This was the first workshop I attended this summer after a whopping 4 day break! It was structured in a way that included two guest speakers via video conference and time to discuss within our school groups. The speakers were first Ken Williams and then the DuFours (Richard and Rebecca). The discussion time within our school groups was incredibly valuable. I guess I'll start by going a little bit into what these PLC's are for those of you who have not adopted them in your schools. The way that PLC's are defined in my school are small collaborative groups of teachers that share common goals. Time is set aside for us to work together within a very specific framework. The framework involves identifying shared targets among a group of teachers (in my case, freshman science), creating common assessments, collecting performance data, and using interventions to help when students are not mastering the targets.
In theory, PLCs sound great. In practice, PLCs are very frustrating. All we really want as teachers is to have time to collaborate by sharing ideas for teaching. When you do run a PLC the "right" way, there really isn't much time for that. There seems to be a consensus among most teachers I encounter that PLC time is not enough to accomplish what we are tasked with and a lot of times we feel like we are just spinning our wheels and have no idea what we are doing. It tends to feel like a waste of time. I know that all of this will get better as we figure out the way it works and get into a groove. And the PLC I work in is getting closer.
The timing of this workshop was perfect as my PLC is planning to meet just next week to talk about the first semester of science that we all teach. And I did get some useful tidbits from the guest speakers. The principles I am outlining here I feel will go a long way to help mitigate some of our frustrating road blocks.
1. Your targets should be non-negotiable. Your PLC should agree on shared standards that are essential. In other words, what do the students need in order to be successful--in the next unit, the next class, their future? This was reinforcing the idea that we have been struggling with that there should only be a handful of targets that your PLC is assessing. We have bogged ourselves down with way too many targets and it is just overwhelming.
2. The bar should be the same for all. No really, ALL students. When setting standards, you are expecting all students to meet or exceed the bar. This hit home with me because I teach classes with a lot of the struggling students. I need to be thinking about what they absolutely need to get out of the class and we cannot write targets that can't apply to all students. That doesn't mean we should teach less or teach down, but we shouldn't expect every student to accomplish work at the highest possible level (though they should be working at their highest possible level). Over the last year, I have come to the realization that a good portion of what we do in class could be classified as an "expert" level if you are talking about a standards-based model. This material should be the enrichment for the students who meet the bar of mastering all of the essentials, but not expected out of students who are still struggling to reach the bar.
3. If you can get your stuff done with or without the people in your group, you are not a team. If your group members are essential to your success, however, you are a team. You need to find a shared goal that is so important and impactful that you cannot accomplish it without all of your team members working together. For example, all of our students will learn these essential targets. To ensure that happens, we will cover material in this time frame, test at these specific times, review the data on this day and work together to implement interventions.
4. Now about those interventions, no single teacher can possibly have all of the ability and expertise to re-mediate and accelerate all while continuing at to move forward at still another pace with everyone else within the confines of their own classroom, nor should they be expected to. This was probably the most important thing I heard all day. The DuFours kept reiterating that there needs to be a school-wide systemic change in order for the PLC cycle to work. They emphasized that interventions should take place outside of the classroom. This was such a novel idea, and I think we were all a bit taken aback by the notion. It is completely overwhelming to figure out how to handle interventions in the classroom. I am extremely lucky to have a few sections of class that are co-taught with a special education teacher, so interventions are a bit easier to integrate. But, I absolutely could not do it effectively otherwise. Some students see me outside of class for help but really that is not enough either. The DuFours say that there needs to be specific time set aside during the normal school schedule specifically for students who require interventions. Not during your personal class schedule, that is within the school wide schedule. And without that, interventions will not be effective.
After this workshop, I feel a little bit better about the idea of working with the PLC on Monday. If we can figure out our non-negotiable targets, I think the daunting task of collecting and analyzing data will be much simpler and we will hopefully have less to argue about! (*fingers crossed*)
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