Virtual PLCs at Work®

Virtual PLCs AT WORK

“The shift to a virtual world was accelerated—not created—by the COVID19 pandemic. While some educators might hope for things to get back to ‘business as usual,’ working virtually has become the usual way we do business. This means if our students are going to learn the skills and behaviors needed to succeed in a virtual world, then educators must continue to develop the skills needed to teach, collaborate, and excel in this space. That is the purpose of this outstanding book!”

—From the foreword by MIKE MATTOS

“This accessible and adaptable book is both timely and timeless; it addresses what educational leaders need to know for the difficult pivots during the

• Understand the PLC process and how to implement it in virtual and hybrid environments

COVID-19 pandemic and provides a

• Discover how to develop and maintain an ideal school culture virtually

engine of improvement regardless of

• Implement and enhance virtual teacher collaboration and student learning

— ANTHONY GRAZZINI, Director of Grants and Accountability, Cicero School District 99, Illinois

laborative teams can continue to be the

DENNIS KING

• Lead a virtual PLC to greatness

foundation that demonstrates how col-

setting—in person, hybrid, or virtual.”

• Find many reproducible virtual action-planning documents to support their work ISBN 978-1-952812-65-1 90000

SolutionTree.com

Visit go.SolutionTree.com/PLCbooks to download the free reproducibles in this book.

PA U L C . FA R M E R

K–12 school leaders and teacher leaders will:

®

W

ith education evolving beyond the four walls of a classroom, authors Paul C. Farmer and Dennis King want to ensure the Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) at Work® process will evolve right along with it.

PLCs provide the best possible environment for student learning and growth, but the need for virtual and hybrid classrooms has made it challenging for some PLCs to thrive. In Virtual PLCs at Work: A Guide to Effectively Implementing Online and Hybrid Teaching and Learning, Farmer and King have created a thorough guide for implementing the PLC process in virtual and hybrid classrooms.

They steer readers through creation and maintenance of school culture; teacher collaboration; instruction; assessment, intervention, and extension; and leadership in a virtual environment.

9 781952 812651

Copyright © 2022 by Solution Tree Press Materials appearing here are copyrighted. With one exception, all rights are reserved. Readers may reproduce only those pages marked “Reproducible.” Otherwise, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission of the publisher.

555 North Morton Street Bloomington, IN 47404 800.733.6786 (toll free) / 812.336.7700 FAX: 812.336.7790 email: info@SolutionTree.com SolutionTree.com Visit go.SolutionTree.com/PLCbooks to download the free reproducibles in this book.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Farmer, Paul C., 1958- author. | King, Dennis, 1959- author.

Title: Virtual PLCs at work : a guide to effectively implementing online and hybrid teaching and learning / Paul C. Farmer, Dennis King.

Description: Bloomington, IN : Solution Tree Press, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021031589 (print) | LCCN 2021031590 (ebook) | ISBN 9781952812651 (paperback) | ISBN 9781952812668 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Professional learning communities. | Teaching teams. | Web-based instruction. | Internet in education. | Blended learning.

Classification: LCC LB1731 .F29 2021 (print) | LCC LB1731 (ebook) | DDC 371.33/44678--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021031589 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021031590

Solution Tree Jeffrey C. Jones, CEO Edmund M. Ackerman, President Solution Tree Press President and Publisher: Douglas M. Rife Associate Publisher: Sarah Payne-Mills Art Director: Rian Anderson Managing Production Editor: Kendra Slayton Copy Chief: Jessi Finn Senior Production Editor: Suzanne Kraszewski Content Development Specialist: Amy Rubenstein Copy Editor: Jessi Finn Proofreader: Kate St. Ives Cover Designer: Rian Anderson Editorial Assistants: Sarah Ludwig and Elijah Oates

Table of Contents Reproducibles are in italics.

About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Foreword by Mike Mattos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Introduction

An Unprecedented Shift in Teaching and Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 District A: The PLC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 District B: The Traditional School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 The PLC Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The Need for Cultural Change to Support Structural Change. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Negative Versus Positive Variables and Behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Social-Emotional Effects of Educators’ Actions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 A Road Map of the PLC Process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 How This Book Is Structured. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 From Paralysis to Action. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Chapter 1

The Three Big Ideas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 The Three Big Ideas and Your Virtual PLC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Coaching Tips for Virtual Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Chapter 2

The Foundational Elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Understanding the Four Pillars of a PLC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Focusing on the Four Critical Questions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

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Establishing a Loose and Tight Culture in a Virtual Community. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Coaching Tips for Virtual Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Chapter 3

Creation and Maintenance of a PLC Culture in a Virtual Environment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Indicators of a Healthy School Culture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Embracers and Resisters of Cultural Change. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Assessment of a Virtual School’s Culture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Coaching Tips for Virtual Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Chapter 4

Teacher Collaboration in a Virtual PLC . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Collaboration and Emotional Support of Faculty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 The Importance of Collective Efficacy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 The Three Cs: Cooperation, Coordination, and Collaboration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Structures for Virtual Collaboration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Types of Teams. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Virtual Team Goals and Districtwide and Schoolwide Goals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 A Cycle for Virtual Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Coaching Tips for Virtual Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Chapter 5

Assessment, Intervention, and Enrichment in a Virtual PLC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Engaging in Collective Inquiry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Engaging in the Collaborative Assessment Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Determining Virtual Learning Interventions and Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Coaching Tips for Virtual Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Chapter 6

Leadership in a Virtual Environment. . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Virtual Support for Principals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Support and Clarity for Virtual Guiding Coalitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Frequency of Virtual Guiding Coalition Meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Work of Administrators and Teacher Leaders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Clear Purposes for All Teams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Monitoring of the Work of Teams. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

100 101 106 107 112 114

Table of Contents

Commitment Versus Compliance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 Coaching Tips for Virtual Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Epilogue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

119

Appendix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Quick Tips to Consider in a Virtual PLC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Virtual Action Planner for Supporting a Focus on Learning Virtually. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Virtual Action Planner for Supporting a Virtual Collaborative Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Virtual Team SMART Goal Worksheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Virtual Action Planner for Supporting a Virtual Results Orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Virtual Action Planner for Creating a Shared Mission Virtually. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Example Virtual Action Planner for Creating a Shared Mission Virtually. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Virtual Action Planner for Creating a Shared Vision Virtually. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Virtual Action Planner for Developing Values and Collective Commitments Virtually. . . . . .

Virtual Action Planner for Virtually Developing Tight and Loose Expectations. . . . . . . . . . . .

Virtual Action Planner for Creating a Virtual Team Foundation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Virtual Team Unit Plan and Assessment Map. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Virtual Essential Standards Scorecard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Virtual Team Learning Targets Worksheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Virtual Team Learning-Target Pacing Calendar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Software and Technology for Virtual School Use. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Virtual Action Planner for Establishing the Essential Standards Through Collective Inquiry. . .

Virtual Action Planner for Unpacking Essential Standards to Identify Learning Targets . . . . .

Virtual Action Planner for Creating Informal and Formal Formative Assessments. . . . . . . . . .

Leadership Characteristic Inventory System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Virtual Action Planner for Virtually Establishing Expectations for Principals and Guiding Coalitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

References and Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

124 125 127 132 134 136 137 138 140 142 145 147 148 149 150 151 153 154 155 156 157 159

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

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About the Authors

Paul C. Farmer has worked in public education for nearly forty years. He started his education career teaching autobody technology in Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland. He has held multiple leadership roles including department chair, teacher specialist in career and technology education, assistant principal, principal, and project director of instructional technology integration. He retired from public education in Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia. During his tenure in Fairfax County Public Schools, Paul was the principal of Joyce Kilmer Middle School. Kilmer was recognized by Solution Tree as a Model PLC and was one of fifty schools in the United States recognized by Standard and Poor’s School Evaluation Services for narrowing the achievement gap between economically disadvantaged students and the general population.

Paul now leads professional development focused on creating and sustaining PLCs at Work and RTI at Work for teachers, school administrators, and district administrators throughout the United States and Canada. He is coauthor of How to Help Your School Thrive Without Breaking the Bank, Dealing with the Tough Stuff: Practical Solutions for School Administrators, and Collaboration for Career & Technical Education: Teamwork Beyond the Core Content Areas in a PLC at Work. Paul earned his bachelor of arts in business management at National Louis University in Chicago, Illinois, and his master’s in secondary education leadership at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

To learn more about Paul’s work, follow @pfarmersr on Twitter.

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Dennis King, EdD, has focused on school improvement throughout his career, first as a practicing school administrator and now as an educational consultant. His twentyeight years in education include teaching in an alternative school, an urban high school, and two suburban school districts where he was also a district administrator. During his tenure as principal at Blue Valley High School and assistant superintendent for school improvement in the Blue Valley School District in Overland Park, Kansas, he was responsible for implementing the PLC process as the model for school improvement in both the school and district. Both the high school of 1,400 students and school district of 32 schools housing 22,000 students became Model PLCs. Since 2003, Dennis has worked with thousands of schools across the United States to strengthen their school-improvement processes and supply research-based strategies that support students during their learning. Dennis is a contributing author to The Collaborative Teacher, Principal as Assessment Leader, and It’s About Time, Secondary.

To learn more about Dennis’s work, follow @DrDennisKing on Twitter.

To book Paul C. Farmer or Dennis King for professional development, contact pd@ SolutionTree.com.

Introduction

An Unprecedented Shift in Teaching and Learning

Successfully shifting educational practices in a school and its classrooms during a typical school year is very difficult to do; add to this task a worldwide pandemic that makes the most basic educational structures impossible, and you have a seemingly insurmountable challenge. The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020–2021 required an immediate pivot as schools across the world had to shift education from face-to-face teaching to virtual instruction while school doors were locked and students remained at home. This pandemic created a benchmark period for schools, much as the Columbine High School shooting of 1999 impacted school safety and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, impacted airline travel. It opened our eyes to the need for virtual learning platforms that align with school-improvement practices. Schools and school districts had to evolve with little advance notice to meet the needs of students and faculty.

As the pandemic raged on, schools and school districts were faced with the dilemma of shifting to offer varied instructional formats based on advice from national and local agencies. Some schools still offered only face-to-face instruction, some offered only virtual, and others chose hybrid (both face-to-face and virtual). In some cases, schools and districts delivered the three formats simultaneously.

As educational consultants, we had the opportunity to work closely with schools and districts during the COVID-19 pandemic. We found that the schools operating as Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) at Work® were at an advantage when making the shift to a virtual format; they were pushed to function at an even higher level. Based on anecdotal responses from teachers and school leaders we supported during the pandemic, we identified a need to share how strong PLC at Work practices can supersede the challenges of societal change and provide support for schools in a virtual environment. During the pandemic, the culture of schools with strong PLC practices grew to meet the social, emotional, and academic needs of both students and faculty.

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Here we use the examples of two districts we worked with—District A and District B— to expand on the reasons why the PLC process sets schools up for success in times in which significant pivot is necessary.

District A: The PLC PLCs have a clear core purpose—all students can learn at high levels. Districts such as the one we’ll refer to as district A kept the focus on their core purpose during the transition to virtual learning and maintained their effective PLC at Work practices. District A had collaboration embedded as a routine practice, allowing teachers to maintain a strong and consistent focus on student learning, instead of on teaching strategies for virtual education. Although the format of learning had transitioned online, the district maintained PLC practices like teacher teams working collaboratively to identify essential learning targets, teach, assess, and intervene when students did not learn in the new online format. District A demonstrated a clear sense of purpose and results.

We found that teacher teams operating in PLCs recommitted to their school and team structures during the pandemic. They revisited team protocols such as collective commitments, norms, and consensus building, as the format for collaboration had shifted to a virtual environment. Teachers could no longer rely on looking across the conference table for common agreements that may have gone unspoken over time. The need for the collaborative team was stronger than ever before. Teams of teachers dug into the essential standards to reidentify essential learning targets, investigated strategies to formatively assess those targets in a virtual environment, and sought strategies for virtual interventions.

These team practices are vitally important in face-to-face, virtual, or blended school settings. In district A, we found schools focused on each component of effective collaboration, which was apparent as the schools investigated new strategies to complete the collaborative team processes that teachers practiced when the schools were functioning face-to-face. The PLC schools’ culture stayed strong and resilient as teachers were forced to work from home and abandon their traditional education setting.

District B: The Traditional School Other school districts, such as district B, that were not implementing the PLC process, rushed to enact an online curriculum, and teachers posted classroom assignments for students to complete with little instruction. In district B, virtual teacher teams were challenged to share strategies to monitor learning in a virtual setting. The district teachers were then concerned about how to teach the current curriculum virtually, causing their collaboration to focus on sharing technology strategies instead of on increasing clarity of essential standards and learning targets. As a result, teachers did not provide students with guaranteed and viable essential learning in the virtual format. When leaders in district B asked teachers to collaborate, they did not provide clarity regarding the expected outcomes of that collaboration, which led to conversations that focused on many things not related to student learning.

Introduction

During this period of time, most teachers were working harder than ever before; however, their hard work didn’t result in increased achievement for district B. In other words, school districts functioning as PLCs at Work were able to make the transition to virtual instruction in a more seamless, not effortless, fashion while still keeping student learning the number-one priority. Meanwhile, other schools struggled to support students, struggled to implement online learning opportunities, and experienced increased stress levels during an already-stressful situation.

During the pandemic, traditional schools and school districts focused on documenting learning through assignment completion. Unfortunately, this failed to engage students, and failure rates have risen at alarming rates. According to research scientist Megan Kuhfeld and colleagues (2020): Projections indicate students were likely to return in the fall of 2020 after a short absence from face-to-face learning with only 63–68 percent learning gains relative to a typical schoolyear and 37–50 percent of the learning gains in math. (p. 4)

In contrast, the PLC schools were able to maintain their focus on the essential standards and assessing student learning in a virtual setting. Collaborative teacher teams relied on their collaborative structures and processes to learn together as adult learners to better enhance the learning for students. Having an embedded process in place while face-to-face eased the transition to virtual education.

The PLC Research Research has led to widespread agreement that the PLC process is a powerful approach for improving schools (Eaker & Marzano, 2020). “Fifty years of research, not only from within the educational community but also from organizations outside education, coupled with twenty years of successful implementation of the PLC concept, provide a clear picture of characteristics of highly effective schools” (Marzano & Eaker, 2020, pp. 2–3).

Professor and researcher Judith Warren Little (2006), writing for the National Education Association, concludes that: Research has steadily converged on the importance of strong teacher learning communities for teacher growth and commitment, suggesting as well their potential contribution to favorable student outcomes. . . . Effective professional development might thus be judged by its capacity for building (and building on) the structures and values, as well as the intellectual and leadership resources of professional community. (p. 2)

The importance of this work is highlighted by teacher and principal organizations as well as leading researchers in the field of education, such as John Hattie (2015), who states: We must stop allowing teachers to work alone, behind closed doors and in isolation in the staffrooms and instead shift to a professional ethic that emphasizes collaboration. We need communities within and across schools that work collaboratively to diagnose what teachers need to do, plan programs and teaching interventions and evaluate the success of the interventions. (p. 23)

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This research provides compelling evidence that the PLC process offers a highly effective environment for successful virtual, hybrid, and traditional face-to-face teaching practices.

This centralized process to address student learning as the primary focus is necessary for school- and districtwide improvement. When individual schools do not have alignment, and all the schools within a district aren’t aligned, the quality of education suffers, especially during institutional change caused by a pandemic. Providing clarity and common practice within the school system allows for common support, common vocabulary, and common learning based on the school or district’s foundational beliefs.

The Need for Cultural Change to Support Structural Change Students’ and faculty members’ safety and well-being were at the forefront of school leaders’ thoughts as their school doors were forced to close due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The immediate impact of this structural change created a multitude of challenges as school districts raced to ensure students had electronic devices and internet access in order to reach curricular materials and their teachers and have a successful virtual learning experience and a quality education. Districts rapidly addressed structural change; however, in many cases, they ignored cultural change. The culture within individual schools provides the foundation for both student and teacher success. During the pandemic, non-PLC schools and districts focused on structural needs, which outweighed the need to investigate effective learning practices as they were forced to shift from face-to-face instruction to some kind of virtual education. PLC schools could more easily adapt, but for other school districts and schools, structural elements dominated their focus. The rush to implement an online curriculum mandating students participate through assignment completion and that teachers attempt to adapt face-to-face practices via virtual processes failed. The PLC process supports the cultural change that allows student learning to remain at the forefront during structural change.

Anthony Muhammad (2018) differentiates between culture and climate, stating culture refers to the way a system operates while climate is based on how people feel about the place where they work and the things they do. Muhammad (2018) writes, The rush to implement “In my work, I hear people use the terms culture and climate synonan online curriculum ymously, and they are very different. In short, culture is how we mandating students behave, and climate is how we feel” (p. 19). Culture is “the way we participate through do things around here” while climate is “the way we feel around assignment completion here” (Gruenert & Whitaker, 2015, p. 10). Service organizations and that teachers with a strong culture based on their fundamental purpose navigate attempt to adapt facechallenges to fulfill the mission; those organizations with a weak or to-face practices via less-defined culture will allow negative behavior to permeate, forcvirtual processes failed. ing the mission to stall.

Introduction

Negative Versus Positive Variables and Behaviors As school organizations experience change, threats emerge, challenging the culture within each organization. These threats are defined as negative behaviors that shift school districts and schools, which fracture the culture for the district, the school, or both. Efforts to maintain effective implementation of school-improvement processes through PLC development (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, Many, & Mattos, 2016) are essential. These efforts allow all stakeholders to remain focused on promoting the interdependent work of educators despite new challenges, like virtual teaching and learning. A weakened process is evident when schools change their core purpose and essential components of education. In a virtual environment, leaders’ challenge is to maintain focus on those variables within their control. Robert Eaker and Janel Keating (2012) note variables that are within educators’ control and outside their control (table I.1).

Table I.1: Uncontrollable and Controllable Variables Uncontrollable Variables Students cannot choose: • Their parents

Controllable Variables Collaborative teacher teams can develop:

• Where they live

• A school and classroom culture of caring and encouragement

• The school they attend

• A guaranteed, viable curriculum

• Their teachers

• Effective, research-based teaching strategies

• The high-stakes summative assessments they’ll take

• Common formative assessments of student learning • Systems of providing additional time, support, and enrichment • Ways to frequently recognize and celebrate improvement

Source: Eaker & Keating, 2012, p. 9.

These traditional uncontrollable variables are still present in schools, and especially as schools transition their work to virtual or hybrid environments. The uncontrollable variables contribute to negative behaviors in staff, threatening school culture and creating undue stress and emotional effects on both the educator and the student. Prominent principals and district administrators in Hawthorn Community Consolidated School District 73 in Vernon Hills, Illinois (personal communication, September In a virtual environment, 17, 2020), shared additional uncontrollable variables with us when leaders’ challenge we were discussing how to effectively educate students during a is to maintain focus pandemic while shifting the methodology of instructional delivery. on those variables The pandemic, the availability of technology, stress, the ordering within their control. and delivery of materials, the reliability of others, the emotional concerns of others, and the ability to establish learning success in a student’s home environment are all education unknowns. Tackling them all simultaneously is akin to building too many planes and learning how to fly them all at the same time. However, when

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Hawthorn District 73’s focus centered on student learning, positive behaviors emerged, and created positive influences identified by Hawthorn District 73’s leadership group. These positive behaviors influencing the culture within the school district included creating and protecting time for teachers to collaborate, celebrating teacher and student success, prioritizing the learning of students, and leaders modelling how to communicate and maintain a focus on student learning. These behaviors allow for celebration while maintaining the social and emotional well-being of faculty and students.

Variables within educators’ control include protecting time for faculty collaboration; focusing and refocusing conversations aligned with student learning outcomes; modeling learning behaviors and practices in faculty meetings; providing time for students to receive enrichments, extensions, and interventions during the school day; celebrating teachers’ and students’ successes; communicating what is valued; prioritizing learning and students; and, of course, determining their own reactions as leaders. The subtle shift to remain concentrated on those items within educators’ control, with a centralized focus on learning, builds the foundation for the school culture and provides positive experiences for all faculty. When educators can focus on a world full of positive results rather than negative realities, they regain their capacity to experience joy, vitality, positivity, and connection and to impact future generations’ education.

Social-Emotional Effects of Educators’ Actions The shift to deliver teaching and learning in a variety of formats has created an unforeseen social and emotional strain on faculty and students. Focusing on positive behavior during a transition from face-to-face instruction to virtual or hybrid learning is essential to address the social and emotional needs of the school community. The overall impact of limiting social interactions through quarantine has created negative psychological effects that include post-traumatic stress symptoms, confusion, and anger, producing social and emotional concerns for both students and educators. Researcher Samantha K. Brooks and colleagues (2020) report, “Stressors included longer quarantine duration, infection fears, frustration, boredom, inadequate supplies, inadequate information, financial loss, and stigma” (p. 912). With the unprecedented societal norms of a pandemic, or with a learning environment’s shift to a virtual environment, quarantine-like symptoms radiate throughout the school or school system. Brooks and colleagues (2020) further identify stressors during quarantine that impact individuals’ social and emotional health. The impact of long quarantines, fear of infection, frustration, boredom, inadequate supplies and inadequate information all may have long lasting negative effects on a person’s psychological well-being (Brooks et al., 2020).

The psychological impact of change associated with the identified stressors accelerates negative psychological effects in schools and school districts. Schools need to consider the psychological effects on faculty and consider how to avoid these psychological impacts. Brooks and colleagues (2020) find that a lack of transparency or clear guidelines or a rational, perceived difficulty complying with quarantine protocols produce negative

Introduction

psychological effects. School systems’ ability to overcome the negative behaviors to manage pandemic stressors reduces the adverse psychological effects for both students and faculty.

Schools need to develop plans to address the social and emotional impact on students and faculty as well. Recognizing and reducing quarantine effects, providing as much information as possible, providing adequate supplies, and reducing boredom are essential focus areas for consideration, in addition to schools’ academic concerns. Table I.2 (page 8) suggests schoolwide resources and responses for meeting social and emotional needs that result from a quarantine.

Attending to the five stressors in table I.2 will both promote a sound school-improvement process and address faculty’s and students’ social and emotional needs. Collaborative teams in PLCs provide an opportunity for colleagues to support and address individuals’ challen­ ges. In addition, weekly or at least monthly individual meetings with school leaders where leaders listen to teachers and staff members is one method to provide emotional support.

The agility of the leader to adjust his or her skills with virtual connections including staff meetings, team meetings, and individual one-to-one meetings with faculty via video technology such as Zoom, Microsoft Team Meetings, and Google Meet, enhances not only communication but also reduces the compilation of fear and distrust that is caused when staff feel left out of the communication loop. Increased frequency of staff interactions eliminates the unknown stressors which impact the schools’ culture and faculty members’ well-being. Teachers can use a similar meeting process as they work with students. They can utilize one class period a quarter to meet with students individually to discuss academic needs and challenges the students face. Utilizing a technology such as Zoom or Facetime allows for video conferences to occur during class or on an individual basis. Teachers can have a class meeting in a main virtual classroom and set up a breakout room for private discussions with individual students or a small group of students while the class is still in session in the other main meeting room. If teachers have access to two computers, they can be in both rooms at once allowing for supervision in one room while holding private conversations in another.

The demands of virtual learning are now the new normal for education. In a virtual environment, educators should employ the same effective practice strategies that they have employed face-to-face as they learn new strategies, relearn strategies they employed on a daily basis, and unlearn practices that fail to produce increased achievement results for students and faculty.

A Road Map of the PLC Process As career educators, we have led Model PLC schools and a Model PLC school district as principals and district-office administrators, and we have supported thousands of schools as PLC, assessment, and response to intervention (RTI) consultants since 2003. We’ve found school improvement and student learning cannot take a back seat when schools or school systems are faced with societal changes or systemic roadblocks. Students still need to learn.

And to ensure learning at high levels, teachers and schools still need to function at their

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Table I.2: Schoolwide Compliance Guidelines for Meeting Social-Emotional Needs Have We Experienced This Stressor?

Have We Provided These Resources?

How Do We Respond?

Duration of quarantine: The length of the quarantine makes a difference, as an extended duration tends to produce anger and avoidance behaviors.

• Sacred collaboration time for faculty

• Create weekly collaboration time in the virtual schedule.

• Clear, attainable goals for teams

• Communicate team expectations, and post team products in a virtual library.

• Celebrations for attaining team goals

• Conduct virtual faculty meetings for team sharing and learning.

Fear of infections: The fear is of not only being infected but also infecting others.

• Standardized safety protocols and expectations for students and faculty

• Establish district, school, and classroom safety procedures.

Frustration and boredom: Individuals do not take part in the usual dayto-day activities or networking.

Inadequate supplies: Individuals lack the availability of basic supplies, such as water and food, as well as masks, medical supplies, and supplies that allow them to complete their task or job.

• Opportunities to learn together

• An established “Fear of Infection” curriculum

• Provide instructional time to teach the “Fear of Infection” curriculum.

• Clear sanitizing procedures and adequate materials to students and faculty

• Create infection protocols, and distribute them to all students and faculty for easy access.

• Weekly celebrations for students and faculty

• Provide formalized networking and celebration time prior to faculty meetings.

• A team-building curriculum for students • Virtual student trackers to allow students to track learningtarget progressions

• Basic internet specifications for an effective virtual platform • Necessary technology to administer and receive the curriculum • Virtual platform options for delivery of instruction

• Create informal electronic bulletin boards for faculty to post special projects.

• Establish a school blog or wiki to allow all faculty to respond to a specific concept.

• Create internet hot spots for the community (cellular hot spots in school parking lots, school district vehicles with hotspots parked at key locations in the district).

• Provide internet services for faculty based on necessary specifications.

• Assess student and faculty needs for remote learning.

Inadequate information: Individuals have a lack of clarity about the different levels of risk, creating a mindset of fearing the worst.

• A clear communication plan for faculty, students, and parents • A district or school communication team to process and update information as necessary • A master schedule allowing students to take as many courses as possible virtually

• Establish and monitor an online feedback loop for faculty concerns and questions.

• Establish and monitor an online feedback loop for parents and students of the district or school to reach the communication team.

• Create a virtual master schedule for increased virtual access to all courses.

Introduction

highest capacity to allow each student to engage and participate in effective pedagogy, and this requires the implementation of the full PLC process.

As a keynote speaker at a multitude of Solution Tree PLC Institutes across North America, internationally renowned author and educator Rick DuFour (1947–2017) would frequently make the comment, “The PLC process is not like ordering off a Chinese food menu; you can’t select certain items from column A and certain items from column B. Rather, there are certain things that must be done, or are tight, in the PLC process.” As schools function face-to-face, virtually, or in a hybrid manner, it’s imperative that they implement the entire PLC process, rather than selecting items to create a customized version of the process. The process ensures a focus on learning with a results-oriented focus by collaborative teacher teams. This focus allows educators to work interdependently as a school versus teachers working independently in the isolation of their own classroom implementation. It challenges the mindset of executing popular practice strategies versus ensuring the practices followed by the collaborative teams guarantee student learning as measured by results. Although this is important in face-to-face or virtual settings, it is easier to lose sight of these practices when teaching virtually because of potential isolation from daily interaction with the rest of the team.

This book provides a road map of the PLC process with corresponding strategies for implementation in virtual and hybrid environments. The tool in figure I.1 (page 10) allows readers to both assess their progress and make notes along the journey. Readers can self-evaluate each element of a PLC by marking plus (meaning “This is strong”) or delta (meaning “We need to make changes”) on the tool. The plus or delta columns allow readers to make notes and identify actions that are taking place and still need development in the virtual learning environment. The tool is designed to allow educators to explore the PLC process as a journey instead of just a destination. (Visit go.SolutionTree.com/PLCbooks to download a free reproducible version of the tool.) The chapters that follow then cover the essential components of the PLC process and how to strengthen or implement them in a virtual environment.

There are many steps along the journey from a traditional school with a primary focus on teaching to a PLC with a prioritized focus on learning. As traditional schools take the first step in transformation, a fork in the road quickly becomes evident as school leaders begin to address both culture and collaboration. This book will reinforce the need to develop both pathways, as school culture and collaboration are two essential ingredients in the PLC process. We’ve coached hundreds of schools that address only one of these two avenues of the PLC process and will dismiss the other. For example, once schools form collaborative teacher teams, these teams often become confused and unable to define their teams’ focus or link their work to their schools’ and districts’ overall purpose, and the process stalls.

We have observed this procedural error in many virtual settings as teachers struggle to maintain an effective student learning process. We maintain that a school can take either direction as it begins the PLC process, yet it will need to eventually address both directions.

Providing a clear structure to allow the PLC process to advance is essential for all schools

9

Create a Focus on Learning

PLC School

4. Extensions

3. Interventions

2. Formative Assessments (Informal and Common)

1. Essential Standards

Team SMART Goals

Team Protocols

Collaboration

Sustain the Ongoing Work

Maintain a Results Orientation

Ensure a Collaborative Culture and Collective Responsibility

4. Goals

3. Values

2. Vision

1. Mission

Culture

Identify Our Why

Visit go.SolutionTree.com/PLCbooks for a free reproducible version of this figure.

Figure I.1: PLC road map.

Plus or Delta

Develop and Train the Guiding Coalition

Our Current Reality

Plus or Delta

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V I R T UA L P LC s AT W O R K ®

Introduction

and even more so for those that work in a hybrid or virtual environment. The roadmap aligns the structure to the process creating the necessary clarity and guidance while maintaining the overall focus and providing a systematic methodology often missed in virtual or hybrid learning structures.

How This Book Is Structured Virtual teaming and virtual learning have been practiced for decades but never to the level that is required today. Schools must overcome many hurdles to maintain the PLC process in a virtual environment. Many school districts we counseled during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020–2021 struggled with the basic structures of PLC as virtual structures were implemented. Teachers were forced to learn online systems such as Zoom and Google Classroom while simultaneously instructing students. Those educators who had the necessary collaborative team structures and processes of a PLC in place were able to maintain their PLC process with little interruption. Refining these practices in a virtual environment provides focus and consistency. Eliminating teacher isolation and inconsistency is crucial to remove fragmentation within the school structure.

This book is not a reference text for teachers that is filled with a series of virtual instructional strategies. Rather, we intend for teacher teams to use this book as a reference on how they can implement, maintain, and build the PLC school-improvement process to ensure high levels of learning for students when it is necessary or preferred to shift from faceto-face learning to a virtual environment or with a combination of virtual and in-person teaching and learning.

Schools that have shifted to an all-virtual or hybrid model but that have not previously functioned as a PLC should consider adding Learning by Doing, Third Edition (DuFour et al., 2016) as a companion to this book. Learning by Doing provides extensive detail on building the PLC structures and process, whereas the chapters in this book will be examining several foundational PLC structures and practices through a lens of virtual application.

These structures and practices will work well with those outlined in Learning by Doing (DuFour et al., 2016).

Chapter 1 provides an overview of the three big ideas of a PLC and how readers can implement or support these big ideas within a PLC that has shifted to virtual or hybrid teaching and learning. Chapters 2 and 3 address the four pillars of a PLC (mission, vision, values, and goals), which provide a necessary foundation for the culture of a PLC. PLCs that transition to a virtual or hybrid environment will need to be sure their foundation is strong. Chapters 4 and 5 focus on collaboration and teams’ work on researchbased practices to ensure students excel in virtual and hybrid environments. Finally, we address the necessary component of leadership in chapter 6, focusing on specific actions of school leaders.

Throughout the chapters, we will discuss each of the key concepts to implement in a virtual setting, with accompanying tools to help leaders and educators in all school levels.

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Implementing the PLC process is not linear or fixed; as our model illustrates, it’s interactive, allowing school personnel to identify and support the school they wish to become.

We’ll examine best practices along with virtual solutions in the PLC process as we journey through each component, examining structures and practices that all schools must maintain. Each chapter ends with a series of coaching tips for virtual application. The book also contains reproducible documents to aid teachers, teams, team leaders, and leadership in moving their schools forward, starting on page 124 with “Quick Tips to Consider in a Virtual PLC.”

From Paralysis to Action Educators in many schools and locations faced paralysis as they waited for the return to a traditional setting. At the time of publication of this book, the education process continued to pivot in response to the pandemic. Vaccines became readily available and rising demands from school communities to return to some forms of normalcy allowed students in some locations to return to more in-person instruction. The threat of long-term learning gaps and lack of a systematic response to educate students in nontraditional virtual and hybrid settings lacked structure and substance. In many settings, education was relegated to self-paced learning through the completion of curriculum packets. Learning was based on assignment completion and often it was unknown who was completing the assignments, parents, friends, or outside entities. It will not be another one hundred years before we will be faced with a new pandemic. The threat of COVID virus variants, natural disasters, terrorist threats, or the desire for parents to maintain the virtual or hybrid experiences will once again create a need for schools and school systems to pivot from the traditional learning model of in-person instruction. The PLC process is essential to ensure students learn at high levels despite even the most unprecedented challenges.

Chapter 1

The Three Big Ideas

©2022 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

Effective pr actice is the cornerstone of successful schools. And the Professional Learning Communities at Work process is proven to be an effective school-improvement process, allowing schools to focus on the highest levels of student learning. PLC is not a program or something that can be purchased and put in a school; it’s a lifestyle where multiple synchronized practices and structures focus on increasing student learning. This chapter examines the foundational elements of a PLC at Work—the three big ideas of (1) a focus on learning, (2) a collaborative culture and collective responsibility, and (3) a results orientation (DuFour et al., 2016) and how they can be implemented or strengthened in a virtual or hybrid learning environment.

As schools implement virtual learning, or a hybrid learning model with face-to-face learning and virtual learning, the need to function as a PLC is more important than ever to maintain high levels of learning for all students. Research indicates a significant number of educational organizations, associations, and researchers advocate PLC at Work and agree the process has positive effects on educators’ professional practice and students’ learning (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, Mattos, & Muhammad, 2021). An independent study published in December 2020 by Education Northwest indicates statistically significant academic gains within two years of implementing the PLC at Work process (https://bit.ly/3qSORl5).

Moreover, hundreds of Model PLC schools (schools nationally recognized as PLCs) show at least three years of sustained growth and success by implementing the PLC process with high levels of fidelity. (See the PLC Locator on the AllThingsPLC.info webpage [www .allthingsplc.info/plc-locator/us] to find Model PLC schools.)

The practices of highly effective PLCs transcend to virtual school settings as well.

However, as schools offer partial or full course loads of virtual classes, some faculty may challenge the need to continue the PLC process. Schools that have already implemented the PLC process may struggle to maintain PLC routines and practices in virtual teaching and learning environments if some faculty feel it’s too much work or it’s just one more thing on top of the high demands of virtual teaching and learning. However, it is helpful

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to remember that virtual learning is the “one more thing” on top of other demands, and the PLC process provides the foundation to allow a virtual education to be effective, like face-to-face schooling.

When the demands of virtual education are not the norm, this new platform will cause a sense of instability, especially if faculty are not experienced in virtual instruction practices. This instability is a reason to rely on the normalcy of PLC practices. Staying focused on the right work will help rebuild stability in unstable times.

To ensure a virtual school is functioning as a PLC, it is important to return to the basic principles and foundation. As discussed in the introduction, attention to all components of a PLC in a virtual environment is necessary to bring a semblance Staying focused on the of normalcy as virtual instructional efforts become the new norm. right work will help rebuild In most cases, schools now functioning virtually were face-to-face stability in unstable times. when they learned about the three big ideas. The three big ideas do not change when a school shifts to a virtual environment; what changes is how school leaders support them and how teams live them. Reviewing the three big ideas is a great place to start refining a school’s virtual PLC journey.

This chapter uses a table format for each big idea to provide guidance on the what and why of tasks that support each big idea; the how—methods used to accomplish the support tasks; and tools and strategies for accomplishing the tasks in a virtual environment. These tables include references to the guiding coalition, which are synonymous with teams that schools may refer to as the leadership team, teacher leadership team, instructional counsel, or building leadership team; the name of the team may differ, but the membership is typically classroom teacher leaders, school building administration, and a few other members who focus their collaborative efforts to guide the school through the PLC journey. We use the term guiding coalition throughout this book unless references are made to other sources using different titles. The administrative team is a team of school-based administrators. Guiding coalitions should study these figures and add tailored details to increase the impact at their school. These charts appear throughout the chapters in this book to tie the what, why, and how of the PLC process to strategies and tools for use in a virtual or hybrid environment.

The Three Big Ideas and Your Virtual PLC Three big ideas are the driving force of the PLC process. As Richard DuFour and his colleagues (2016) note, “The progress a district or school experiences on the PLC journey will be largely dependent on the extent to which these ideas are considered, understood, and ultimately embraced by its members” (p. 11).

©2022 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

When a crisis or just a district decision causes a change in entrenched school operations, it is easy to lose focus on the fundamentals of the PLC process. Without a focus on the right work (student learning), it will be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to lead a school or team in successfully executing high levels of learning for all students.

The Three Big Ideas

15

Big Idea 1: A Focus on Learning

A team focused on learning will narrow the curriculum to what it guarantees all students will learn within a certain time frame. This curriculum is referred to as the guaranteed and viable curriculum. “A guaranteed and viable curriculum gives students access to the same essential learning outcomes regardless of who is teaching the class” (Mattos et al., 2016, p.

81). The guaranteed and viable curriculum is not the entire curriculum being taught; it is what teachers will hold students accountable for learning. A PLC does not merely provide opportunities for all students to learn. A PLC clarifies what all students will learn and guarantees the learning will take place because of the concerted efforts of collaborative teams.

A virtual PLC should not focus on how teachers teach in a virtual setting; it should focus on what students learn in that setting. Teachers of virtual content must have absolute clarity on what learning must take place, and the essential learning must be consistent from teacher to teacher in the same courses or grade levels. To keep essential learning consistent from class to class, teachers must explicitly identify the essential learning outcomes, use common assessments to measure the levels of learning, and have structures in place A virtual PLC should to support students with tailored instruction to meet their diversified not focus on how needs. There will be cases when teachers cannot achieve desired learnteachers teach in a ing levels for all students, and that’s when the value of collective virtual setting; it should responsibility and a collaborative culture (the second big idea) pay off, focus on what students bringing all the team members’ skills together to ensure students learn in that setting. learn the guaranteed and viable curriculum.

Table 1.1 (page 16) provides the what and why of tasks that support a focus on learning.

It then describes how to implement each task and outlines what virtual strategies and tools school leaders can consider. See the reproducible “Virtual Action Planner for Supporting a Focus on Learning Virtually” on page 125 in the appendix to plan this work.

Big Idea 2: A Collaborative Culture and Collective Responsibility The second big idea of a PLC at Work is a collaborative culture: “In order to ensure all students learn at high levels, educators must work collaboratively and take collective responsibility for the success of each student” (DuFour et al., 2016, p. 11). Schools can maintain virtual collaborative cultures with collective responsibility when all stakeholders accept that reaching the highest possible levels of learning is a non-negotiable expectation. And collaborative teams can attain that expectation only when all members are willing to hold themselves and each other collectively accountable to the mission and vision of the school.

©2022 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

The first big idea of a PLC is a focus on learning—a continuous, relentless learningcentered focus that is targeted with resources and actions. This intense focus to improve student learning requires increased adult learning. When deciding on strategies to effect student or adult learning in a virtual environment, collaborative teams should ask two simple questions: “Will doing this lead to higher levels of learning for our students? Are we willing to revise or discontinue actions that fail to increase student learning?” (Mattos, DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many, 2016, p. 7).

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Table 1.1: Supporting a Focus on Learning Virtually What and Why

Schedule a meeting with the guiding coalition, and solicit its suggestions for observable behaviors in classrooms that would indicate a primary focus on learning.

Have guiding coalition members each write specific observable behaviors and vet all of them with their collaborative team.

Focus on the observable behaviors applicable for all content and grade levels that would take place on a routine basis.

Engage the guiding coalition to establish schoolwide expectations.

Essential learner outcomes: Teams must identify essential learner outcomes in advance of teaching to allow time for assessment development, parent and student communication, and cross-curricular synthesizing of essential learnings.

Teams collaborate and use a protocol to vet their curriculum for the most essential components. The teams each reach agreement on essential learner outcomes for the following month and post the outcomes one month in advance where all faculty can see them.

Schoolwide expectations: Schoolwide expectations of a focus on learning must be monitored to identify needed support, get application ideas, and ensure routine commitment is demonstrated.

Teachers may post the essential learner outcomes on posters or in a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation, have students write the essential learner outcomes in a journal or on their computer, and so on.

Virtual Practices and Technology Tools Schedule a virtual meeting with the guiding coalition to identify behaviors that model a focus on learning. Guiding coalition members must solicit input from their team members; they can do this during a designated departmental or gradelevel virtual team meeting.

An example policy is teachers will demonstrate a focus on learning by starting each virtual instructional segment with communication of the essential learner outcomes for that segment of time or day.

Software: Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, Google Docs, Google Classroom, or the school district’s online platform for virtual classes Teams virtually collaborate, conducting the same work as in faceto-face meetings.

Singleton teachers (the only teachers of their course or grade level) could connect with other teachers in the district to reach consensus on essential learner outcomes.

All members of the virtual campus will have access to read the essential learner outcomes for the entire school, department, or grade level.

Software: Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, Google Docs, Google Jamboard, Google Classroom, or the school district’s online platform for virtual classes.

Teachers also submit a copy of their essential learner outcomes to leadership for monitoring and comparison.

Teachers send their classroom URLs to administrators. Leadership has all URLs for all virtual synchronous and asynchronous classrooms.

Teachers communicate the essential learner outcomes verbally or in a recording, have students type them in the chat, or include the essentials in a submitted assignment, all of which would be observable behaviors.

Software: Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, or the district-approved email system

©2022 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

Focus on learning: Since the first big idea is a focus on learning, a plan to model learning is of paramount importance in all instructional settings.

How

The Three Big Ideas

Administrators visit classrooms during class time.

Administration provides time for teachers to visit other teachers’ classrooms for the purpose of learning and improving instructional strategies. Visits can be scheduled without additional resources if teachers visit classes during their planning time. Improving professional practice is an appropriate use of planning time.

Using the teacher-provided URLs, administrators and faculty can conduct virtual classroom visits to learn how teachers are communicating essential learner outcomes.

Focus the virtual visits specifically on how the teacher is communicating the essential learner outcomes, and how the instruction is aligned to the intended learner outcomes.

Create an online calendar, request links to essential learner outcomes from each teacher, and insert those links on the days when the teacher will introduce the skills and administer the aligned common assessments.

Software: Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, Google Docs, Google Slides, Google Classroom, or the district’s online platform for virtual classes

Modeling of expected behaviors: Modeling expected behaviors works much better than telling people to do one thing and demonstrating something different.

When having a faculty meeting, start the meeting by using different methods to communicate the essential learner outcomes of the meeting.

Provide a clear agenda, deliver information, engage attendees, check for understanding, and share the data.

Run faculty meetings like well-run classrooms.

Set up virtual faculty meetings, and start each faculty meeting with communicating the essential learner outcomes of the meeting.

Use quality virtual instructional strategies and software, engage the faculty, check for understanding, assess their learning, and share the results.

Conduct virtual faculty meetings as teachers are expected to conduct high-quality virtual classrooms.

Software: Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, Google Docs, Google Slides, Google Jamboard, Google Classroom, the school district’s online platform for virtual classes, Mentimeter, Polling, or Chat in Zoom and other online meeting platforms

School systems that prioritize collaboration create schedules that demonstrate this priority. A common virtual schedule design for collaboration includes common teacher-planning time by grade level for elementary schools, by department for secondary schools, and most definitely during contract hours in both cases.

When Eau Claire Area School District in Wisconsin developed its schedule for the 2020– 2021 school year, district leadership decided schools would be open four out of five days a week for face-to-face and virtual student learning. Classes are held on Monday and Tuesday (see figure 1.1, page 18). Wednesday is dedicated to professional development, collaboration, planning, preparation, and sanitation, with two hours scheduled for synchronous

©2022 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

Classroom visits: Classroom visits have always been expected of school leaders. Peer visits are valuable for the visited teachers and the visiting teachers to gain insights from other professionals to refine their own practices. This is free professional development, and it can be conducted on site or virtually.

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8:00–10:00 a.m.

Collaboration

10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.

Professional development

12:00–12:30 p.m.

Lunch

12:30–1:30 p.m.

Building meetings

1 hour

Prep

2 hours

Virtual contact with students

Source: Jim Schmidt, executive director of teaching and learning, Eau Claire Area School District, Wisconsin.

Used with permission.

Figure 1.1: Eau Claire Area School District collaboration day schedule, 2020–2021.

virtual contact time with students. Then the school building reopens again for face-to-face and virtual learning classes on Thursday and Friday. The preceding schedule outlines the schedule for Wednesdays and does not have to change if the district changes to a 100 percent virtual, 100 percent on-site, or hybrid design. This school system clearly prioritized and communicated a districtwide expectation of collaboration with its dedicated schedule for teachers to focus on the right work of a PLC (student learning).

Collaboration schedules and structures are not established to suggest teachers should collaborate or to invite them to collaborate. In a PLC, collaboration is a professional expectation to support continuous improvement for all professionals—whether instruction and learning is face-to-face or virtual. Furthermore, no teacher should be expected to possess all skills and resources a collaborative team needs in order to achieve high levels of learning for all students. “No teacher should be expected to do this job alone” (Wehling, 2007, p. 49).

Teachers can develop the skills they need with their collaborative teams. Bob Wehling (2007), writing for the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, refers to schools with collaborative teams as “schools that are genuine learning organizations” (p. 49). These learning organizations are focused on learning for faculty and students alike.

Shifting to or increasing the amount of virtual instruction necessitates a greater level of skill in teaching and assessing with technology-based applications. Teachers have used technology to deliver their lessons in face-to-face classrooms for decades, but unless their background includes teaching virtual courses, using technology virtually represents a new skill set. Building skills face-to-face or virtually involves building shared knowledge and should not be done alone. All teachers should have a collaborative team where they can learn, be vulnerable, and share new ideas, applications, tools, and materials. However, it will take more than just assigning teachers to teams to realize the results of true collaboration. Leadership must make sure there is a team meeting schedule, through which all members attend and actively participate in skill-building exercises.

Creating virtual collaboration schedules for team meetings is a non-negotiable schoolwide necessity. The virtual collaboration schedule guarantees faculty will have dedicated

©2022 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

Flexible

18

The Three Big Ideas

19

time to meet with their content and grade-level teams, guiding coalition, RTI team, attendance team, behavior team, and other teams as necessary to address specific issues as the year progresses.

• Routines—Having friendly and consistent processes in place for learning, management, and student behavior • Rituals—Designing processes, ceremonies, and celebrations to help students feel valued and special • Relationships—Developing and nurturing positive relationships with students in the school and classroom • Regulation—Providing processes and strategies to help students productively cope with, de-escalate, or let go of the emotions associated with the trauma or traumatic situations they are experiencing so these emotions don’t negatively impact learning (p. 55)

When a team identifies new practices, all members should pilot the new methods in their own virtual class settings and discuss their experiences with the team. All faculty will benefit when teams make recommendations for professional development of the newly acquired skills. Teachers benefit by learning from peers; a highly skilled team is the perfect solution to provide professional development for the school or even the district.

The guiding coalition can reinforce learning and build teams’ capacity by establishing structures for all team members to learn new skills and commit to those skills. These structures must guarantee teams will have scheduled meetings to obtain the desired levels of commitment. As part of these structures, all virtual or in-person team meetings must have agendas, notes, and action plans focused on measurable school- and team-level goals.

The established schedule must become sacred and not be interrupted. Designated team meetings cannot be randomly interrupted by parent meetings, requests to attend special education meetings, pre- and postobservation meetings, and so on. Teachers’ collaboration time should remain centered on achieving team goals; clarifying essential learner outcomes;

©2022 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

Teachers working virtually with their students will focus their Creating virtual team’s collaborative efforts on effective virtual practices for reccollaboration schedules ognizing students’ social and emotional well-being, checking for for team meetings understanding, assessing student learning, and engaging students is a non-negotiable as their learning progresses. For years teachers have been buildschoolwide necessity. ing awareness of the importance of students’ social and emotional well-being, and under certain circumstances collaborative teams should discuss virtual classroom methods to include practices and routines that will provide trauma-sensitive learning environments for students. John F. Eller and Tom Hierck (2021) discuss classroom practices to create trauma-sensitive classrooms in their book Trauma-Sensitive Instruction: Creating a Safe and Predictable Classroom Environment. The practices they suggest are applicable in virtual settings as well as in face-to-face environments but must be very intentional to stage trauma-sensitive virtual instructional environments; the collaborative team should discuss specific methods of set-up and delivery to provide consistency in the team’s virtual classrooms. Examples of these practices include:

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developing, administering, and analyzing data from team-developed common assessments; and planning support and extension sessions for students based on the assessment results.

Expecting teachers to use the collaboration time for other purposes will send mixed messages about the value and intention of the designated collaboration time.

A collaborative team focuses on achieving goals that the members cannot achieve when they work in isolation. Working independently and without collaboration in a virtual environment can cause a sense of isolation. Setting the expectation that Virtual teams should all members will be contributing to their team demonstrates that expect explicit guidance their team values and needs them. And engaging all members will on the expected outcomes help combat unintended feelings of isolation for faculty residing in of their team meetings. virtual work environments. Establishing collaborative efforts that focus on learning takes practice and patience; it also requires self-discipline as teachers labor with each other on developing team and individual professional skills.

Virtual schools offering off-campus instruction every day still need a structured schedule for teachers to meet. To set this up, identify specific days and hours of synchronous instruction (online, real-time interaction with the teacher) and asynchronous instruction (online, not-real-time interaction with the teacher). This provides time slots for collaborative teams to meet during asynchronous hours of instruction.

The partial virtual schedule in figure 1.2 is another example of providing collaboration time for all teams. When Herndon Middle School in Fairfax County, Virginia, was 100 percent virtual, the students received synchronous when teachers are not in collaborative team meetings and asynchronous learning when teachers are collaborating at different times during different days. The partial schedule demonstrates how schools can allocate time for collaboration when they shift from an on-site, face-to-face school to a 100 percent virtual school. Although this is a secondary example, an elementary school can apply the same strategy by identifying specific blocks when collaborative teams can meet while students are working with other teachers or engaged in asynchronous learning.

At this school, each core and elective department team has a common block of time without student responsibilities on synchronous and asynchronous days. Each team also has a designated instructional coach and administrator who joins in during Monday team time as the team focuses on data and progress monitoring.

Both the schedules (figures 1.1 and 1.2) maintain quality collaboration time for teachers who teach virtually and who, without dedicated collaboration time, would be left to their own devices while navigating the shift from face-to-face teaching and learning to virtual teaching and learning. Table 1.2 (page 22) includes suggestions to establish the framework for virtual collaboration. See the reproducible “Virtual Action Planner for Supporting a Virtual Collaborative Culture” on page 127 to plan this work.

©2022 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

Virtual collaboration time carries the same level of importance as face-to-face collaboration. Virtual teams should expect explicit guidance on the expected outcomes of their team meetings. Collaborative teams need to know what to do when they meet, and know they will receive administrative support and oversight as needed.

5 6 1 1 7 2 3 3 5 8

English 8

Beginning English

Mathematics 7

Mathematics 7 Honors

Prealgebra

Algebra or Algebra Honors

U.S. History 7

Civics

Science 7

Science 8

Wednesday, 12:55–2:15 p.m.

Tuesday, 11:20 a.m.–12:40 p.m.

Tuesday, 9:05–10:25 a.m.

Thursday, 9:05–10:25 a.m.

Wednesday, 7:30–8:50 a.m.

Tuesday, 12:55–2:15 p.m.

Thursday, 7:30–8:50 a.m.

Tuesday, 7:30–8:50 a.m.

Friday, 11:20 a.m.–12:40 p.m.

Tuesday, 11:20 a.m.–12:40 p.m.

Wednesday, 11:20 a.m.–12:40 p.m.

*Eighty minutes

Weekly CLT Time

Asynchronous Learning Day

Monday, 1:30–2:30 p.m.

Monday, 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.

Monday, 1:30–2:30 p.m.

Monday, 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.

Monday, 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.

Monday, 1:30–2:30 p.m.

Monday, 12:30–1:30 p.m.

Monday, 2:30–3:30 p.m.

Monday, 12:30–1:30 p.m.

Monday, 1:30–2:30 p.m.

Monday, 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.

*Sixty minutes

Monday Data- or ProgressMonitoring Team Time

©2022 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

Figure 1.2: Herndon Middle School virtual instruction collaboration schedule, 2020–2021.

Source: Tracy Bromberg, assistant principal, Herndon Middle School, Fairfax County, Virginia. Used with permission.

6

Period Off

Synchronous Learning Days

English 7

Collaborative Teams and Elective Department

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Table 1.2: Supporting a Collaborative Culture Virtually What and Why A schedule that includes collaboration time: A schedule for collaboration is needed for teachers to work as a team to achieve their team goals.

How

Virtual Practices and Technology Tools

Design the master schedule to provide common planning time by pairing grade-level teams, content teams, or both during the contract day.

Schedule at least fifty minutes of common planning time a week during the contract day.

Inform teachers their students will learn asynchronously during that time.

Inform students their teachers will not be available online during the dedicated times.

Stagger the team meeting times to allow opportunities for others to be available to support the teams (instructional coaches, administration, peers, professional developers, and so on).

Use the school’s preferred virtual meeting platform for team meetings; this will develop virtual application skills.

Virtual meeting platforms may include Zoom, Google Meet, Blackboard, Skype, and so on.

Clarity regarding product outcomes: Teams need clear expectations of team time to prevent distractions from derailing their efforts. This clarity for collaborative teams is paramount.

Tangible outcomes can be used as anchors for team efforts. Products provide evidence of the team efforts and can be monitored.

Work with the guiding coalition to develop a list of products teams will develop.

Create a calendar of when the products are due; make the events cyclical.

Share quality team-built products as examples for other teams.

Recognize high-performing teams, and provide support for struggling teams.

Virtually meet with the guiding coalition, and build consensus on team products teams will develop during the collaboration time, for example: 1. Identifying essential learner outcomes for an upcoming unit.

2. Developing assessments aligned to the essential learner outcomes for the upcoming unit.

3. Conducting data analysis of assessment results of the current unit.

4. Identifying students for skill-building and extension sessions during the current unit.

5. Developing unit plans.

6. Embedding professional development.

Hold a virtual faculty meeting, and clarify expected outcomes of specific team meetings.

Provide a cyclical schedule for each product.

©2022 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

Professionals will develop their skills when they have time to collaborate during the contract day with other professionals in job-alike positions.

Inform teachers of their collaboration time to meet.

The Three Big Ideas

Use of team time: It’s important to share with faculty things that they shouldn’t do with collaboration time. Some faculty will need examples of specific work that is not to be done during collaboration time.

Team statement of purpose: All teams need absolute clarity on the purpose of their team, their collaboration time, and what being a member of that team means.

Teams that develop their own statement of purpose will be more committed to that purpose than teams that are assigned it by administration.

A statement of purpose will provide clarity on the type of work the team will commit to as the year progresses.

During the previously mentioned faculty meeting, set up virtual breakout rooms, and assign four to five faculty members to each room.

At a faculty meeting, share examples, and ask for other examples from teams. Have teams create lists of items they can commit to not do during team time.

Reconvene all faculty in one virtual setting; have groups post suggestions on a virtual board everyone can see.

Provide five minutes for each group to identify examples of what it will not do during collaboration.

Software: Zoom, Google Meet, Google Docs, or Google Jamboard

Items to avoid include completing paperwork, prepping field trips, fundraising, collecting information, filling out leave slips, and so on.

Before the first faculty meeting, set up a meeting with the guiding coalition.

Review the three big ideas, four pillars, and four critical questions.

With that information in mind, have the guiding coalition members develop a purpose statement for the guiding coalition.

In a beginning-of-the-year faculty meeting, share the guiding coalition’s purpose, and have all teams develop a statement of purpose that defines their team’s existence.

A team of teachers’ purpose must be related to a focus on learning (the first big idea) for all students the team serves.

Schedule a virtual guiding coalition meeting. Review the three big ideas, four pillars, and four critical questions with the guiding coalition.

Have all members post a one-sentence purpose statement for the guiding coalition on a hosted document.

Review all contributions with the guiding coalition members, and build consensus on the purpose of the guiding coalition.

Share the purpose of the guiding coalition with all faculty.

Guiding coalition members each repeat the process with their teams in a virtual meeting.

Post all team purpose statements on a shared drive, and have teams reaffirm or revise them each year.

Software: Zoom, Google Meet, Google Docs, or Word Cloud in Mentimeter

continued

©2022 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

Being concise will help prevent the need for further clarification as the year progresses. Sharing good and bad examples of team efforts will provide clarity.

Work with the guiding coalition to identify things that should not take place during collaboration time.

The guiding coalition members should solicit ideas from their teams.

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What and Why

Some teams need more behavior norms, some need more process norms, but all teams need to document and follow their norms.

Virtual Practices and Technology Tools

Meet with the guiding coalition, and discuss the need for team norms.

During a virtual guiding coalition meeting, discuss the need for team norms.

Share examples of behavior and process norms.

Ask coalition members to write one norm to guard against negative experiences, such as off-topic discussions, and one norm to protect positive meeting attributes, such as an agenda for each meeting. Agree on guiding coalition norms.

Ask guiding coalition members to write one norm to guard against negative experiences, such as off-topic discussions, and one norm to protect positive meeting attributes, such as an agenda for each meeting.

Review and reach consensus on three to five norms, and share them with the rest of the school as examples.

Have guiding coalition members repeat the process with their respective teams.

Administrative attendance: Teacher teams need to know when they can count on seeing their administrators in their team meetings to reflect with them, gain support, and get ideas.

Schedule a meeting with the administrative team to discuss teacher team supervisory assignments.

The work of teacher teams is complex and may involve more school-based resources or people than the teams can access.

Administration has full access to all resources on campus and has the authority to realign resources when necessary and appropriate.

Each administrator sets a schedule to join the teams’ meetings at least once a month.

As evenly as possible, divide team supervision among the administrative team.

Schedule a virtual faculty meeting; inform the faculty this meeting will focus on the development of team norms.

Explain the purpose of norms, and share the norms for the guiding coalition.

Use breakout rooms for the different teacher teams to create their norms.

Have each team post its norms on a Padlet board so other teams can see them.

Software: Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, Padlet, or Google Docs Schedule a virtual administrative team meeting, and designate team supervisory assignments.

Have all teacher teams submit meeting URLs one week in advance to administration.

Provide each teacher team with a schedule of administrator visits.

Inform teacher teams that administration is not joining the meetings to conduct administrative business or take over the meetings. Administration will be present to learn with the team, respond to questions, and provide resources as requested and available.

©2022 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

Team norms: Team norms must be tailored to match the needs of the collaborative team. Team commitment to the norms will increase when all members are included in the identification process.

Team norms guide how the members will conduct team business.

How

The Three Big Ideas

Protection of team time: Allowing team time to be interrupted signals that other things are more important than the work of the collaborative team. Teams need to see a conscious effort to protect the time and make it sacred.

Inform all faculty that any disruptions of collaborative team time must come through the administrative team.

Set the tone of the value of collaboration time at the beginning of the year. Ask teams to inform the principal when their time has been interrupted by school operations and other things.

Administrators commit to the faculty that they guarantee team time will not be interrupted.

Occasionally send a survey to all faculty regarding collaboration interruptions.

Share the data, and if there are interruptions, address the specific cause.

Long-range schedule of team meetings: Teams need to know their schedules well in advance so they can avoid setting appointments that conflict with their team time.

Administration needs to know when and where teams are meeting.

Some teams will require more administrative support than others; administration must commit to provide that support.

Other faculty (special education teachers, coaches, and so on) may need to join content or grade-level teams and will need the teams’ schedules as well.

Maintain a schedule of all team meeting times and locations for at least one month in advance; a year in advance is preferred.

Create an online team meeting schedule, and share the schedule with all affected teams.

The schedule calendar should include dates and times.

Request that all teams submit their online team meeting links to administration one month in advance.

©2022 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

Software: School-based email system, Google Forms or Microsoft Forms for surveys

When a school takes team time seriously, it supports team members’ using the dedicated time professionally because they know the time has been guaranteed for them.

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Big Idea 3: A Results Orientation

SMART Goals at the District, School, and Teacher Team Levels

Schools must have goals to monitor their data. Successful schools use strategic and specific, measurable, attainable, results oriented, and time bound (SMART) goals at the beginning of the year and throughout the year to keep efforts focused and to keep sight of what the community expects schools to do: increase and maintain high levels of learning (Conzemius & O’Neill, 2014). Communities expect their schools to be successful, and schools use their results to demonstrate success.

In addition to creating SMART goals, schools and teams often create process goals.

Process goals are not SMART goals; they do not meet the criteria. Rather, process goals must be established to eventually achieve a SMART goal. Table 1.3 defines the SMART goal criteria and how process goals relate to SMART goals.

SMART goals focused on student achievement are non-negotiable expectations in a PLC. When teams are challenged with new instructional environments, virtual synchronous and asynchronous, they may be tempted to skip the goal-development process. Developing goals provides face-to-face and virtual teams with focus. Having goals that require all members of the team to work interdependently is what brings the team members together as a team. Goals provide members of a team a common focal point, not having common goals will support isolated efforts of each member, while each team member will naturally work very hard, the isolated efforts will be the enemy of achieving common goals. In both environments, the focus of schoolwide data typically includes high-stakes assessments, benchmark assessments, and behavioral data. These data provide extremely important information to create schoolwide SMART goals. Individual teacher data and team data are equally important when aligned to the school goals; these data may include common formative and summative assessment results, or a team may include results based on things

©2022 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

The third big idea is that educators in a PLC focus on results—evidence of student learning. “They then use that evidence of learning to inform and improve their professional practice and respond to individual students who need intervention or enrichment” (DuFour et al., p. 12). Results can come from a variety of data—from individual teacher and student performance results to international test results. Examining results can feel as vast as looking at curriculum; with curriculum, there is too much to cover within the given time frame, and with results, there are too many to address at once. Trying to improve all results at once can distract from improving a school’s performance. Therefore, just as collaborative teams need to narrow the curriculum to target the most important parts to learn, a school must narrow results to what the school has the greatest impact effecting, school improvement and student learning. Targeting the focus on a few of the most important results provides the foundation to develop SMART goals that are aligned to district-, school-, and team-level goals. Goal development efforts must be scaled from large district or state goals down to teacher and even individual student-level goals to ensure everyone is working on a goal of which they can influence.

The Three Big Ideas

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Table 1.3: SMART Goals and Process Goals SMART Goal Criteria

Process Goal Details Often, a process or task is performed to achieve a SMART goal; the process goal is part of the work plan to achieve the SMART goal.

Measurable: The SMART goal is developed to improve a baseline measurement. School SMART goals often measure student achievement.

A process goal is difficult to measure because it focuses on something to be done, often without specifying a way to measure the process.

Attainable: Attainability must be determined by the faculty members responsible for achieving the SMART goal.

Faculty are not usually asked if they can attain or accomplish a process; instead, training takes place, deadlines are established for products or a process, and everyone is expected to complete the expected outcomes on schedule.

Results oriented: To claim that a SMART goal has been achieved, the results must be compared to the measurement used to write the goal.

A process goal doesn’t have results tied to it; the results of a SMART goal would demonstrate if the goal was achieved.

Time bound: A SMART goal must have a timeline of when it will be accomplished. Stateor province-level SMART goals often have a yearlong timeline, whereas teacher SMART goals may have a two-week timeline for completion.

Process goals may have timelines for application, but without the other components of SMART, they do not meet the criteria of SMART goals.

like homework and culminating project completion. Achieving SMART goals in a virtual environment requires very different processes to achieve the goals from the processes in a face-to-face environment. We will cover that in greater detail in later chapters.

Virtual or not, districts and schools need SMART goals. The larger the organization, the broader the district goal (Conzemius & O’Neill, 2014). Broad goals, such as the district-level goal mentioned in Table 1.4 (page 28) must be concise enough to provide schools and collaborative teams with enough information to develop school-based supporting goals. District-level SMART goals must also be far-reaching or broad enough that all schools and teams in different content areas and grade levels can support them. Achieving team-level goals aligned to school or district goals will require an interdependence among team members. Individual team members also need goals that support their team goals.

Goals provide members of a team a common focal point, not having common goals will support isolated efforts of each member, while each team member will naturally work very hard, the isolated efforts will be the enemy of achieving common goals.

Goal Alignment at the District, School, and Teacher Team Levels

Aligning goals of the district, school, teams, and team members is of paramount importance. It allows all members to contribute to the betterment of the larger organization.

Table 1.4 features examples of what goals at each level look like when they are aligned across the schools in a district.

©2022 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

Specific and strategic: The SMART goal focuses on something specific and is aligned to an overarching goal.

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Table 1.4: SMART Goal Alignment Districtwide Level

Focus

Sample Goal

All students in the school district

By the end of the year, all students will demonstrate proficiency or above in mathematics on the state or provincial assessment.

School

All students in the school

By the end of the year, all students in grades 6–8 will score proficient or above in mathematics on the state or provincial assessment.

Team-Unit

All students the team supports

All sixth-grade students will achieve 80 percent or higher on the team’s mathematics unit assessment.

Teacher-Student

All students of one teacher

All students will demonstrate proficiency or higher on the mathematics formative assessment.

Notice how each goal supports the goal before it and how each level down from the top has a more targeted focus on fewer students and less curriculum. In this example, the district expects an increase in student performance in mathematics in all grade levels served by that district. The school goal focuses on all grade levels served by that school, the team goal focuses on a common unit of mathematics and affects learning for all students served by that team, and the teacher goal is particularly focused on the students in that teacher’s class. Another row could be added to table 1.4 to include a SMART goal for each student. With the teacher’s guidance each student would develop a goal for him- or herself and a work plan to achieve the goal. Although student-level goals are great practice, we recommend developing the district, school, team, and teacher goals first. Establishing and focusing on SMART goals provides clarity at each level of the institution and a method to measure performance and growth.

Figure 1.3 illustrates how a school focused on achieving district, state, or provincial goals will align all school-based goals to the overarching end-of-year SMART goal (a goal to measure performance of a content area, often based on high-stakes test results). Many schools use benchmarking systems to monitor student performance throughout the year. In this example the benchmark goals (goals used to measure levels of student learning of multiple standards as the year progresses) are aligned to the end-of-year SMART goal. To prepare students for success on the benchmark assessments, teams develop essential standard units and unit assessments focused on essential standards that align with the upcoming benchmark assessment. The team develops unit goals for each essential unit of instruction (a goal focused on a specific essential standard or standards within the unit of instruction).

Within each essential standard unit of instruction there are several essential learning targets for students to learn. When students meet the teacher’s essential learning target goals (goals focused on specific learning targets that fall within the essential standard) they are predicted to demonstrate success of the unit goals.

Collaborative teacher teams consider multiple aspects of student data; however, the law of subsidiarity reinforces the need to narrow and prioritize the team’s focus to student data that is aligned to the overarching goals that must be aligned to the guaranteed and viable

©2022 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

District

Benchmark Goal 4

Benchmark Goal 3

Team Essential Standards Unit Goal 8

Team Essential Standards Unit Goal 7

Team Essential Standards Unit Goal 6

Team Essential Standards Unit Goal 5

Team Essential Standards Unit Goal 4

Team Essential Standards Unit Goal 3

Team Essential Standards Unit Goal 2

Teacher Essential Targets Goal 16

Teacher Essential Targets Goal 15

Teacher Essential Targets Goal 14

Teacher Essential Targets Goal 13

Teacher Essential Targets Goal 12

Teacher Essential Targets Goal 11

Teacher Essential Targets Goal 10

Teacher Essential Targets Goal 9

Teacher Essential Targets Goal 8

Teacher Essential Targets Goal 7

Teacher Essential Targets Goal 6

Teacher Essential Targets Goal 5

Teacher Essential Targets Goal 4

Teacher Essential Targets Goal 3

Teacher Essential Targets Goal 2

Teacher Essential Targets Goal 1

©2022 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

Figure 1.3: Benchmarking system for SMART goal alignment.

Endof-Year SMART Goal

Benchmark Goal 2

Benchmark Goal 1

Team Essential Standards Unit Goal 1

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learning taking place in face-to-face and virtual classrooms. When creating action-oriented, results-based goals, teams will benefit from the following considerations.

• What type of data will the team explore to develop an adequate SMART goal? National? State or provincial? Departmental or grade level? Classroom?

• Which data set will have the greatest impact on the team goal?

• Which data do the team control?

Once teacher teams collaboratively develop SMART goals, making commitments to achieve the goals is their next order of business. When administration requires teams to identify and commit to expectations without goals, teachers will develop behaviors focused on their interpretation of what administration wants, and not necessarily keep their efforts focused on the right work of increasing student learning. To obtain buy-in and commitment, stakeholders need to be part of clarifying the process and know they are committing to things for the good of the organization, not the administration or powers that be.

Administrators come and go; the organization and process is the constant—even when the structure and delivery systems of instruction has changed.

At the school level, sharing raw data with faculty is important to help everyone see the big picture, but raw data are typically in a report, PDF, or spreadsheet document, making the data difficult to interpret. And most often, these reports do not To obtain buy-in and include student identification, which is needed to track progress commitment, stakeholders and focus available resources. Developing graphics from spreadsheet need to be part of data will make it easier and quicker to interpret. Visual displays of clarifying the process and data will give the data’s message a greater impact than lists of numknow they are committing bers. Once the data is in an easy to interpret and digital format for to things for the good virtual sharing it can be shared and discussed in virtual team meetof the organization, ings, virtual breakout rooms, and individually better than a reprenot the administration sentation on chart paper shared by aiming a camera at the chart. As or powers that be. an example, figure 1.4 shows how raw data from a standardized test Administrators come and could be converted into a pie chart. go; the organization and process is the constant— even when the structure and delivery systems of instruction has changed.

Results-oriented schools first use broad reviews of data, then drill down to specifics and develop goals and action plans to increase performance. Face-to-face and virtual collaborative teams disaggregate data down to grade levels, courses, content, individual teachers, and students; all these descriptors are necessary to develop targeted plans of action. When broad performance data are referenced, all teachers must have access to their students’ and their team’s data.

Depending on the team’s needs, results specific to a virtual environment could focus on the number of students with technology to connect virtually, virtual attendance in routine classes, virtual attendance in skill-building sessions, lacking or inappropriate virtual class

©2022 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

The appendix contains a “Virtual Team SMART Goal Worksheet” (page 132) that can guide teams’ conversations in the development of team SMART goals.

The Three Big Ideas

31

Raw Data: Eighth-Grade Standardized Mathematics Test

Total Count

Fail

Pass

Pass Advanced

Fail Percentage

Pass Percentage

128

220

46

32.00%

68.00%

Pie Chart: Eighth-Grade Standardized Mathematics Test Results

68%

Pass rate

Fail rate

Figure 1.4: Eighth-grade standardized mathematics test results.

participation, online academic behaviors, using the technology for things not focused on or supporting the intended learner outcomes for the day, and so on. Results should focus on student learning and behaviors that interfere with learning because a focus on learning is the first big idea of a PLC and remains at the forefront of the team’s efforts.

Table 1.5 (page 32) outlines ways to focus on results in virtual and hybrid schooling.

A focus on results must be modeled and constantly reinforced. See the reproducible “Virtual Action Planner for Supporting a Virtual Results Orientation” on page 134 to plan this work.

The three big ideas drive the PLC process. As teachers are learning to navigate the demands of virtual education and software applications and platforms to deliver that education, they may have a tendency to ignore the value and focus on the three big ideas. If at any point face-to-face or virtual members of the school are unable to connect their current efforts and action plans with at least one of the three big ideas, they should ask the questions, “Why are we doing this?” and “Will doing this lead to higher levels of learning for our students?” (Mattos et al., 2016, p. 7). When they have lost focus on the three big ideas, teams can easily exhaust their energies on tasks and conversations that will not impact student learning. Big idea one, a focus on learning, must stay at the forefront; it’s the first big idea and it will consume the most energy and resources to support. The second big idea, creating a collaborative culture with collective commitments, supports the first big idea. If teams do not focus on it, collaboration and the outcomes of learning will be scattered at best. The successes of a focus on learning are identified by big idea 3, a results orientation, using the results to determine the level of success. Virtual teams, carry the three big ideas as an umbrella over the rest of their efforts, if those efforts are not connected to the three big ideas the team will likely not see a level of success balanced with the level of their effort.

©2022 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

32%

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Table 1.5: Supporting a Results Orientation in a Virtual Environment What and Why

Schedule a meeting with the guiding coalition to review the schoolwide data that often come from the state, province, or district.

Identify which data to share with all faculty.

Discuss the need for a schoolwide strategic plan to improve the school’s results.

Schedule a faculty meeting, share the data, and provide each team with data that are specific to their team and what their team can affect.

Comparison of results: Comparing results with other schools of similar demographics in the state or province is useful to find a network of professionals with common needs.

Modeling this at the administrative level is important because it shows teachers how they are expected to compare their teamdeveloped assessment results with other teachers to develop a plan to improve the results.

With the guiding coalition, explore the results of other schools; list the schools in ranking order, and contact the better performers.

Disaggregation of results: Disaggregating the results is necessary to develop targeted action plans that address specific needs.

As an example, the data may indicate certain subgroups of students need more attention than others.

Narrow the results to specific areas and students that can be addressed at the team level.

Share the data with the rest of the school; use the results to encourage, not discourage.

Virtual Practices and Technology Tools Create a virtual classroom called Results. Invite all faculty to the class as done with students.

Easy-to-follow instructions for creating a virtual classroom can be found by searching YouTube for “setting up a Google Classroom.”

Schedule a virtual faculty meeting in the Results class.

Present schoolwide and team-level data.

Assign each team to breakout rooms or team sessions; ask all teams to review the data and discuss how their team can affect the data.

Have all teams share their plans with the rest of the school.

Software: Google Classroom, Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint or Google Sheets and Google Slides

Engage the guiding coalition in finding better performing schools. Create an online document to list the schools ranked by performance and contact the higher performing schools to gain ideas and strategies for improvement.

Using the virtual classroom, hold a class session on specific areas for improvement and how far the results must improve to move the school to the next ranked level. Solicit input about necessary steps to increase improvement and offer the suggestions from the other schools.

Depending on how the state or province measures success, there may be an abundance of things to consider. The guiding coalition’s identifying what’s essential to be addressed will be a critical step to building consensus on schoolwide goals.

Using spreadsheet software, capture the data with individual columns of student performance by grade, content, subgroup, and so on.

Using the different criteria, narrow the results to specific areas and students that can be addressed at the team level.

©2022 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

Presentation of data: Presenting data must first occur at the school level. The data are necessary to establish measurable schoolwide goals that include all stakeholders.

How

The Three Big Ideas

At faculty meetings, have different teams present their team-level data and action plans for improvement.

During sessions in the virtual Results class, have teams present and post their results and action plans; all teams should contribute as the year progresses.

Celebration of results: Every time there is growth, a celebration is necessary. This helps all stakeholders see what leadership celebrates and will make celebrations of results more likely to happen at the team and classroom levels.

Celebrate results in leadership and faculty meetings; share the celebrations with the district too.

At a virtual faculty meeting or in the virtual Results class, celebrate state or provincial and districtwide achievement results. Create graphics to present the data. Celebrate the gains, and focus on the areas for growth in preand postassessments, attendance, behavior, and so on. Send the virtual meeting links to central-office staff, and ask them to attend and say a few words to boost morale and show appreciation for the hard and successful work.

SMART goals: These goals are necessary at all levels. They provide metrics to show areas of growth and areas of need.

Once teams identify their areas of focus, share the worksheet for SMART goal development (page 127) with them. Start with school goals, and then move to team goals and then teacherlevel goals.

Use the virtual Results classroom to teach all teachers about SMART goals. Have all teams use the SMART goal development worksheet (page 127) to create SMART goals aligned to one or more school goals, and have each teacher create SMART goals aligned to team goals.

Coaching Tips for Virtual Application School leaders should focus on the following nine tips as they expand their focus in support of the three big ideas of a PLC in a virtual environment. These tips are a starting point for school leaders as they continue to guide their school or district PLC journey.

1. Help all faculty know and understand the three big ideas of a PLC. 2. Assign all teachers to meaningful collaborative teams.

3. Have collaborative teams determine observable behaviors they can commit to for each of the three big ideas, and have the teams list the behaviors on a shared document the whole school can see.

4. Create a master schedule that builds in frequent and protected collaboration time for all teachers (at least fifty minutes a week).

5. Clarify how collaboration time will be used; provide a sequence of events and expected outcomes.

6. Create a virtual classroom called Results for all faculty. Build results-based lessons for faculty to learn how to use results and write SMART goals.

©2022 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

Sharing of results: Sharing results is critical to model results transparency; this way, all faculty can see and agree on the applicability of their efforts.

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V I R T UA L P LC s AT W O R K ®

7.

Meet with teams virtually to develop SMART goals for the school. Share the long-term goals through online documents. Ask teams to post their teamlevel SMART goals online for others to see. It takes several short-term goals to achieve the long-term goals.

8.

Present data to all faculty; start at the school or district level, and share examples down to the student level.

9.

Set up celebrations to honor growth and achievement.

©2022 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

Virtual PLCs AT WORK

“The shift to a virtual world was accelerated—not created—by the COVID19 pandemic. While some educators might hope for things to get back to ‘business as usual,’ working virtually has become the usual way we do business. This means if our students are going to learn the skills and behaviors needed to succeed in a virtual world, then educators must continue to develop the skills needed to teach, collaborate, and excel in this space. That is the purpose of this outstanding book!”

—From the foreword by MIKE MATTOS

“This accessible and adaptable book is both timely and timeless; it addresses what educational leaders need to know for the difficult pivots during the

• Understand the PLC process and how to implement it in virtual and hybrid environments

COVID-19 pandemic and provides a

• Discover how to develop and maintain an ideal school culture virtually

engine of improvement regardless of

• Implement and enhance virtual teacher collaboration and student learning

— ANTHONY GRAZZINI, Director of Grants and Accountability, Cicero School District 99, Illinois

laborative teams can continue to be the

DENNIS KING

• Lead a virtual PLC to greatness

foundation that demonstrates how col-

setting—in person, hybrid, or virtual.”

• Find many reproducible virtual action-planning documents to support their work ISBN 978-1-952812-65-1 90000

SolutionTree.com

Visit go.SolutionTree.com/PLCbooks to download the free reproducibles in this book.

PA U L C . FA R M E R

K–12 school leaders and teacher leaders will:

®

W

ith education evolving beyond the four walls of a classroom, authors Paul C. Farmer and Dennis King want to ensure the Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) at Work® process will evolve right along with it.

PLCs provide the best possible environment for student learning and growth, but the need for virtual and hybrid classrooms has made it challenging for some PLCs to thrive. In Virtual PLCs at Work: A Guide to Effectively Implementing Online and Hybrid Teaching and Learning, Farmer and King have created a thorough guide for implementing the PLC process in virtual and hybrid classrooms.

They steer readers through creation and maintenance of school culture; teacher collaboration; instruction; assessment, intervention, and extension; and leadership in a virtual environment.

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