Issue 116: Dec 06, 2010 Connections Newsletter

Journey to Collaboration

Toni Enloe
Dec 06, 2010

How can collaborative teams be used to support student learning?

"We can't all be good at everything and shouldn't pretend that we are. If we were, there would be no need for teams." Simon Sinek, Notes to Inspire

Why team?

The decline in student performance is often realized as student’s transition from elementary to middle school. Along with the physical and psychological changes young adolescents experience, they are then asked to serve 5 or more bosses who have 5 or more different sets of rules and expectations. Since many students often come from smaller elementary schools and the transition from elementary to middle school is sometimes difficult, teaming creates smaller communities of learning that make that transition easier while helping to alleviate the anxieties that many students feel. Through teams, students have a direct pathway to building steadfast relationships with caring adults and peers. The security that successful teaming provides to its students can cultivate positive attitudes about their new surroundings so that students can focus on learning.

Teachers who are on successful teams experience levels of professional conversation and experiences (joint learning and problem solving) that encourage them to focus on the work at hand and reinforce the idea that they can have a positive impact on student achievement regardless of where their students are in the learning process. When teachers plan collaboratively, they are able to plan both vertically and horizontally reducing the amount of instructional time spent on repeating skills that have already been addressed. Collaborative teaming helps students make connections across the curriculum. Through teaming, teachers are able to get more than just a snapshot of each student's approach to learning and are better able to design instruction that taps each child's potential.

How can we build successful teams?

Peter Scholtes describes a team as "people pooling skills, talents and knowledge" in an effort to achieve major gains in quality and productivity. Effective teams don't magically happen. Successful teaming requires hard work and time for team members to become confident in their abilities to collaborate in a way that will not only impact the academic success of their students, but also improve the culture of the school.

In schools, teams are usually comprised of 2-5 teachers who share a common group of students and have a common time to plan. There is no single best way to establish teams but successful teams are the result of careful, purposeful planning and strong support. Since teams are comprised of people, they often face many of the "people issues" so the full implementation of effective teams may take 2- 3 years. Their success is dependent on the level of administrative support the team receives, teacher "buy in,” the stability of the team, and the commitment of time to make teaming happen. During the first year, teachers begin to forge relationships. They spend time identifying the strengths that each member brings to the team and how those strengths can best be used. Successful teams have common goals and a shared vision for student success and continuous improvement. As trust grows among team members, they begin to move toward collaborative planning.

What do successful teams do?

Successful teams meet and plan together during a common planning time to enhance the curriculum and help their students make connections. Student achievement has a direct correlation to the amount and quality of collaborative planning time spent by teachers. (Turning Points 2000)

One suggested schedule for teaming is:

Day 1 is devoted to team "housekeeping," previewing out the week's activities, and reviewing upcoming content and requirements

Day 2 is used to discuss selected students in collaboration with counselors and support personnel

Days 3-5 are devoted to instructional and curricular matters

How can teams collaborate?

1. Coordinate homework and culminating activities
2. Coordinate tests and quizzes
3. Coordinate student-led conferences
4. Organize parent workshops
5. Have common grading policies
6. Have and flex a block of time
7. Use flexible grouping to schedule and reschedule students based on their needs
8. Have team vocabulary of the week (team members decide on critical content related vocabulary and design strategies to teach those words)
9. Plan with special education teachers
10. Coordinate and communicate with exploratory teachers
11. Share weekly content information
12. Monitor and share successful teaching strategies
13. Map team curriculum, identify connections, and plan for instruction
14. Plan and conduct cross curricular field trips to build prior knowledge
15. Evaluate test scores and design activities that will address areas of weakness and can be practiced across disciplines

Students are like boxes of Cracker Jacks. The team's challenge is to find the prize inside of every student and plan for their success.

For more information on flexible grouping check out Reading Comprehension: Flexible Grouping 6-8.

For more information on teaming and unit planning check out Units and Lessons that Work.

Resources

Ullock, Kathy, "Fifty Things That Great Teams Do." Creative Solutions

Jackson,A., & Davis,G., (2000). Turning Points 2000. New York, New York: Teachers College Press.

Rottier,J., (1999). Implementing and Improving Teaming: a Handbook for Middle Level Leaders. Westerville, Ohio: National Middle School Assoc.



PLCs and Learning-Focused

Brenda Hill
Dec 06, 2010

successful face-to-face team is more than just collectively intelligent. It makes everyone work harder, think smarter and reach better conclusions than they would have on their own."
from Results Now by Mike Schmoker

Professional Learning Communities Defined:

Learning communities is a wide-ranging educational term that has been used quite frequently over the last decade with many meanings and interpretations. Some have interpreted learning communities to mean extending educational opportunities and classroom practices into the school community; others see learning communities as an opportunity to bring community personnel into the school to enrich and augment the curriculum and learning tasks for students; still others feel that learning communities are a means of engaging administrators, teachers, and students in collaboratively working together to improve learning. "Astuto and colleagues (1993) describe the professional community of learners as a place in which the teachers in a school and its administrators continuously seek and share learning and then act on what they learn. The goal of their actions is to enhance their effectiveness as professionals so that students benefit. This arrangement has also been termed communities of continuous inquiry and improvement." Richard and Rebecca DuFour define professional learning communities (PLCs) as "an ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve. PLCs operate under the assumption that the key to improved learning for students is continuous, job-embedded learning for educators. The fundamental structure of a PLC is collaborative teams of educators who work interdependently to achieve a common goal, for which members are mutually accountable." The connection between the Learning-Focused Strategies Model and PLCs will be further explored using the DeFours' explanation and beliefs about professional learning communities.

Structure and Purpose of Professional Learning Communities:

According to the DeFours "real PLCs are collaborative teams within a single grade, course, or interdisciplinary program with an ongoing focus on four questions:

• What do we want our students to learn? The team identifies the essential, guaranteed, and viable curriculum.
• How will we know they are learning? The team creates or procures common interim assessments to measure all students' learning and uses the results from the assessments to inform and improve team members' individual and collective professional practice.
• How will we respond when students don't learn? The school orchestrates timely, directive, and systematic interventions for students.
• How will we respond when they do learn? The school orchestrates enrichment and extension of learning for students who have reached proficiency."

The purpose of a PLC has been explained as a collaborative team continuously working together on a consistent, pervasive basis using the four guiding questions with the goal of improving student learning and achievement. If that is the explanation and purpose of professional learning communities then there is a strong, direct correlation between PLCs and the goals of the Learning-Focused Strategies Model, which are continuous improvement and consistent and pervasive. So...how and where do PLCs connect and "fit" with the Learning-Focused Strategies Model?

Connections - Professional Learning Communities and the LEARNING-FOCUSED Strategies Model

The explanation, purpose, and desired outcomes of PLCs clearly correlate to the Model. This is evident by the desired results on which we are focused - increasing student performance and achievement by continuously looking at school and classroom data, the implementation of research and evidence-based strategies as instructional practices within each and every classroom, the development and use of ongoing formative and summative assessments to consistently monitor student progress/learning, and the consistent, pervasive use of differentiated assignments to meet the needs of all students. The DeFours' guiding questions for professional learning communities will further establish the connection between PLCs and the Learning-Focused Strategies Model:

  • What do we want our students to learn? The team identifies the essential, guaranteed, and viable curriculum.

  • Learning-Focused Connections: prioritized curriculum; research-based and evidence-based strategies; Know-Understand-Do organizers, Student Learning Maps, acquisition lessons, extending thinking activities and lessons; quality learning units.

  • How will we know they are learning? The team creates or procures common interim assessments to measure all students' learning and uses the results from the assessments to inform and improve team members' individual and collective professional practice.

  • Learning-Focused Connections: common assessments - formative and summative; assessment prompts in acquisition lessons; collaborative planning and professional discussion in Teacher Reflection Meetings; distributed guided practice and distributed summarizing throughout teaching; rubrics.

  • How will we respond when students don't learn? The school orchestrates timely, directive, and systematic interventions for students.

  • Learning-Focused Connections: Catching Kids Up (acceleration and scaffolding); Vocabulary Instruction; benchmark assessments; Differentiated Assignments

  • How will we respond when they do learn? The school orchestrates enrichment and extension of learning for students who have reached proficiency.*

  • Learning-Focused Connections: Extending Thinking, Differentiated Assignments, learning teams (focused on increased fluency and reading comprehension strategies).


Every component or solution of the Learning-Focused Strategies Model easily "fits" within the structure and purpose for the utilization of professional learning communities. Teacher Reflection Meetings using school and classroom data with a specific instructional focus provide the perfect opportunity to effectively integrate PLCs and the Model. The goals of continuous improvement and consistent and pervasive will allow the "perfect union" between professional learning communities and Teacher Reflection Meetings. The coexistence of the Learning-Focused Strategies Model and PLCs allows collaborative time for administrators and teachers to work together to focus on and improve student learning outcomes. Through the collaborative efforts in PLCs, administrators and teachers work together to discuss and improve classroom instructional practices; to schedule and confer about areas of need (subgroups, test item analysis, etc) within a school or across a grade level; to analyze, interpret, and use relevant data to determine "next steps;” to utilize and monitor student growth and progress through assessments - formative and summative; and to provide professional development opportunities that are purposeful and meaningful. The effective, successful implementation of Teacher Reflection Meetings as professional learning communities will result in enhanced, sustained growth and enriched learning outcomes for ALL - administrators, teachers, and students.

References:
"Clarity Precedes Competence" by Richard DuFour and Rebecca DuFour in Education Week, Oct. 13, 2010 (Vol. 30, #7, p. 18)

Professional Learning Communities: What Are They And Why Are They Important?
Issues... about Change, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1997)

http://www.sedl.org/change/issues/issues61.html