PLC Archives

5 ways to improve instructional coaching today

Instructional coaching can be a powerful framework for teacher professional development, but not all coaching is created equally. As a beneficiary of a Teacher and School Leader Incentive Program (TSL) Grant, the Marion County School District has been working to improve instructional coaching practices, with great success. Here are the changes we’ve made that have had the most impact.

1) Focus your PLC meetings.

In the past, our professional learning community (PLC) meetings were fairly unstructured. Teachers would show up, and the meeting would sometimes turn into a staff meeting, or a department meeting, or a grade-level team meeting.

This year, we’ve implemented the Supporting Teacher Effectiveness Project (STEP) model, which is highly teacher-driven, but provides more focus and structure. It’s important to involve teachers in their own PD, to make them active decision-makers in the process, because they know what the bright spots and challenges are in their own classrooms.…Read More

Using technology to embrace the “un-faculty” meeting

I’m not sure if teachers dreaded faculty meetings more than I did, but while standing in an auditorium filled with tired-looking faculty after a long day of teaching, I sometimes had this thought: If I did a dance or paused unsuspectingly, would that gain their attention, even if only for a moment?

We ask teachers to sit and focus at their lowest energy cycle of the day. It’s no wonder—as with kids—we see distractibility, disinterest, and frustration. Absenteeism rose by 10 percent on faculty meeting Mondays. That’s 12 faculty members absent, more than double the average absentee rate.

Something had to be done to change faculty meetings. Otherwise, students lose: Absent teachers make learning harder and kids are in greater need of a positive and present adult influence in school more than ever.…Read More

How to deliver PL that really works

I recently chatted with Kathy Dyer, NWEA’s manager of innovation and learning, professional learning design, about how to connect professional learning (PL) to student outcomes and how to best support teachers.

According to Dyer, quality PL that sticks with learners is when people learn with, from, and for each other. “The good teaching strategies we use with kids are good strategies for teachers to use to learn as well,” she says.

Dyer encourages administrators to give teachers the opportunity to learn something new or expand and deepen something they already know. “When you give learners the chance to practice or apply what they’ve learned right away, there’s an expectation that they will continue to apply it,” she says. Be sure to include time for reflection in any PL session. By figuring out why something works, what can be adjusted, or what they can quit to put this new practice in place, teachers are able to make those adjustments.…Read More

4 ways to make high-impact teaching a reality

I’ve been very fortunate to travel the world and work in classrooms in the United States, Australia, Asia, and the U.K., and have seen phenomenal teaching everywhere I go. However, administrators tell me the challenge is how to effectively take that practice and scale it for every teacher in the district. How do we apply that brilliance across year levels, subject areas, and student demographics? And how do we measure the impact of different teaching methods in terms of how they’re improving student outcomes? Put simply, to shift the quality of learning in schools, we need to better support teachers with evidence of learning so they can focus their effort on doing the things that work really well for every learner in the room.

Teachers report that when they look at professional learning, they ask three questions:

What am I learning?
How will I apply it in class?
What impact will it have on every student in the room?

If we can give teachers visibility on those three things, they’ll start to own their professional learning activities and how they practice their craft. Here are four ways that districts can replace traditional sit-and-get professional development (PD) with on-demand and personalized delivery of high-impact teaching strategies (HITS).…Read More

3 tips for maximizing your PLC participation during the new school year

For educators across the country, it’s time to get back at it. Summer is over, and if we are not yet back in school teaching, we are sorting through class rosters, getting our first week planned, and tying up the hundreds of loose ends that need to be addressed before we welcome our students back to school.

However, for many of educators, the end of summer signals not a return to work, but rather a continuation of our efforts to support the success of all students. While school was out over the summer, we attended workshops, participated in conferences, and stayed connected to our fellow educators through our involvement in various professional learning communities (PLCs).

While educators seem predisposed to worrying about the needs of others before they address their own needs, now is the time to be selfish about personal growth. As a new school year begins and your responsibilities again increase, I encourage you to continue learning, sharing and connecting with your PLC, or if you are not yet participating in a PLC, I urge you to join a learning community that will enrich not only your professional practice, but all facets of your life.…Read More

Are you using your school’s PLC to its fullest?

When professional learning communities (PLCs) meet frequently to examine and analyze student work and data, higher levels of teacher morale emerge, according to a new report from the Learning Sciences International (LSI) research team.

The report, Did You Know? Your School’s PLCs Have a Major Impact, expands on existing research about the role that human and social capital, collaboration, and knowledge sharing all play in education. Researchers looked at teacher morale and student achievement as they relate to PLCs.

Looking specifically at the impact of PLCs on teacher morale, the research team, led by LSI senior research analyst Lindsey Devers Basileo, Ph.D., asked educators about the amount of time their PLCs spent discussing various practices, as well as their feelings about how PLC meetings impacted their own morale.…Read More

Most Popular of 2015, No. eight: 7 steps to creating PLCs teachers want to use

Practical tips for building PLCs that serve every educator

Ed. note: We’re counting down the top stories of 2015 based on popularity (i.e. website traffic) to No. 1 on Dec. 31. Today we revisit our in-depth look at how to set up your own professional learning communities, which truly serve educators’ needs. It was published as part of Innovation In Action, a column from the International Society of Technology in Education focused on exemplary practices in education that runs the third Monday of each month.

At my district, the MSD of Wayne Township in Indianapolis, we have found that changing the way we think about teacher training not only benefits staff developers and administrators, but schools, the district as a whole, teachers, and ultimately students. A critical part of our revitalized PD plan has been the use of professional learning communities (PLCs), which are essentially groups of educators that work collaboratively and share ideas, often in an online format.

Benefits of PLCs
One of the first reasons many schools and districts begin thinking about online professional development is to save time and money. As we increase the number of digital opportunities for students, unfortunately the number of professional development staff does not always increase at the same rate. The reality is that we must offer more (and better) professional development with fewer resources.…Read More

7 steps to creating PLCs teachers want to use

Practical tips for building PLCs that serve every educator

Ed. note: Innovation In Action is a new monthly column from the International Society of Technology in Education focused on exemplary practices in education.