AllThingsPLC Magazine

Fall 2018

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Features Growing a PLC from Rural Roots Breez Longwell Daniels

Adressing the challenges of rural schools.

Play Matters Jenny Smith

Integrating play within a PLC.

Remembering Rebecca DuFour Educator. Leader. Friend.

A look back.

When You Say Everyone, Do You Mean Everyone?

Casey Reason How a culture of “every” makes every bit of difference.

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To o l s & R e s o u rc e s fo r I n s p i ra t i o n a n d E xce l l e n ce

First thing

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The divine right to muddle through.

ICYMI

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Short bits you might have missed.

FAQs about PLCs

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A learning-focused mission and culture.

PLC clinic

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Beginning a PLC.

The recommender

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How do we get teachers to lead?

Learning champion

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Jon Yost empowers, guides, and inspires.

Data quest

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Data protocol.

Skill shop

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Setting SMART goals as a team.

Classic R&D

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The Hawthorne effect.

Contemporary R&D

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Principals, collaborative teams, and data use.

Why I love PLCs

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From unacceptable to recognized.

Discussion questions and refresher course tear-out To-go resources for your PLC PD.

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SOLUTION TREE: CEO Jeffrey C. Jones

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PRESIDENT Edmund M. Ackerman SOLUTION TREE PRESS:

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PRESIDENT & PUBLISHER Douglas M. Rife ART DIRECTOR Rian Anderson PAGE DESIGNERS Abigail Bowen, Laura Cox, Rian Anderson

AllThingsPLC (ISSN 2476-2571 [print], 2476-258X [Online]) is published four times a year by Solution Tree Press.

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AllThingsPLC Magazine/Fall 2018

First Thing The Divine Right to Muddle Through

By Robert Eaker

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few years ago, my friend and colleague Rick DuFour presented to a group of teachers and administrators on the merits of teacher teams developing and using common formative assessments. Rick outlined several arguments, including research findings that support the use of common assessments as a powerful tool for monitoring the learning of each student on a frequent and timely basis. Rick then asked members of the audience to turn to those around them and discuss why, despite the obvious advantages, teachers might still decide not to engage with their colleagues to collaboratively develop and use formative assessments. After a few minutes of discussion, Rick asked the crowd to share some possible reasons for not using common formative assessments. One person stood up, crossed his arms, and declared, “Because I don’t want to!”

After Rick told me this story, we reflected that teachers may have legitimate reasons for not wanting to engage in a new approach. Perhaps they’re worried that the results of the formative assessments will be misused; lack of trust in leadership undermines the success of many initiatives. Or perhaps they feel they lack knowledge or training and simply don’t know where to start.

However, we felt this teacher’s response reflected a different, larger phenomenon: the philosophy that the teacher is the absolute ruler, the king or queen, of the classroom. According to this thinking, the teacher can declare, “I don’t have to engage in any particular strategy if I don’t want to, simply because I am The Teacher.” Granted, only a few teachers hold this view. But let’s be clear: in some schools, this attitude may be more prevalent than we might like to admit.

The Nature of Professional Practice Imagine surgery without the physicians thoroughly washing and sterilizing their hands. Surprisingly, such behavior was common practice until relatively recently. The idea of surgeons washing their hands is only about 150 years old.

The world of medicine was changed in 1867 when Scottish surgeon Joseph Lister published An Address on the Antiseptic System of Treatment in Surgery (Eschner, 2017). Lister’s research and the subsequent study of germ theory quickly changed medical practice.

Today, health organizations throughout the world have established specific protocols for handwashing. These protocols are not optional; in fact, ignoring them is a basis for both legal action to sue for malpractice and disciplinary action to revoke one’s license.

One of the underlying principles of most professions is the expectation that those who are licensed exhibit the widely accepted, proven best practices of the time. This view of what it means to be a professional raises a fundamental question for educators. Does a licensed professional educator have an inherent right to simply ignore our profession’s accepted best practices and continue to simply muddle through following personal preferences?

As Rick DuFour (2007) observed, Educators have danced around this question rather than addressing it, and their inattention to the issue has fostered an unhealthy and unrealistic sense of what constitutes professional autonomy. District leaders have contributed to this peculiar view of professionalism because they allowed teachers and professionals the discretion to ignore even the most widely recognized best practices of the profession. (p. 39)

Avoiding the Tyranny of I If we believe in using the best professional practices in our professional community, who decides which are those best practices?

A professional learning community emphasizes learning together.

Implementing best practices does not empower a few administrators to simply decide how people should behave and then require specific behaviors from everyone, nor does it empower every teacher to implement only his or her personal favorites. The first step in schools and school districts that function as professional learning communities is to gain shared knowledge—collaboratively becoming students of best practice.

Importantly, one of the most fundamental ways members of a professional learning community learn together is through action research—learning by doing. Simply put, leaders of PLCs embrace the power of we when seeking best practices rather than the limitations of I. Some worry that insisting on collaboratively learning about and ultimately using best practices flies in the face of research findings regarding the power of teacher ownership, buy-in, and empowerment. The best teachers, after all, aren’t automatons but critical thinkers who adjust and adapt to the needs of their students.

Members of PLCs realize the fallacy of the top-down/bottom-up dichotomy. They fully recognize the limitations of an oppressive

wholly top-down culture, as well as the past failures of initiatives that were almost exclusively bottom-up and implemented sporadically with spotty results. The Professional Learning Communities at Work framework suggests that effective organizations develop a culture that is both tight and loose. Unfortunately, many leaders are prone to readily embrace the loose and reluctant to ensure the tight. Ironically, it turns out that effective bottom-up ownership and empowerment are dependent on effective top-down leadership and support. As Robert Evans (1996) reminds us, “Bottom-up is possible, top-down is necessary” (p. 245).

Committing to a Standard of Care When Janel Keating, the superintendent of schools in the White River School District in Washington, was asked how she successfully led the efforts to transform the culture of Mountain Meadow Elementary School, she replied, “I just wanted to create a school that was good enough for my own daughter, Taylor, who was two years old at the time.” As a profession, shouldn’t we expect the same standard of care for all kids that we expect for our own kids?

Shouldn’t this be the standard of care we promise our students, our parents, each other, and the larger community? Simply put, leaders of PLCs must create a culture in which the commitment to seeking and implementing best practices for all children takes precedence over ensuring the absolute autonomy of a minority of adults.

Failure to create such schools is not due to a lack of knowledge but rather to a lack of will. Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton (2000) contend that most organizations already have all the knowledge they need to improve—they just don’t implement what they already know. To paraphrase Ron Edmonds (1979), we know more than we need to know in order to create highly effective schools for all students. After years of studying highly effective schools, he concluded, “(a) We can, whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all children whose schooling is of interest to us; (b) We already know more than we need to do that; and (c) Whether or not we do it must finally depend on how we feel about the fact that we haven’t so far" (p. 23).

The bottom line is this: creating a learning culture for all kids requires the full participation of all adults!

References DuFour, R. (2007). In praise of top-down leadership. School Administrator, 64(10), 38–42.

Edmonds, R. (1979). Effective schools for the urban poor.

Educational Leadership, 37(1), 15–18, 20–24.

Eschner, K. (2017). The idea of surgeons washing their hands is only 150 years old. Retrieved from www.smithsonianmag .com/smart-news/idea-sterilizing-surgical-instruments-only -150-years-old-180962498/ Evans, R. (1996). The human side of school change: Reform, resistance, and the real-life problems of innovation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Pfeffer, J., & Sutton, R. (2000). The knowing-doing gap: How smart companies turn knowledge into action. Boston: Harvard Business School.

Fall 2018/AllThingsPLC Magazine

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Play

Matters Jenny Smith

Integrating Play Within a PLC

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“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning.”

—Fred Rogers

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ur PLC journey began well over a decade ago, in 2002, within all District 96 schools. I was lucky enough to begin my career in our district as a teacher the same year this work started. Since then, I’ve been a special education teacher, a district special education coordinator, and a principal.

Being a part of this transformation in practices throughout my entire career and from multiple perspectives has made me a PLC believer! I not only appreciate these practices, I am deeply devoted to them. We structure our being around the three key concepts of PLCs and walk through all of our work with the four critical questions guiding us.

For the last seven years, I’ve been an elementary principal, and for the last two school years, I’ve been the proud principal of Willow Grove Early Learning Center, located in Buffalo Grove, Illinois. Our building serves our youngest District 96 learners, ranging from age three in our early childhood program through kindergarten. We just completed our second year of implementing full-day kindergarten. It has been an exciting journey and one that I couldn’t be more grateful to be a part of. The additional school hours have afforded us the opportunity to thoughtfully integrate play into our school day, and our board has adopted district goals to include Fall 2018/AllThingsPLC Magazine

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this as an area of focus for Willow Grove.

Willow Grove has collaborative teams at both the kindergarten and early childhood levels. We’ve developed a master schedule that provides common planning time for our teams to meet. These teams have team-created norms for working together productively. An agenda is developed for each team meeting and is shared with all team members. I regularly attend the team meetings to provide support and encouragement, as do instructional coaches in the areas of math, literacy, and technology. During the collaborative meetings, teams review the upcoming targets, pacing guides, and criteria for which they determine student success on a given target. They review student data and determine instruction as it relates to the unique needs of their students.

Grounded in the practices of a PLC, we’ve been learning about developmentally appropriate play practices and shaping our environments and practices accordingly. We call our time spent playing “playful learning.” Our early childhood programs aim to have a play-based approach, and we are looking deeply at our learning targets and aligned practices to continually improve. In kindergarten, our first two years of this work has focused on dedicated playful learning time

play in educational contexts, which arises from two sources: the lack of a precise operational definition of play and the persistent view that play is the opposite of work” (p. 42). This just hits the nail right on the head, doesn’t it? How can play lead to high levels of learning, when it’s just, well, play? It makes a lot of sense that those who aren’t engaged in dayto-day learning about this topic would think that.

It’s critical that we educate all stakeholders on the importance of integrating play into our classrooms for young children. Edward Miller and Joan Almon (2009), authors of Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School, explain, “Play builds competence in many domains. Young children work hard at play. They invent scenes and stories, solve problems, and negotiate their way through social roadblocks. They know what they want to do and work diligently to do it. Because their motivation comes from within, they learn the powerful lesson of pursuing their own ideas to a successful conclusion. Research shows that children who engage in complex forms of socio-dramatic play have greater language skills than non-players, better social skills, more empathy, more imagination, and more of the subtle capacity to know what others mean. They are less

ence a greater comfort level than found in academic discourse and, in turn, engage with peers and adults more freely, increasing their oral language use and proficiency.

As explained by Alison Porcelli and Cheryl Tyler (2008) in A Quick Guide to Boosting English Acquisition in Choice Time, while English learners (ELs) “use blocks, construction paper, and improvisational drama to create alternate worlds and to inhabit those worlds, they’re meanwhile drawn into a rich language curriculum. They use language to imagine and assess possibilities, to negotiate roles, to critique and revise work, and to assume roles. This language work is important for all youngsters and it is especially important for [ELs]” (p. xi). And, may I add, we’re in preK and kindergarten, folks! Whether we are single- or dual-language learners, the opportunity to build vocabulary and enrich the language of students is essential and rich within play.

We have done a lot of learning and problem solving to design a schedule and allocate our time to designate what we consider an appropriate amount of playful learning time. Integrating play into our intervention block means that while many kids are playing, there are

PLAY is not the opposite of wo during our daily 40-minute intervention block, as well as an additional 30 minutes each week.

When individuals hear about integrating play in the classroom, they naturally have some questions about the benefits.

I so appreciate the point Elizabeth Wood (2013) makes in her book Play, Learning and the Early Childhood Curriculum that “there remains a general mistrust of 20

AllThingsPLC Magazine/Fall 2018

aggressive and show more self-control and higher levels of thinking.”

In addition to play benefiting all learners—and here’s where I really get excited—play creates an especially optimal learning environment for our students learning English. With over 50 percent of our Willow Grove students being dual-language speakers, this is critical for us. Through play, students experi-

several also receiving interventions, being pulled away from this opportunity.

This is why we added an extra 30 minutes per week of playful learning, during which we guarantee the participation of all children. In addition, for play to be its most meaningful, teachers need to be involved.

Adults facilitating play help students make connections to targets, facilitate

ork

higher language use, recognize and support social-emotional learning connections, and so much more.

Because teachers also need to give interventions simultaneously, taking them out of the play facilitator role, we designated one day per week during which teachers are dedicated to facilitating play during the intervention block time. Teachers are also required to facilitate play during the additional weekly 30 minutes.

Recognizing the importance of playful learning facilitation, our EL teachers and support staff are critical contributors to this process. Our EL teachers push into classrooms through a co-teaching model, as opposed to a pull-out model, and thus

are able to be an additional adult to support playful learning practices. As I mentioned earlier, playful learning time is an optimal time for ELs to build language, so pushing our EL specialists into this time is a perfect fit. We also train all of our support staff to facilitate learning through play. Every adult we have is an integral part of making this time successful. Playful learning is an all-hands-on-deck model to ensure the highest levels of learning are reached.

Although we have designated playful learning time, play does not need to be in isolation as an activity apart from core curriculum learning, and in fact, play practice has been an important part of our learn-

ing. Play is a vehicle for students’ best learning. As Chip Wood (2015) highlights in his book Yardsticks, young children “learn best through active play and hands-on activities” (p. 63). Wood also asserts that our young learners “need many avenues . . . to express what they know” (p.

68). Play is essential for our students to reach their highest levels of engagement and openness in learning.

Kids are in their zone during play.

They are moldable, open, and relaxed, and they pick up every ounce of learning we lay down. They also are better able to show us what they know when engaged in play and provided with many optional paths to relay their learning.

As we continue to move forward Fall 2018/AllThingsPLC Magazine

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Because their motivation comes

from within, they learn the powerful lesson of pursuing their own ideas to a successful conclusion

in our work, we are finding more and more ways to integrate play into our curriculum so it isn’t only during the times we designate for playful learning. For example, we find our math curriculum is rich with playful learning opportunities. In math, it is a little easier to see the connections to play, especially in the younger years, with high use of manipulatives and hands-on exploratory models. Through our PLC practices, we’ve been identifying opportunities for play within literacy that have direct learning standard connections. Some of our work this coming year will focus on designing hands-on, playful options 22

AllThingsPLC Magazine/Fall 2018

for foundational skills practice in literacy.

I hear so much conversation around having high levels of rigor within kindergarten curriculum versus having time for play, and I would contest it does not need to be, nor should it be, one or the other.

So, let’s be honest. Integrating play into our school day must be a pretty easy goal, right? Throw some toys out and let kids do their thing. What else is there? This is a huge misperception. If teachers take a free-play approach, the benefits of play can quickly go out the window, while 15 spirited early childhood students or 23 bounding kindergartners whip themselves into a

frenzy of crying, grabbing, screaming, and (oh, please no) biting and hitting.

Other behaviors a free-play structure invite are parallel play and rapidly moving from one play center to the next, never fully engaging to extend to deeper levels of learning. Free play, most critically, also lacks a thoughtful connection to our

Allowing

choice naturally heightens engagement

learning targets. Moving from free play to playful learning—which has a connection to curricular targets, is rich with social learning opportunities, and uses high levels of oral language—is our goal.

Ongoing professional learning is required to create environments that support high levels of play, careful collaborative plan-

ning to make curricular connections, and skill building around facilitation techniques to extend and deepen thinking during play. Author and early childhood consultant Gaye Gronlund (2010) shares in her book Developmentally Appropriate Play that play “takes thoughtful planning, attention to the environment and materials, and coaching on the part of the teacher to make it happen and to sustain it. Good teachers work hard to do so” (p. 1).

In the true spirit of our professional learning community, part of our data discussions includes reflecting on play practices that support the learning targets of

focus. Within these regular discussions, teachers continually learn and grow from one another, identifying curricular connections to embed within play, and maximizing the benefits.

Our learning has helped us understand that to have the optimal playful learning environment, children should have choice and activities should be openended. Allowing choice naturally heightens engagement for students. We follow their lead and flexibly adapt our approaches toward learning goals to meet their interests. Open-ended play activities promote creativity and problem Fall 2018/AllThingsPLC Magazine

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Why I Love PLCs From Unacceptable to Recognized

BY BRANDON JONES It was the end of August in Texas, and the summer heat was so stifling it was hard to breath as I entered the building to begin my career as an educator. Or maybe the issue was that I was nervous about my impending first day in the classroom. Parents, administrators, other teachers, the community, and, especially, the kids were expecting something special from me. I was determined to be the best chemistry teacher that had ever darkened the doors of this high school. Just five years before, I had walked the halls of this campus as a student, not knowing then that I would return to give back to place I cherished.

As I entered our first staff meeting, a man stood at the front of the auditorium with a microphone in hand. He was our new principal, and the word was out that he was here to clean house. I made my way to a seat in the center of the room. Don’t sit in the front and seem too eager. Don’t sit in the back and seem disinterested. My plan was to give cordial engagement but continue to organize my thoughts and plans for the first couple of weeks of school.

What actually happened in the next few minutes changed the course of my calling.

He began by telling us inspiring stories about his difficulty in school and his time in the military. He was a special ops Vietnam veteran with a track record of success. Our school, however, had a long history of underachieving. In fact, the most recent rating from the state deemed us an “Unacceptable” campus, the lowest possible ranking. Collectively, we were failing scores of students.

During that morning session, he explained how we would begin turning our ship around. We would begin the journey to become a professional learning community. With the help of our academic dean, 48

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we learned how to operate collaboratively around the right work of teams as defined

by Rick DuFour. Throughout the first year, we distributed leadership and collectively committed to the learning of all students. Without knowing if we were doing it right, we began giving common formative assessments and analyzing the student data from those assessments. We used that information to improve our practice and target students for specific help.

Our journey was filled with obstacles and those who doubted it could be done.

I mean, we had every excuse in the book to not be successful! We were a majority minority campus with a high incidence of poverty and students with special needs.

Many of our students didn’t speak English as their first language, and the behavior of many students detracted from their learning. But, as a campus, we refused to give in to the temptation to return to an average school. It was over for us; we no longer wanted to be just another statistic.

After just three short years, the achievement of our students had improved so much that the state deemed us a “Recognized” campus, which was the secondhighest rating a school could receive. The results were so impressive that we became one of the first high schools in Texas to be named a National Model Professional Learning Community. The truth is, we didn’t all of a sudden get better students.

We didn’t hire better teachers. Our kids were always capable of such success, and the teaching staff was always capable of getting them there! We just had to change our inherent beliefs, expectations, and actions as educators. Our culture changed from one that valued isolation and independence to one that valued teamwork and interdependence.

Since that first year in education, I have been blessed to be a part of four model PLC schools. While the path each one took to become a professional learning community was different, the outcome was always the same. The students at each of those schools received a better education and learned at exceedingly high levels. The faculty and staff became a tightknit team of relentless educators focused on the success of each student. And most of all, the restoration of pride in the local public schools was immeasurable!

Since then, I have also been fortunate enough to share my story with schools across the nation. As a current high school principal, I have dedicated my calling to this life-changing work of PLCs. For me, there is no better way to mitigate and overcome the traditional challenges we face in public education. This is why I love PLCs.

BRANDON JONES, a high school principal and consultant, works with educators of all grade levels to implement the PLC at Work and RTI at Work processes.

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Discussion Questions 18 Fall 20

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Use this convenient tear-out card to go over and reinforce the topics discussed in this issue with the members of your team.

Growing a PLC from Rural Roots (p. 10) 1. What obstacles does your school share with Thermopolis Middle School? Discuss the differences and similarities between the schools in how these obstacles are approached and handled.

2. With your team, review the “do say” list on page 13 and discuss ways you can put each idea into practice.

3. What is one significant thing you learned from this school, and what can you do with that knowledge?

Play Matters (p. 18) 1. Playful learning can be incorporated in any grade level. In what ways could you and your team connect playful learning to your curriculum?

2. What is the difference between free play and playful learning?

3. How can playful learning be used in conjunction with the PLC process?

When You Say Everyone, Do You Mean Everyone? (p. 37) 1. With your team, unpack the definition of a PLC. Discuss how this is similar to or different from how your school defines a PLC.

2. What does the culture of “every” look like in your school?

3. In what ways can your school or team improve on your commitment to every student?

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AllThingsPLC Magazine | Fall 2018

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Refresher Course Because everyone needs a reminder now and again.

The 3 Big Ideas of a PLC 1. FOCUS ON LEARNING 2. BUILD A COLLABORATIVE CULTURE 3. FOCUS ON RESULTS

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The fundamental purpose of the school is to ensure high levels of learning for all students. This focus on learning translates into four critical questions that drive the daily work of the school. In PLCs, educators demonstrate their commitment to helping all students learn by working collaboratively to address the following critical questions: 1. What do we want students to learn? What should each student know and be able to do as a result of each unit, grade level, and/or course?

2. How will we know if they have learned? Are we monitoring each student’s learning on a timely basis?

3. What will we do if they don’t learn? What systematic process is in place to provide additional time and support for students who are experiencing difficulty?

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4. What will we do if they already know it?

• No school can help all students achieve at high levels if teachers work in isolation.

• Schools improve when teachers are given the time and support to work together to clarify essential student learning, develop common assessments for learning, analyze evidence of student learning, and use that evidence to learn from one another.

• PLCs measure their effectiveness on the basis of results rather than intentions.

• All programs, policies, and practices are continually assessed on the basis of their impact on student learning.

• All staff members receive relevant and timely information on their effectiveness in achieving intended results.

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