Professional Learning Communities That Work

Our school system is often asked to present on how we implemented professional learning communities. Recently, we have had a number of visitors come to look at our work with PLCs and we are engaged with the American Productivity Quality Council in a benchmark study of PLCs. This blog may help those of you who are starting on this journey. Our key finding is that you have to change behaviors before you will change beliefs. So.. if you have the authority to implement a high impact strategy, then my advice is to get about the job of doing it and requiring products.

 

In ISS, our work in professional learning communities has been founded on the work of Rick and Rebecca DuFour. One of the key components of their work is the use of common formative assessments. In ISS, our teamwork matrix requires teachers to serve on one professional learning community that has the same curriculum and the teachers are required to develop common formative assessments every four weeks. The research  base supporting common formative assessments is immense and very convincing. The DuFour’s offer a number of reasons why teachers should utilize common formative assessments.

• Common formative assessments are more efficient in that teachers can share the work load and teachers who have more content knowledge on particular objectives can help other teachers develop good assessment items.
• Common formative assessments help to bridge the inequity among classrooms taught by teachers of differing abilities. Teachers agree on essential learning objectives, analyze best instructional strategies and then analyze the results of the assessments to determine if the strategies are working.
• Common formative assessments allow teachers to identify which students are mastering the learning objectives and which students are not mastering the objectives. Teachers can then provide interventions and enrichment for all students.
• Through the common formative assessments, teachers and students are monitoring learning on a frequent basis rather than waiting until the end of the year (summative) assessments when interventions would be too late.
• The assessments help teachers improve their instructional strategies. In combination with classroom PDSA cycles, teachers can engage students in action research to determine if certain instructional strategies work better than others.
• Finally, common formative assessments help teacher teams achieve at higher levels than teachers could achieve if working in isolation. Business has long known that teams can provide the synergy for higher levels of performance than individual workers working in isolation.

 

One issue that has arisen with regard to common formative assessments relates to grading practices. Some argue that CFA’s should not be part of grading if they are truly formative and others argue that in order to make certain students provide their best efforts the CFA’s need to have some connection to grading. The following are identified as best practice for use of CFA’s;

• CFA’s should be used to identify students who are experiencing difficulty with learning and identify those students who have already mastered the material
• A system of intervention and enrichment must be in place to provide additional time and enrichment for the full continuum of student achievement – only through teams can the resources be utilized to meet the needs of such a continuum
• Students must be provided with additional opportunities to demonstrate mastery and not be penalized for needing more time and support to master the learning objective

 

As a superintendent, I realize that grading practices are the ultimate domain of teachers and principals; however, I encourage all of our professional learning communities to review the research on common formative assessment, grading practices, and professional learning communities. The research is strong and professional organizations unanimously support these ideas and practices. Bottom line – implementing these practices with fidelity will improve student learning.

Comments

[tft]

Can you provide some links that would substantiate your claims please; links to the research, at least?

[Dave Sherman]

Our K-8 district started using the Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Reading Assessment system last year. We use this CFA in grades 1-8 three times per year, and we have found it to be a powerful tool to assess reading fluency and comprehension. This system provides the teachers with powerful data to support their guided reading program and to share with parents.

The data we receive from this assessment is not used for grading. It is used for differentiating reading instruction for all students.

http://www.fountasandpinnellbenchmarkassessment.com/

[tft]

Thanks! Happy Turkey!