Schools are brimming with talented teachers and brilliant ideas, but how can you bring those things together in a way that produces powerful change? Professional Learning Communities! By making time for teachers to work undistracted, side by side in collective teams during the day, you give teachers the precious time they need to examine data, identify students by name & need, and team-develop an impactful plan to help each student reach their maximum potential. It’s how you structure the schedule and provide the tools to support your PLCs, that you’ll move your teachers from simple compliance to total commitment. Let a PLC Coach…better yet, let a PLC Coach who is also a teacher show you how!

1. The PLC
Highway
A Roadmap for Why PLCs
Promote Powerful Change
in Schools

2. PLC Road Trip!
During today’s road-trip, we will:
 Learn how to create meaningful teacher teams in
their buildings and districts to help teachers move
from standard compliance to total commitment
 Understand the power of PLC teams through the
work they do together to improve student mastery
 Gain perspective on what a PLC is and what a PLC
is not and how this differentiation is important for
progress and accountability

3. From GPS to PLC
“One of the most powerful, high-leverage
strategies for improving student learning
available to schools is the creation of
frequent, high-quality common formative
assessments by teachers who are working
collaboratively to help a group of students
acquire agreed-upon knowledge and
skills.”
-Learning by Doing, 2010
collaboratively

4. How are you getting there?
“Indyvidual” Teachers PLC Teachers

5. “Indyvidual” Teachers
If your students aren’t
successful:
 Do you know why?
 Do you examine what
else you could have
tried?
 Do you reach out for
other ideas?
 Do you re-evaluate for
mastery?
 Do you have anyone to
lean on to help you
figure it out??

6. PLC Teachers
In the same “car” (subject area
PLCs) with the same information
(standards), we can find our
way!
We can:
 Compare data in a group to
find strengths and
weaknesses
 Determine best practices
based on data
 Share information to
improve student learning
 Change up
classes/students!
 Find alternate routes to
success!

7. PLC Teachers
“The best way to provide powerful
feedback to teachers that can improve
teaching and learning is through team-
developed AND team-analyzed common
formative assessments.”
Richard DuFour, 2010
In other words, we’re all using
the same GPS, headed to the
same destination!

8. But why do we all need the
same route?
 You are not expected to teach the same way that your
colleagues teach. As the old adage says,
“Not all teacher teach the same way and not all students
learn the same way.”
 But, every student must have access to the same
guaranteed and viable team-developed curriculum,
i.e. the same route, if we are going to have data that
will inform our team and thus, our instruction.
 Let’s take a look at why it is important to act upon the
data that you uncover you uncover in your PLCS…

9. Data-Driven Road Trip!
Teacher A
0 2 4 6
Student C
Student B
Student A Multiplying
Fractions
Adding Fractions
Teacher B
0 2 4 6
Student F
Student E
Student D Multiplying
Fractions
Adding Fractions

10. Quick Share:
 When you compare the students with those of
another teacher over the same
lesson/objectives, what can you determine
from the data?
 Answer: each teacher is really great at one of
the concepts…what could this do for student
mastery?? Team up for a power up!
 What kinds of conversations does this open up
in PLC about what we do with our “get-its”
and “don’t get-its yet” kids?

11. You are the GPS in your classroom…
But research supports that you can’t do it
alone:
“Teachers can give their same individual
assessments year after year, and thus have
longitudinal data. But unless they have a basis
for comparison, they cannot identify strengths
and weaknesses in their teaching, and they are
unable to determine if an area in which
students are struggling is a function of the
curriculum, their strategies, or their students.”
-Learning By Doing, 2010

12. How do we get there from here?
 Analyzing data as a team has to be a
purposeful choice in planning your instruction
and this is most effective when done in PLCs
because you have access to a comparison.
 Remember that it’s the data you get from
students AND take the time to examine that is
what “re-calculates” their route to success!
 If the data tells you to stop, backup, or
change your instruction, what would be the
effect of just continuing straight through?

13. “You have arrived.”
Remember:
 PLC Teachers exhibit more success with student
achievement than “Indyvidual” teachers.
 Schedules and tools must support these teacher
teams for the greatest impact!
 Data alone is not powerful. We must act upon it
using a comparison on team-developed and team-
analyzed parameters!
 Teachers must find timely protocols to desegregate
data and what works for their PLC and be supported
by each other and the admistration.
 You are not alone in guiding your students to
success…
“Members of a PLC realize that all of their efforts
must be assessed on the basis of results rather than
intentions.”
-Learning by Doing, 2010

14. Can you imagine…
What purposefully collaborative, time-
allowed, intensely driven teacher teams
could do at your school??