in education call Professional Learning Communities (PLC) is one “best practice” that I have attempted to initiate at the school site by influencing staff to recognize the power of all their un-tapped group wisdom and the effect it could have on student achievement.
The school site was currently engaged in any meaningful PLC practices, aside from meeting, which ranged from frequent to very infrequent.
I am a HUGE proponent of the Professional Learning Community model. I have attended conferences with DuFour and Solution Tree. I have read all the books:
• Professional Learning Communities at Work: Best Practices for Enhancing Student Achievement
• Learning by Doing: A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities at Work
• Whatever It Takes: How Professional Learning Communities Respond When Kids Don't Learn
• The Collaborative Administrator: Working Together as a Professional Learning Community
• The Collaborative Teacher: Working Together as a Professional Learning Community
I buy into what they are selling. It works. I know it works because I have seen it work. But to influence a staff that has never used the model, I had to look for ways to influence their behavior but not force the system. I wanted them to buy into the idea because it resonated within them.
I spent some time listening to the sorts of words that the staff used when talking about student learning, student achievement, and teaching. What surprised me was how much it sounded like terms you would hear from health care professionals. I found this interesting. Working at a high poverty, high second language learner, and low achievement school these teachers talked about their work like they were trying to save lives and get kids “healthy.”
I decided that I would use terms from a health care system model to introduce and explain the PLC initiative that we were undertaking. I like systems. Great teachers have excellent systems. So do great schools. And we need to be great.
First and this is very important, all 4 phases rely on two ingredients.
Great questions and hard data. Great results begin with great
questions. And without data all we have are our own opinions.
Phase 1:Participatory
Health care talks all the time about getting people to participate in their own health management. So I used the term “participatory” to represent the philosophy behind phase one of the change. The staff would have to participate in PLCs. The focus would be “Systematic.” Teams would have to meet during set times and on set days. Teams would be responsible for documenting the outcomes of their meetings using an agreed upon record keeping sheet.
Phase 1 focused on getting the staff used to meeting with each other, sticking to the schedule, and documenting what they were doing.
Phase 2: Planned, Predictive, and Preventive
Health care systems used these terms to talk about what needs to be done to handle health care needs. They plan for what will happen, think about and predict likely issues and prepare for them, and attempt to prevent common illness before they begin.
Teachers too can improve their effectiveness when they are planned. Planning included common pacing and using Standards Based Lesson Plan design. By predicting what it is students will need to know at various assessment intervals, teachers can ready students and not be racing to catch up or failing to teach a standard all together. Finally, teachers prevent common mistakes because they are planned and predictive about what students will need to know and what they will do for those who don’t master a standard or have mastered the standard.
The focus here is standards, skills, and strategy. What is that students need to know? Thinking about power standards, essential standard, and deconstructing them into excellent focused lesson. What skills must they demonstrate and how can we equip students for the needs of the next grade. And what are the most effective strategies to teach students and help those who need more assistance in learning.
Phase 3: Progressive
Health care systems are progressive in the terms of the treatment options it brings to its patients. The goal was to move our teachers to being just as progressive in response to “academic casualties” and special needs. It is in Phase 3, after teachers had moved from meeting to talk about student learning, to planning for student learning, we would put into place our Response to Intervention (RtI) model. The focus is on student learning and being progressive about meeting the needs of each student by moving them progressively through the Tiers as needed of the RtI model. Truly meeting the needs of each students learning needs.
The focus here is symptoms and solutions. What is that our students’ need and what is that we can give them?
Phase 4: Personalized
The best health care system meets your needs. It gives you exactly what you need. Here our PLCs would become a place where we meet the needs of each and every learner. Not content to merely talk about percents of student who know or don’t know a standard, or sub-groups of students, etc; but truly knowing what each and every student in the classroom knows and needs; Differentiation at the most personal of levels.
Our focus is on students. Not groups, not percentages, not achievement or proficiency bands but a student with a name. Our PLC will work to meet the needs of that student.
That is the ultimate goal of Phase 1 through 4. This is not "the way" is just my way. Looking at the needs, listening to the language used, and putting together a plan to influence behavior. The one thing I have never read or heard in all this PLC stuff is how to use your imagination. This is how I used mine.
A great resource is the All Things PLC website and blog.
Here is chart that graphically displays the four phases of implementation.
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