Effective Facilitation Strategies for Collaborative Work: A Q-Comp Presentation

1. Facilitation Practices that Move Collaborative Work Forward Q-Comp Presentation January 27, 2011

2. Who We Are • Phil Lienemann • K-12 Principal • 3rd year administrator, 12 years total experience • Jen Schwankl • Elementary Special Education • 2nd year, 11 total years experience • Jay Meiners • High School Science: Biology and Earth Science • 10 years experience

3. Who We Work With • Minnesota River Valley Education District • Located in Montevideo, MN • Karen Jacobson, Director • Yvonne Sorenson, Assistant Director

4. No Magic Bullets • This is what we’ve found works in our school culture • Structures and formats for each school will be different • Willing to share what we have • Minneota visited to look at our plan • Tracy-Milroy-Balaton visited to look at our plan • Montevideo borrowed materials from our PLC format

5. Our School-Lakeview • Cottonwood, MN-Wood Lake, MN • 13 miles north of Marshall, MN in SW MN • Around 560 students K-12 • Mostly a two section school • Small senior class: 24 • Large 7th grade 64, large 5th grade 57 • Incoming K classes around upper 50s • Staff of 48 in 7 PLCs

6. Brief History • The year before I arrived • Orbiter interest groups: web page development, information literacy, etc. • My 1st year • Two hour early out once a month • Month to month • Focus on Information Literacy • The following two years • Changes

7. Change #1 • Became a Q-Comp School • Small committee formed to draft ideas starting in the spring of 2009 • Input on major areas of the plan; minor tweaks, adjustments made over the summer by administration-timelines • Ratified by LEA and School Board in the fall of 2009

8. Change #2 • Formation of school goals • Last year, each school had an umbrella goal based upon NWEA scores • Each PLC formulated a goal specific to their group of students • This year’s schoolwide goal uses MCA achievement • All are aware of goals: on every staff meeting agenda

9. Change #3 • Early outs • From once a month to every other week • From two hours to one • Meet the same amount of time, more frequently • PLC Leaders meet in off weeks

11. Change #4 • Assigned Groups • PLCs by grade levels: PreK-K, 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, 9-10, 11-12. About 7 members per group • 7 PLCs, 8 Leaders-one group has co-leaders • Special education, vocal and band music, art, agriculture, health and physical education, business, Spanish teachers all fold into one of the seven groups • Ex. Mr. Meiners’s 9-10 grade group • There have been discussions re: job alike groupings

12. Change #5 • Focus • Started last year with a study of data: math, reading, language usage, science • MCA and NWEA as well as local assessments • Every PLC set their own goal under a school wide umbrella • Then PLCs focused on research based instructional strategies to target a low data area

13. Change #6 • Teacher Leaders in place • One in the elementary, one in the secondary • Julie Neisius, 2nd grade teacher • Dan Hoffman, Engineering technology teacher • Focus on evaluating Domain 3 of Charlotte Danielson’s Framework of Effective Teaching: rubric • Evaluation forms: Planning and Post-

14. It’s a Process • Fortunate-Time has always been approved by school board. • Avoid water cooler talk • Meaningful discussions about teaching and learning • Wanted to have a sense of accomplishment by the end of every meeting • Yet we continue to learn and adjust

15. Necessary Evils: Protocols • Guided staff in first steps of in-house Data Mine, Fall of 2009 • MCAs: D, P, M, E • NWEAs: Hi, Mid, Lo accomplishment levels • Substrand data on NWEAs more than MCAs • These findings led to the instructional strategies research and implementation for the year

17. More Protocols • Following identification of research based instructional strategies: • Meeting Calendar: Distributed leadership • Who would facilitate weekly meetings? • Who would take the notes? Who would keep time? • Who would share video of implementation of strategy in class? • Who would share student work or research article? • Who would bring the sustenance?

18. Lakeview 2010-2011 Study Group Name:

19. More Protocols • Weekly Minutes • Filled out by the weekly note taker • Communication piece with administration • Video Sharing Protocol • Modified Annenberg Protocol • Five minute clip of class with strategy • Student Work Sharing Protocol • Modified Annenberg Protocol • Strengths and weaknesses of the work, feedback

20. PLC Leader Meetings • Meet in off weeks • Cover past and upcoming PLC meetings • Support each other: laugh and joke, ask for help with a situation or problem • This year, digging into Learning by Doing a portion at a time

21. Focus this year • Formative Assessments • Based upon the work of Dufour, Dufour, Eaker, and Many • Learning by Doing • Plan is to continue focus of formative assessments into next year, shifting to summative assessments the next year

22. Common Formative Assessments • Elementary: what is given in one classroom must be given in the other • Guaranteed and viable curriculum • In the event of no alike grade level or content area teacher, development of assessments in PLCs add to the collegial discussions and quality of assessments • What do we expect of our students?

23. Other practices to facilitate collaboration • Common Grade Level Planning meetings • Once a week, elementary grades meet for one prep period to plan, discuss, evaluate curriculum, assessments, and practices • Starting to build this process up into junior high classes

24. Recap: Facilitation Practices • Early out time to meet in PLCs • Calendar of meeting dates: early outs and PLC Leaders • Goals to accomplish • Protocols to guide PLC discussions • Teacher Leaders’ evaluations • Common grade level meetings

25. Questions? Thank you!

26. Contact Information • Lakeview Public Schools • Telephone: 507-423-5164 • phillienemann@lakeview2167.com • Phone ext. 1323 • jaymeiners@lakeview2167.com • jenschwankl@lakeview2167.com