What is a Professional Learning Community?

1. NJASA SOUTHERN REGIONAL SUMMITPROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIESPRESENTED BY:DR. JACK McCULLEYSTERLING REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT

2. What is a Professional Learning Community? We define a professional learning community as educators committed to working collaboratively in ongoing processes of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve. Professional learning communities operate under the assumption that the key to improved learning for students is continuous, job-embedded learning for educators. (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many, 2006).

3. Learning Community is Characterized by: • Shared mission, vision, and values • Collaborative Teams. • Collective inquiry. • Action orientation/experimentation. • Commitment to continuous improvement. • Results orientation. DuFour & Eaker

4. Shared Mission (Purpose), Vision (Clear Direction), Values (Collective Commitments, and Goals (Indicators, Timelines, and Targets) – All Focused on Student Learning • The very essence of a learning community is a focus on and a commitment to the learning of each student • Educators embrace high levels of learning for all students as both the reason the organization exists and the fundamental responsibility of those who work within it. • Members of a PLC create and are guided by a clear and compelling of what their schools and districts must become to help all students learn. • Collective commitments clarify what each member will do to contribute to creating such organizations. • Use results-oriented goals to mark their progress.

5. A Collaborative Culture With a Focus on Learning • Collaborative teams are the fundamental building blocks of the school community. • A PLC is composed of collaborative teams whose members work interdependently to achieve common goals. • Goals linked to the purpose of learning for all • All members are held mutually accountable. Collective Inquiry Into Best Practice and Current Reality • Educators in a PLC engage in collective inquiry into: • Best Practices about teaching and learning • A candid clarification of their current practices • An honest assessment of their students’ current levels of learning. • Collective inquiry helps educators build shared knowledge. • Educators in a PLC have an acute sense of curiosity and openness to new possibilities.

6. Action Orientation: Learning By Doing • Members of PLCs are action-oriented: • They move quickly to turn aspirations into action and visions into reality. • They understand that the most powerful learning always occurs in a context of taking action. • They value engagement and experience as the most effective teachers. • Learning by doing develops a deeper and more profound knowledge and greater commitment than learning by reading, listening, planning, or thinking (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2000). • Educators in PLCs recognize that until members of the organization “do” differently, there is no reason to anticipate different results.

7. A Commitment to Continuous Improvement • Work to eliminate the status quo • Constant searches for a better way to achieve goals and accomplish the purpose of the organization are inherent in the PLC culture. • Systematic processes engage each member of the school community in an ongoing cycle of: • Gathering evidence of current levels of student learning. • Developing strategies and ideas to build on strengths and address weaknesses in that learning. • Implementing the strategies and ideas. • Analyzing the impact of the changes to discover what was effective and what was not. • Applying the knowledge in the next cycle of continuous improvement.

8. Results Orientation • Members of a PLC realize that all of their efforts in these areas: • Focus on learning. • Collaborative teams. • Collective inquiry • Action orientation • Continuous improvement must be assessed on the basis of results rather than intentions • Initiatives are subjected to ongoing assessment on the basis of tangible results.

9. The Big Ideas That Drive Professional Learning Communities • First, the fundamental purpose of the school is to ensure all students learn at high levels. • The future success of students will depend on how effective educators are in achieving that fundamental purpose. • Commitment to learning and schools must align all practices, procedures, and policies. • Members of a PLC work together. • Clarify exactly what each student must learn. • Monitor each student’s learning on a timely basis • Support for learning when they struggle • Extend and enrich learning when students have already mastered the intended outcomes. • If all students are to learn at high levels, the professional staff in the school community must also continue to learn.

10. The Big Ideas That Drive Professional Learning Communities • Second, schools will not know whether or not all students are learning unless professional staff have a strong desire for evidence that students are acquiring the knowledge, skills, and dispositions deemed most essential to their success. • Schools must systematically monitor student learning on an ongoing basis. • Use evidence of results to respond immediately to students who experience difficulty. • To inform individual and collective practice. • To fuel continuous improvement.

11. Origin of Professional Learning Community • Professional • Someone with expertise in a specialized field, an individual who has not only pursued advanced training to enter the field, but who is also expected to remain current in its evolving knowledge base. • Knowledge base of education has expanded dramatically in the past 30 years. • In terms of research and in the articulation of recommended standards for the profession. • Professional staff in a professional learning community make these findings the basis of their collaborative investigation into how they can better achieve their goals. • Practice teaching and leading by constantly enhancing their skills and knowledge in the same way a doctor practices medicine or a lawyer practices law.

12. Origin of Professional Learning Community • Learning • The need for professional staff to shift from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning. • To move beyond the question “Was it taught?” to the far more relevant question, “Was it learned?” • Avocation for learning communities, not teaching communities. • The best way to improve student learning is to invest and improve the learning of the professional staff. • Learning suggests ongoing action and perpetual curiosity. • Educators must engage in the ongoing study and constant practice of their field. • If all students are to learn, those who educate them must be lifelong learners.

13. Origin of Professional Learning Community • Community • A group linked by common interests. • Common understandings. • Sense of identity • Belonging and involvement • Meaningful relationships • Communities form around common characteristics, experiences, practices • Members of the community’s beliefs are important enough to develop a kinship.

14. In a Professional Learning Community: • Professional staff create an environment that fosters shared: • Understanding • Sense of identity • High levels of involvement • Mutual cooperation • Collective responsibility • Emotional support • A strong sense of belonging • Collaborating together to achieve what they cannot accomplish alone

15. Becoming a Professional Learning Community Robert Eaker Cultural Shifts

16. Culture is often defined as:“How we do things around here.”Compared to more traditional schools, how are things done in a professional learning community?

17. Cultural Shift Traditional Schools Teacher isolation Professional Learning Communities Collaboration

18. Traditional Schools Generic. Belief statements; such as, “We believe all kids can learn.” Professional Learning Communities Clarifies what students will learn. Clarifies how we will know what students have learned. Clarifies how the school will respond when students do not learn. Cultural Shift: Developing a Mission Statement Student Learning

19. Cultural Shift – Primary Focus Traditional Schools • Primary Focus is on teaching. Professional Learning Communities • Primary focus is on learning.

20. Cultural Shift - Curriculum Traditional Schools • Each teacher independently decides what to teach. • Curriculum overloaded. Professional Learning Communities • Collaboratively agreed upon curriculum that focus on what students are expected to learn. • Reduced content; meaningful content taught at greater depth. • Collaboratively developed assessment. • A collaboratively developed plan for responding to students who are not learning.

21. Cultural Shift - Decisions Traditional Schools Decisions about improvement strategies are made by “averaging opinions.” Professional Learning Communities Decisions are research-based with collaborative teams of teachers seeking out “best practices”.

22. Cultural Shift - Validation Traditional Schools • Effectiveness of improvement strategies are externally validated. Teachers rely on others outside the school regarding what works. • Emphasis is given to how teachers liked various approaches. Professional Learning Communities • Approaches are internally validated. Teams of teachers try various approaches and collaborate about how the approaches impacted student learning. • Effects on student learning as the primary basis for assessing various improvement strategies. Collaboratively developed assessment.

23. Cultural Shift - Leadership Traditional Schools Administrators are viewed as being in leadership positions while teachers are viewed as “implementers” or followers. Professional Learning Communities Administrators are viewed as leaders of leaders. Teachers are viewed as transformational leaders.

24. Cultural Shift – Improvement Plans Traditional Schools School improvement plans focus on a wide variety of things. Often, the goal is to “get the plan turned in”. Then, the plan is ignored. Professional Learning Communities • School improvement plans focus on a few, important goals that will impact student learning. • The school improvement plan is the vehicle for organized, sustained school improvement.

25. Cultural Shift - Recognition Traditional Schools • “Celebration” is infrequent and when recognizing teachers almost always focuses on groups. • Celebration and recognition occurs when students reach an arbitrary standard. • Recognition is limited to few. Professional Learning Communities • Celebration is frequent and singles out individuals as well as groups. • In addition to celebration and recognition when a standard is met, celebrations recognized “improvement” • The school works hard to “create” winners and celebrate their success. • Celebrations are linked to the vision and values of the school and improved student achievement—Renaissance Program

26. Cultural Shift – New Initiatives Traditional Schools • Improvement efforts frequently shift as new fads or trends come along. Professional Learning Communities • The school is committed to “staying the course” in the attainment of the school vision. New initiatives are only implemented if it is determined that the change will help the school achieve its vision of the future.

27. Becoming a Professional Learning Community Sterling High School Somerdale, NJ Cultural & Educational Shifts

28. WHERE WE STARTED

29. PLC At Sterling Grew out of professional development on alternative assessment Teachers sent to Adlai Stevenson High School in Chicago to view PLC process of common planning and assessment Teachers became interested in developing common goals and assessments for each course Needed common planning time for successful implementation PLC was initiated to facilitate this goal and to focus instruction on student learning Two morning in-service days / month are set aside for PLC time

30. MISSION OF PLC The three “essential questions” of the PLC initiative are: • What do we expect students to learn? • How will we know that students have learned? • How will we respond to students who are not learning

31. What do we want students to learn? State Standards Established Curriculum Outlines Strengths and Weaknesses of Students Expectations of the community Essential vs. Inessential Content Establish specific essential outcomes per unit Development of mandatory and elective activities

32. How do we know if they have learned it? Common Assessments for each course at all levels Establish specific standards of performance, targets or benchmarks for each test to indicate student mastery of intended outcomes Clarify criteria by which work is judged (rubrics) Analyze results

33. How will we respond when students do not learn? Analyze results of assessment Utilize collaboration and best practices to identify and implement improvement strategies Ensure that all students who need it receive additional time and support for learning Re-assess to determine mastery

34. PLC FOCUS ON LEARNING

35. WHERE WE ARE NOW CULTURAL AND EDUCATIONAL SHIFT

36. PLC --Cultural Shift Professional Learning Communities Collaboration

37. Cultural Shift – Primary Focus Professional Learning Communities • Primary focus is on learning.

38. Cultural Shift - Decisions Professional Learning Communities Decisions are research-based with collaborative teams of teachers seeking out “best practices”.

39. Cultural Shift - Validation Professional Learning Communities • Approaches are internally validated. Teams of teachers try various approaches and collaborate about how the approaches impacted student learning. • Effects on student learning as the primary basis for assessing various improvement strategies. Collaboratively developed assessment.

40. Cultural Shift - Recognition Professional Learning Communities • Celebration is frequent and singles out individuals as well as groups. • In addition to celebration and recognition when a standard is met, celebrations recognized “improvement” • The school works hard to “create” winners and celebrate their success. • Celebrations are linked to the vision and values of the school and improved student achievement—Renaissance Program

41. Cultural Shift – New Initiatives Professional Learning Communities • The school is committed to “staying the course” in the attainment of the school vision. New initiatives are only implemented if it is determined that the change will help the school achieve its vision of the future.

42. Educational Shift:Curricular Focus in a Learning Community Until a school has clarifies what students should know and be able to do, and the skills and dispositions they should acquire as a result of schooling, the school cannot function as a learning community There are four major assumptions for curricular development

43. Educational Shift Teacher should work collaboratively to design a research-based curriculum If a curriculum is overloaded --“Pay attention to everything”– it cannot have the necessary focus on results Teachers need to be informed about initiatives and search for the right combination of theory and practice for their students and school at a particular time Pooling uninformed opinions just results in making uninformed decisions Teachers should be familiar with what is known about best practices and utilize and adapt those findings to the culture of each individual school and student population

44. Educational ShiftThe curriculum should clarify the specific knowledge, skills, and dispositions that students should acquire as a result of their schooling. Collaboratively agreed upon curriculum focuses on essential and significant learning topics. “Organized abandonment—deciding what not to teach.” Reduced content allows meaningful content to be taught at greater depth Develop a process of identifying significant content, eliminating non-essential material. Curriculum is “a mile long and an inch deep”. Analyze each unit: what does every student need to know, what information would benefit students if there were time, what is insignificant enough to eliminate?

45. Educational ShiftThe curriculum process should allow teachers to monitor student achievement at the classroom level What do we want students to do as a result of this unit? Not students will “understand” a topic, but what will they do to demonstrate that understanding What methods and material will we use to teach the lesson? (Science department: required activities, elective activities) How will we know whether students have achieved the intended outcomes? Observation, written tests, questioning, review of homework student performance projects, etc.

46. Educational ShiftCurriculum and Assessment Process should foster continuous improvement Culmination of the three previous sections. An effective learning community will: Ensure that a teacher’s daily instruction is consistent with the essential learning goals identified through the curriculum process Insist that students are asked to learn content that has been chosen based on essential outcomes rather than on the idiosyncrasies of an individual teacher Establish the expectation that each instructional unit will provide students the opportunity to practice the kinds of skill they will be asked to demonstrate during assessment Ensure that assessments are aligned with curriculum and instruction

47. WHERE WE ARE HEADED

48. Year 1 2005-2006 Define Vision and Mission for each department Develop departmental goals Departments begin working toward development of common curriculum and assessment Academic departmental folders were established on the S-drive for departmental work Curriculum Committee of PLC leaders was established to monitor progress, concerns, etc. Curriculum Committee felt the need for framework or structure in which the departments could work

49. Year 2 2006-2007 Framework was developed so that every department needed to re-align each individual curriculum relative to the standards and re-structure if necessary Led to an examination of each individual curriculum relative to the NJ State Standards—Science department restructured the curriculum using this data Assessments in Science, Social Studies and World Language were developed to reflect NJCCCS and generate data on student achievement relative to the standards Scoring and dissemination of assessment data took place Common Final Examinations were developed and placed in shared departmental folders Goals for 2007-2008 were established

50. Year 32007-2008 Align all curriculum to the state standards Begin to develop a working curriculum for each course Identify essential topics Develop mandatory and optional activities for each unit Develop common unit assessments Use data to target areas of weakness and develop strategies for improvement