The Three Big Ideas and Your Virtual PLC

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. 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. 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 stability in unstable times. In most cases, schools now functioning virtually were face-to-face 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.

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).

Big Idea 1: A Focus on Learning

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).

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 to support students with tailored instruction to meet their diversified A virtual PLC should needs. There will be cases when teachers cannot achieve desired learnnot focus on how ing levels for all students, and that’s when the value of collective teachers teach in a responsibility and a collaborative culture (the second big idea) pay off, virtual setting; it should bringing all the team members’ skills together to ensure students focus on what students learn the guaranteed and viable curriculum. learn in that setting.

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.

Table 1.1: Supporting a Focus on Learning Virtually

What and Why How

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

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 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

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. 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

Fixed

8:00–10:00 a.m.

10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.

12:00–12:30 p.m.

12:30–1:30 p.m. Collaboration

Professional development

Lunch

Building meetings

Flexible

1 hour

2 hours Prep

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

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.

Teachers working virtually with their students will focus their team’s collaborative efforts on effective virtual practices for recognizing students’ social and emotional well-being, checking for understanding, assessing student learning, and engaging students as their learning progresses. For years teachers have been building 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:

Creating virtual collaboration schedules for team meetings is a non-negotiable schoolwide necessity.

• 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;

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. 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. 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 expect explicit guidance on the expected outcomes of their team meetings. all members will be contributing to their team demonstrates that their team values and needs them. And engaging all members will help combat unintended feelings of isolation for faculty residing in 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.

Monday Data- or Progress- Monitoring Team Time *Sixty minutes

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. Monday, 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.

Asynchronous Learning Day Weekly CLT Time *Eighty minutes

Synchronous Learning Days Period Off

Wednesday, 11:20 a.m.–12:40 p.m.

Tuesday, 11:20 a.m.–12:40 p.m.

6 5 Friday, 11:20 a.m.–12:40 p.m.

6 Tuesday, 7:30–8:50 a.m.

1 Thursday, 7:30–8:50 a.m.

1 Tuesday, 12:55–2:15 p.m.

7 Wednesday, 7:30–8:50 a.m.

2

Collaborative Teams and Elective Department

English 7 English 8 Beginning English Mathematics 7 Mathematics 7 Honors Prealgebra Algebra or Algebra Honors Thursday, 9:05–10:25 a.m.

3

U.S. History 7 Monday, 1:30–2:30 p.m. Monday, 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Monday, 1:30–2:30 p.m.

Tuesday, 9:05–10:25 a.m. Tuesday, 11:20 a.m.–12:40 p.m. Wednesday, 12:55–2:15 p.m.

3 5 8

Civics Science 7 Science 8 Source: Tracy Bromberg, assistant principal, Herndon Middle School, Fairfax County, Virginia. Used with permission. Figure 1.2: Herndon Middle School virtual instruction collaboration schedule, 2020–2021.

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

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.

How

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

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.

Virtual Practices and Technology Tools

Schedule at least fifty minutes of common planning time a week during the contract day. Inform teachers of their collaboration time to meet. 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.

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.

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. 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.

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. 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. 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. 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. During the previously mentioned faculty meeting, set up virtual breakout rooms, and assign four to five faculty members to each room. Provide five minutes for each group to identify examples of what it will not do during collaboration. Reconvene all faculty in one virtual setting; have groups post suggestions on a virtual board everyone can see. Software: Zoom, Google Meet, Google Docs, or Google Jamboard

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

What and Why

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

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. 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.

How

Meet with the guiding coalition, and discuss the need for team norms. Share examples of behavior and process 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.

Schedule a meeting with the administrative team to discuss teacher team supervisory assignments. As evenly as possible, divide team supervision among the administrative team. Each administrator sets a schedule to join the teams’ meetings at least once a month.

Virtual Practices and Technology Tools

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

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. 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.

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. Inform all faculty that any disruptions of collaborative team time must come through the administrative team. Administrators commit to the faculty that they guarantee team time will not be interrupted. 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. Occasionally send a survey to all faculty regarding collaboration interruptions. Share the data, and if there are interruptions, address the specific cause. Software: School-based email system, Google Forms or Microsoft Forms for surveys

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.

Big Idea 3: A Results Orientation

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.

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

Table 1.3: SMART Goals and Process Goals

SMART Goal Criteria

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Table 1.4: SMART Goal Alignment Districtwide

Level

District

School

Focus

All students in the school district

All students in the school

Team-Unit All students the team supports

Teacher-Student All students of one teacher

Sample Goal

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

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.

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

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

Teacher Essential Targets Goal 1 Teacher Essential Targets Goal 2 Teacher Essential Targets Goal 3 Teacher Essential Targets Goal 4 Teacher Essential Targets Goal 5 Teacher Essential Targets Goal 6 Teacher Essential Targets Goal 7 Teacher Essential Targets Goal 8 Teacher Essential Targets Goal 9 Teacher Essential Targets Goal 10 Teacher Essential Targets Goal 11 Teacher Essential Targets Goal 12 Teacher Essential Targets Goal 13 Teacher Essential Targets Goal 14 Teacher Essential Targets Goal 15 Teacher Essential Targets Goal 16

Team Essential Standards Unit Goal 1 Team Essential Standards Unit Goal 2

Benchmark Goal 1 Team Essential Standards Unit Goal 3 Team Essential Standards Unit Goal 4 Team Essential Standards Unit Goal 5 Team Essential Standards Unit Goal 6

Benchmark Goal 2 Benchmark Goal 3

End- of-Year SMART Goal Team Essential Standards Unit Goal 7 Team Essential Standards Unit Goal 8

Benchmark Goal 4 Figure 1.3: Benchmarking system for SMART goal alignment.

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?

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

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 include student identification, which is needed to track progress and focus available resources. Developing graphics from spreadsheet data will make it easier and quicker to interpret. Visual displays of data will give the data’s message a greater impact than lists of numbers. Once the data is in an easy to interpret and digital format for virtual sharing it can be shared and discussed in virtual team meetings, virtual breakout rooms, and individually better than a representation on chart paper shared by aiming a camera at the chart. As an example, figure 1.4 shows how raw data from a standardized test could be converted into a pie chart. 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

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.

Raw Data: Eighth-Grade Standardized Mathematics Test

Fail Pass Pass Advanced Fail Percentage

Pass Percentage

Total Count 128 220 46 32.00% 68.00%

Pie Chart: Eighth-Grade Standardized Mathematics Test Results

32%

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.

Table 1.5: Supporting a Results Orientation in a Virtual Environment

What and Why

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.

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.

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.

How

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.

With the guiding coalition, explore the results of other schools; list the schools in ranking order, and contact the better performers. Share the data with the rest of the school; use the results to encourage, not discourage.

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

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.