Professional Learning Communities DRIVE Toward Success

When Professional Learning Communities or Professional Networked Learning Collaboratives develop plans and ideas to deal with the multifaceted issues of student learning and achievement, having a clear definition and picture of what success looks like is key. Teams need to know what success looks like so they can recognize if they have achieved the results in student learning and achievement they set out to attain. If you don’t know your destination, how will you know if you have arrived? Developing an observable measure of success is key.

Tim Hurson, author of the book Think Better, offers this useful tool for helping you recognize once you have achieved it. He calls it DRIVE.

 

Do: What do you want your eventual solution to do? What must it achieve?

 

What outcome is the PLC or PNLC looking for? What do you want for the students? What should your students be able to do? The key here is to develop as many ideas as possible without judging them. Create a list of all the things your teams solution should achieve for the students. For example your list might include statements like: increase time on task, help student develop their own questions, include technology, or students should be able to explain the learning goals clearly.

 

Restrictions: What changes or impacts must you avoid?

 

What outcomes should not happen as a result of your plan? What must be prevented so as not to interfere with the student achievement? For example your list might include statements like: don’t confuse students, don’t ignore the high achieving students, don’t talk to much during the lesson, or don’t confuse students with too many strategies.

 

Investment: What resources are you willing to allocate? What are your “not-to-exceeds”?

 

What are the investments of time, materials, etc., that your PLC or PNLC is willing to commit to achieve your goal? Create a list of maximum investments that your PLC or PNLC, those you can’t exceed, that your team is wiling to put into the solution. The list might include things like: 30 minutes of instruction daily, one instructional aide per classroom, science materials for each pair of students, computer lab time, once weekly common assessments, etc.

 

Values: What values must you live by in achieving your solutions?

 

List the values of the school and the team that cannot be compromised in working toward the solution. What can you tolerate? What can you not tolerate? The list might includes things like: standards over curriculum, student need over teacher need, differentiation, must value teacher time, student engagement, etc.

 

Essential Outcomes: What are the nonnegotiable elements of success? What measurable targets must be met?

 

What are all the things that must happen for the PLC or the PNLC to consider the solution a success for students? What specific student achievement outcomes must be reached? What are the non-negotiable student results that must be achieved? Examples might include statement like: all students will master the standard, the student learning will be measurable through a common formative assessment, students will be given multiple opportunities to achieve, etc.

 

When PLCs or PNLCs use the DRIVE tool to create a clear picture and an observable criterion for defining success, they have a greater chance of ensuring that their solution will produce the desired result for student learning and teaching.