GRADE LEVEL TEAMS AND DEPARTMENTS AS PLC'S

I am currently working with several schools in Lake County, Florida who are focused on using grade level teams and departments to create Professional Learning Communities, where teachers’ conversations can generate teacher professional development and increased student learning. Collegiality is the goal. The following quote from Roland Barth appeared in an interview in the Independent School Magazine.

Independent School: What does collegiality look like in a school?

Barth: By collegiality I mean four things. One, teachers talking with one another about the work they do -- talking in faculty meetings, in hallways, in classrooms, at the dinner table about practice. Second, sharing that craft knowledge, shouting it from the mountaintop, and honoring it when someone else is sharing it. Third, making our practice mutually visible. That is, you come into my classroom and watch me teach seventh-grade biology and I come into your classroom and watch you teach ninth-grade geometry, and, afterward, we talk about what we are doing and why, and what we can learn from each other. Above all, collegiality means rooting for the success of one another. If every adult in the school is rooting for you, when the alarm clock rings at six a.m., you jump out of bed to go to that school.
When these qualities of collegiality are in place, a lot of good things happen to schools, to kids, to teachers...

In my work with Lake County schools, I provided teachers and administrators with questions to guide their initial conversations as they presented student assessment data to their colleagues to seek insights and ideas for continued learning growth. Here are some examples for your exploration:

Looking at the results from my last assessment…

What is similar and different about the students’ performance?
Based on those results, who needs what as the next step?
What reteaching needs to be done and how would I teach it differently?
What options exist within my classroom to meet these steps?

What ideas, materials, centers, etc do my teammates have that could support the next steps for each learner?

Do teammates have students needing the same next steps? How might we work together?

BOYS-Effort-Achievement

While at the European International Schools Conference in Madrid, Spain., I had the opportunity to hear a presentation by Dr Michael Thompson, the author of Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys (1999) and The Pressured Child: Helping Your Child Achieve in School and in Life (with Teresa Barker, 2004).

After identifying that schools 25 years ago schools realized that girls were underachieving in math and science and purposely developed plans and changes that have greatly decreased that underperformance, Thompson challenged the educators to consider the need for something similar to address boys' underperformance in reading and writing today. (Some colleges are having difficulty maintaining enough male enrollments.)

He posed the following list of possible causes for that underperformance and then asked the audience to vote indicating what their thinking was as to the most impactful cause. Those of you who have read my book, Tapping Student Effort- Increasing Student Achievement will see why his list intrigued me….(my presentation on Tapping Effort was presented the next day):

1 There’s a better match between girls’ brains and school—or schools better adapt to girls’ brains.
2 Girls are given a more consistent, encouraging message to do well in school.
3 We are asking too little of boys- low expectations. [Problem boys get moved to special education.]
4. Schools are hostile environments for boys. [Cutting back on recess]
5.Teacher don’t know how to teach boys.
6. Boys live in a different academic culture and have a different strategy for doing school. [If I can work for an hour and get a B, why work for three to get an A?]
7 Boys don’t have the support they need from men.[35% of boys are raised without fathers]
8 There are more distractions in the lives of boys. [Internet offers adventure and competition.]
9. The lives of women and men have changed—we are in a transition culture (boys are in despair). [Maybe our messages to boys are unclear.]
10 Patriarchal attitudes of boys persist and handicap them. [Because I am a male, its okay not to do well in school.]

How would you vote?

PORTFOLIOS FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

I spent Thanksgiving in Madrid, Spain at the European Council of International Schools (ECIS) Conference. My two day pre–conference on mentoring and coaching was attended by international educators from around the world. They had various positions from headmaster and principals to department chair, lead teacher, and mentor or coach.

One group of participants were mentors for ECIS’s International Teaching Certificate (ITC) program. This program, designed with the University of Cambridge International Examinations, was designed to enable candidates to develop and demonstrate:
-Competence in teaching international students
-Commitment to continuing professional development reflective practice on personal performance

Those of you looking to design an alternative to teacher evaluation might find some ideas in the ITC format.

This year-plus program has candidates working with a mentor and completing a portfolio around five standard areas:

1. Education in an international context: The teachers design and run an extra-curricular activity, project, or event connecting with the host country's culture.

2. Teaching competencies for the international educator: Teachers plan, teach, and assess a short classroom based learning program with his/her students.

3. Teaching students for whom English is an additional language: The teachers design and conduct a workshop on the EAL learner.

4. Student transition and mobility in international schools: Teachers complete two case studies examining the experiences of two students in transition.

5. Reflective Practice Continuing Professional Development: Teachers complete, undertake, and reflect upon a personal professional development plan.

Portfolios are submitted for evaluation and necessary refinement leading to rewarding of the certificate. Several schools have begun professional development activities to assist teachers in preparing for the ITC.
I was intrigued by the variety of the portfolio activities to assess the key components.