Expressing a Shared Identity

learning, and capacity building) to develop a better response that will meet the needs of every child? As Sanger’s self-assessment progressed, it became obvious that the district as a whole lacked a sense of common intent. It could best be described as a system driven by a series of random acts of self-improvement at the school level with no unifying vision or mission districtwide. That realization was in great part why Rich, two principals, and I had driven to Riverside County that day to hear the DuFours discuss the PLC learning by doing journey. This journey begins with the three big ideas and four key questions that guide the work of a PLC (DuFour et al., 2010):

1. A relentless focus on student learning and a commitment to ongoing job-embedded learning by the adults in the organization 2. The development of a collaborative culture where everyone is part of a high-functioning team that works together interdependently to achieve a common goal while holding one another mutually accountable to commitments and outcomes

3. A results orientation that seeks constant evidence of student learning (data) and then converts these data to information to support the learning of all students and focus the adults’ job-embedded learning

The four key questions a PLC uses to focus and guide its work are the simple framework that caught our attention:

1. What do we want our students to learn? What are the essential standards that define the guaranteed, viable curriculum that we must provide every student? 2. How do we know that learning has occurred?

What are the common formative assessment tools and strategies we will use, and what will a successful

student look like when we are done teaching the material?

3. How will we respond when learning has not occurred? What are the levels of support we must build to make it harder for a student to fail than to be successful?

4. How will we respond when learning has occurred?

For those students who already demonstrate mastery, how do we take them deeper and further challenge them?

After delving into these three concepts and four questions to guide our district’s improvement, Sanger Unified committed to become a professional learning community. As the sessions continued, it became clear to the team that not only was this the journey we needed to follow, it was a journey that needed to begin as soon as possible.

At the end of the second day’s session, Rich and I began the fivehour drive back home to Sanger from Riverside County and talked about the power of what we heard and why PLCs were where the district needed to go. The DuFours had laid out a series of shifts in thinking and actions the district needed to make (adapted from DuFour et al., 2010, pp. 249–251):

• A shift in fundamental purpose

• From a focus on teaching to a focus on learning • From emphasis on what was taught to a fixation on what students learned

• From coverage of content to demonstration of proficiency

• A shift in use of assessments

• From infrequent summative assessments to frequent common formative assessments