Education
Episode 041: PLC Plus with Nancy Frey & Doug Fisher Join us for this discussion with the potent pair Doug Fisher & Nancy Frey! We learn about their new book, PLC+ and the five questions that get to the heart of what collaboration time should look like in schools. Stay tuned until the end for a special promo code for our listeners for the PLC+ Institutes the authors will be hosting in Colorado in October! Connect with Fisher & Frey Website: www.fisherandfrey.com/ | Twitter: @DFisherSDSU; @NancyFrey | Newest Book: PLC Plus, Corwin Press Connect with Vrain Waves Website: vrainwaves.com | Twitter: @VrainWaves | Becky Twitter: @BeckyEPeters | Ben Twitter: @mrkalb Links & Show Notes Out of Our Heads & Into the Classroom: (01:30) American Express: Simple Guide to Lean Meetings Robyn Jackson on weekly team meetings Have an agenda / protocol Techless meetings Pre-mortem from Daniel Pink Collaborative notes & DRIs Toby - Chrome Extension Introduction to Fisher & Frey & PLC Plus (08:12) Their School: Health Sciences High & Middle College in San Diego Questions: Where are we now? & the importance of pre-assessments Side note: common questions for PLC work come from DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many, 2010 as a PLC foundation: Learning by Doing: A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities at Work; we acknowledge this foundational work when discussing PLCs : What do we want students to learn? (essential standards) How will we know if they have learned? (team-developed common assessments) What will we do if they don’t learn? (systematic interventions) What will we do if they already know it? (extended learning) Collective Efficacy Graham Nuthall, Hidden Lives of Learners Students already know between 40-50 percent of what the teacher is teaching (Nuthall, 2007) Equity: Removal of Barriers vs. intervention as responses to student data Activator: Someone to guide the group What are PLCs getting wrong? (13:21) Emphasis on the structural conditions can overwhelm the focus and mission of the group PLC must continually reinvest in itself Lack of attention to instruction - “How do we move learning forward?” Literacy example (16:49) Curriculum / Instruction / Assessment Recent research that ~20% of in-class tasks are on grade level TNTP’s The Opportunity Myth - and an article from EdWeek PLC+ Protocol - Assignment analysis (from The Education Trust) (19:34) Equity in Motion work from The Education Trust Trust and the importance of Relational Conditions (21:18) Activator helps keep the conversation moving Protocols provide consistency PLC+ / PD (22:57) Roughly a 1 to 3 ratio - Full staff Professional learning to PLC+ Time Credibility & Efficacy (24:33) Teacher Credibility: Trust, Competence, Dynamism, Immediacy Self-Efficacy and Collective Efficacy (27:17) Albert Bandura’s research on self-efficacy - From Leading Impact Teams, by Bloomberg & Pitchford (& based on Bandura’s research, as well as Goddard, Hoy, & Hoy): Efficacy = Mastery Moments, Vicarious Experience, Feedback, and Trust “Where are we going?” and “Where are we now?” (31:08) 5 Questions in PLC+: Where are we going? Where are we now? How do we move learning forward? What did we learn today? Who benefited and who did not benefit? Bringing data to the PLC+ (33:22) Student feedback Equity / Cognitive Bias / The Decisions we choose to make: (35:52) Quote from PLC+: “Underlying every decision about what we choose to gather data on is an unspoken decision about what we won’t look at.” Data should be aligned to team’s common challenge; then did we impact learning or not? Invite students to PLC+ times for feedback Protocols for learning walks Microteaching protocols What did we learn today? Every single day we should be formatively assessing Scheduling logistics (44:56) Two PLC+s - Grade level & Content level Vertical & Horizontal conversations are necessary Grading at their school (48:19) Competency-Based / Mastery of Standards Formative homework & classwork All Learning is Social Emotional (50:41) Social Emotional Academic Learning Removing institutional barriers vs. Intervention (54:27) Support each learner individually - help them find a way to mastery Special offer for Vrain Waves Listeners!! (58:50) Promo Code: VRAINWAVES Go to corwin.com/PLCColorado to register; Oct 3 & 4 in Denver at the Curtis Hotel