Linda Vanderford on 2009-09-28
Perhaps some questions to ask with districts as they begin to form PLCs
This link has been bookmarked by 26 people . It was first bookmarked on 25 Jul 2007, by F Foxworth.
-
09 Nov 09
-
03 Nov 09
-
26 Oct 09
-
16 Oct 09
-
28 Sep 09
-
-
-
What are the "big ideas" that represent the core principles of professional learning communities? How do these principles guide schools' efforts to sustain the professional learning community model until it becomes deeply embedded in the culture of the school?
-
-
23 Sep 09
-
shift—from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning
-
What school characteristics and practices have been most successful in helping all students achieve at high levels? How could we adopt those characteristics and practices in our own school? What commitments would we have to make to one another to create such a school? What indicators could we monitor to assess our progress?
- 14 more annotations...
-
-
- What do we want each student to learn?
- How will we know when each student has learned it?
- How will we respond when a student experiences difficulty in learning?
- What do we want each student to learn?
-
systematic and schoolwide
-
Based on intervention rather than remediation
-
Adlai Stevenson High School
-
The powerful collaboration that characterizes professional learning communities is a systematic process in which teachers work together to analyze and improve their classroom practice. Teachers work in teams, engaging in an ongoing cycle of questions that promote deep team learning. This process, in turn, leads to higher levels of student achievement.
-
make public what has traditionally been private
-
We did—because we find working alone safer than and preferable to working together.
-
Every teacher team participates in an ongoing process of identifying the current level of student achievement, establishing a goal to improve the current level, working together to achieve that goal, and providing periodic evidence of progress.
-
turns data into useful and relevant information for staff
-
When teacher teams develop common formative assessments throughout the school year, each teacher can identify how his or her students performed on each skill compared with other students.
-
They must stop using averages to analyze student performance and begin to focus on the success of each student.
-
stop limiting improvement goals to factors outside the classroom,
-
Have we made progress on the goals that are most important to us?
-
The rise or fall of the professional learning community concept depends not on the merits of the concept itself, but on the most important element in the improvement of any school—the commitment and persistence of the educators within i
-
-
-
01 Sep 09
RJ StangherlinTo create a professional learning community, focus on learning rather than teaching, work collaboratively, and hold yourself accountable for results.
-
31 Aug 09
-
"learning for all"
-
"learning for all"
- 1 more annotations...
-
-
"learning for all"
-
-
-
-
When a school begins to function as a professional learning community, however, teachers become aware of the incongruity between their commitment to ensure learning for all students and their lack of a coordinated strategy to respond when some students do not learn
-
Every three weeks, every student receives a progress report.
- 3 more annotations...
-
-
Collaborative conversations call on team members to make public what has traditionally been private—goals, strategies, materials, pacing, questions, concerns, and results. These discussions give every teacher someone to turn to and talk to, and they are explicitly structured to improve the classroom practice of teachers—individually and collectively.
-
Teachers work in collaborative teams for 90 minutes daily to clarify the essential outcomes of their grade levels and courses and to align those outcomes with state standards.
-
Each year, the teams pore over the results of the state test, which are broken down to show every teacher how his or her students performed on every skill and on every test item.
-
-
-
20 Aug 09
-
31 Jul 09
-
19 Jul 09
-
19 Jun 09
-
13 Jun 09
-
28 May 09
-
People use this term to describe every imaginable combination of individuals with an interest in education—a grade-level teaching team, a school committee, a high school department, an entire school district, a state department of education, a national professional organization, and so on
-
This simple shift—from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning—has profound implications for schools.
- 2 more annotations...
-
-
Almost invariably, the school leaves the solution to the discretion of individual teachers, who vary widely in the ways they respond.
-
culum guides will guarantee that all students have access to a common curriculum. Even school districts that devote tremendous time and energy to designing the intended curriculum often pay little attention to the implemented curriculum (what teachers actually teach) and even less to the attained curriculum (what students learn) (Marzano, 2003).
-
-
-
27 May 09
-
To create a professional learning community, focus on learning rather than teaching, work collaboratively, and hold yourself accountable for results.
-
Big Idea #1: Ensuring That Students Learn
- 5 more annotations...
-
-
The professional learning community model flows from the assumption that the core mission of formal education is not simply to ensure that students are taught but to ensure that they learn. This simple shift—from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning—has profound implications for schools.
-
Big Idea #2: A Culture of Collaboration
Educators who are building a professional learning community recognize that they must work together to achieve their collective purpose of learning for all. Therefore, they create structures to promote a collaborative culture.
-
For meaningful collaboration to occur, a number of things must also stop happening. Schools must stop pretending that merely presenting teachers with state standards or district curriculum guides will guarantee that all students have access to a common curriculum.
-
Big Idea #3: A Focus on Results
-
Schools and teachers typically suffer from the DRIP syndrome—Data Rich/Information Poor. The results-oriented professional learning community not only welcomes data but also turns data into useful and relevant information for staff.
-
-
-
05 May 09
-
21 Mar 09
-
24 Feb 09
-
22 Jan 09
-
12 Jan 09
-
22 Nov 08
-
04 Sep 08
Anne BubnicThe professional learning community model has now reached a critical juncture, one well known to those who have witnessed the fate of other well-intentioned school reform efforts. In this all-too-familiar cycle, initial enthusiasm gives way to confusion about the fundamental concepts driving the initiative, followed by inevitable implementation problems, the conclusion that the reform has failed to bring about the desired results, abandonment of the reform, and the launch of a new search for the next promising initiative. Another reform movement has come and gone, reinforcing the conventional education wisdom that promises, "This too shall pass."
-
Big Idea #1: Ensuring That Students Learn
The professional learning community model flows from the assumption that the core mission of formal education is not simply to ensure that students are taught but to ensure that they learn. This simple shift—from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning—has profound implications for schools.
-
Big Idea #2: A Culture of Collaboration
Educators who are building a professional learning community recognize that they must work together to achieve their collective purpose of learning for all. Therefore, they create structures to promote a collaborative culture.
- 1 more annotations...
-
-
Big Idea #3: A Focus on Results
Professional learning communities judge their effectiveness on the basis of results. Working together to improve student achievement becomes the routine work of everyone in the school. Every teacher team participates in an ongoing process of identifying the current level of student achievement, establishing a goal to improve the current level, working together to achieve that goal, and providing periodic evidence of progress. The focus of team goals shifts. Such goals as "We will adopt the Junior Great Books program" or "We will create three new labs for our science course" give way to "We will increase the percentage of students who meet the state standard in language arts from 83 percent to 90 percent" or "We will reduce the failure rate in our course by 50 percent."
-
-
-
22 Jul 08
-
It requires the school staff to focus on learning rather than teaching,
-
-
26 Mar 08
-
25 Jul 07
Public Stiky Notes
Page Comments
Would you like to comment?
Join Diigo for a free account, or sign in if you are already a member.