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PLC M A G A Z I N E Fall 2020

A N D S TAY I N G CONNECTED

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PLC M A G A Z I N E

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Features

BY TINA H. BOOGREN

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Self Care in the Time of COVID-19 Tina H. Boogren

In these unprecedented times, we educators must remain steady by taking care of ourselves first.

English Learners and Distance Learning

Brijana Anderson, Kimberley Mathews, Danielle Park, Katy Padilla, and Diane Kerr

s educators navigate these unprecedented times and ride the monumental waves of ever-changing protocols and regulations, we must be steady, sturdy, and able to remain standing when the world can feel like it’s falling apart all around us. How do we do that? By securing our own oxygen masks first. By taking care of ourselves—first, not as an afterthought. Right now, more than ever, the adults in our schools must feel stable and secure so that they can support their students and the school community through this global pandemic that no one prepared us for.

In my book Take Time for You: Self-Care Action Plans for Educators (Boogren, 2018), I explore Maslow’s (1943) Hierarchy of Needs as the framework for educator self-care and wellness. I use this as our foundation because it’s familiar and because it mirrors the foundation that we utilize for students, as outlined in Motivating and Inspiring Students: Strategies to Awaken the Learner (Marzano, Scott, Boogren, & Newcomb, 2017). Ensuring that each level of the hierarchy is solid for our students can only be accomplished if each level is solid for the educators first. Let’s review the levels and consider how the pandemic has potentially impacted each level and what we can do to find our footing once again.

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The five essentials for success.

Beyond the Bricks and Mortar: Belonging Timothy D. Kanold

How to create a culture of belonging in 2020.

PLCs in Higher Education

John Lando Carter, Kevin S. Krahenbuhl, and Heather K. Dillard Embracing the formative mindset.

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To o l s & R e s o u rc e s fo r I n s p i ra t i o n a n d E xce l l e n ce

First Thing

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The time is now for social and emotional learning.

FAQs about PLCs

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Distance teaming.

Legacy Thinking Meets NOW Classrooms

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Meg Ormiston illuminates the importance of forward-thinking.

Distance Learning

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An opportunity to strengthen our collaboration.

Case Study

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Losing one-third of the school year is unacceptable.

The Recommender

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Differentiating instruction in the time of COVID-19.

Research Report

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Vision-inspired employees will endure.

Why I Love PLCs The heart of our work.

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all things

PLC

First Thing The Time Is Now for

Social and Emotional Learning

M A G A Z I N E

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SOLUTION TREE: CEO Jeffrey C. Jones

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PRESIDENT Edmund M. Ackerman SOLUTION TREE PRESS:

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PRESIDENT & PUBLISHER Douglas M. Rife ART DIRECTOR Rian Anderson PAGE DESIGNERS Abigail Bowen, Laura Cox, Kelsey Hergül, Rian Anderson

AllThingsPLC (ISSN 2476-2571 [print], 2476-258X [Online]) is published four times a year by Solution Tree Press.

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 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Solution Tree, 555 North Morton Street, Bloomington, IN, 47404 Copyright © 2020 by Solution Tree Press

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AllThingsPLC Magazine/Fall 2020

Eric Twadell

I

suppose it would be a penetrating glimpse into the obvious to suggest that this is a school year like no other. Teachers throughout North America have been called to the Herculean task of educating students in the midst of a global pandemic. Whether a school has returned to full-time in-person instruction, a hybrid schedule, or remote learning, teachers and leaders are stepping up on behalf of our students in ways that we have never seen before. Thank you for all that you are doing on behalf of students!

At Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois, and our consortium districts, we made the decision in early July to move to a remote-learning model for the first semester of the 2020–2021 school year. The rationale was simple. In our local area, the virus was getting worse, not better. And, any form of an in-person hybrid schedule we tried to come up with was so far removed from any sense of normalcy that our teachers and students wanted no part of it. We were also convinced that the teaching and learning experience that we could provide students would be much better in a stable, day-to-day remote-learning environment without the inevitable and constant interruption of quarantining groups of teachers and students.

While we remain confident that we are providing our students with the very best possible curricular experience that we can considering the extraordinary circumstances we find ourselves in, the one aspect of our work we have doubled down on during this time is in the area of social and emotional learning (SEL). Given the widespread uncertainty and anxiety that is only natural during a pandemic, our students need us to focus on their

social and emotional health as much as we are focusing on other important subject areas. Now, more than ever, we believe that explicitly teaching our students SEL skills is vitally important.

The good news is that schools that have worked to establish a Professional Learning Community at Work culture are in a much better position to ensure that teachers have the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to help students develop these important life skills. As we work to implement SEL habits and skills into our curriculum, we have found that it is important to keep the three big ideas of PLCs at the forefront: a focus on learning, a focus on collaboration, and a focus on results.

Focus on Learning The importance of social and emotional learning has been long known. As the author of Emotional Intelligence (1995), Daniel Goleman proposed that while a student’s IQ has been the traditional bellwether of future success, achievement, and happiness, a more important measure is EQ—a person’s ability to understand oneself and others. Working closely with Goleman and the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), Stevenson High School adopted the following SEL objectives in 2005.

• Self-awareness: Helps students identify and recognize their emotions, recognize strengths in themselves and others, and have a sense of self-efficacy and self-confidence • Self-management: Aids students in controlling impulses, managing stress, staying persistent and motivated, and setting and achieving goals • Social awareness: Assists students in developing a sense of empathy, respect for others, and the ability to see and appreciate divergent points of view • Relationship skills: Helps students learn how to cooperate and collaborate with others, develop a willingness to seek and provide help when needed, and communicate effectively • Responsible decision-making: Enables students to evaluate their thoughts and actions, reflect on their behavior, and develop a sense of ethical responsibility While it is important to have solid SEL standards and objectives, we also knew that a solid SEL curriculum needed to include scaled learning targets for each of the SEL objectives.

Working within their collaborative teams, teachers developed SEL targets in the same way they created learning targets and assessments for their academic subject areas.

Focus on Collaboration Schools that function as a PLC at Work and have a healthy and productive collaborative culture are in a much stronger position to take on the challenges of creating a robust SEL curriculum and assessment system. Using the same skills of collective inquiry and action research, and with a deep commitment to collaboration, teachers in a PLC at Work can use their collaborative skills to learn from one another on how to develop a solid SEL curriculum, effective SEL teaching and learning strategies, and common assessments that measure the effectiveness of our collective SEL work. The professional educators on our student support teams (i.e., social workers, counselors, psychologists, etc.) can also collaborate with one another to identify important SEL objectives and learning targets, monitor students’ progress, and provide students with opportunities to engage in meaningful supports and interventions.

Focus on Results One of the more interesting and challenging aspects of our work has been developing effective assessments of students’ social and emotional learning and growth. In our consortium, we have developed SEL assessments to collect data on the five SEL objectives noted above and related indicators such as grit, growth mindset, and such. Students are regularly assessed with a common student voice assessment in all of their classes and cocurriculars. Like any other important subject area, our collaborative teams use this SEL assessment data to review their individual teaching strategies, note areas for improvement as a team, and identify students who might need additional SEL supports.

I seriously doubt that any of us ever thought we would be teaching during a global pandemic. There are many of us who were convinced that, even in “normal times,” student learning and achievement could not be solely defined by a grade point average and how well students performed on the state and national tests. If there was ever a time for us to focus on supporting the social and emotional well-being and health of our students, that time is now.

For more information and resources on how to develop and implement a social and emotional learning curriculum, please do not hesitate to contact Dr. Eric Twadell, superintendent of Adlai E. Stevenson High School, at etwadell@d125.org.

Fall 2020/AllThingsPLC Magazine

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English Lea and Distance L

by Brijana Anderson, Kimberley Mathews, Danielle Park, Katy Padilla, and Diane Kerr

W

hat were you doing the first week of March 2020? Most of us were sailing through our daily routines, serving our students and families of the community, and collaborating with our educator colleagues. Little did we know that a tidal wave of change and uncertainty was headed our way in the form of a pandemic. Looking back, we can say that we have learned a lot about virtual learning, technology, and the tremendous inequities that exist for many students across the country.

Some of the most vulnerable are our English learners (ELs) who are on the road to becoming bilingual. Many families struggle to meet basic needs, and we know that not all students have access to learning. Our ELs are balancing these struggles with the challenge of learning English and content. Navigating these waters has been taxing not only for families and students but also for educators.

We have many resources at our fingertips to ride the wave and survive every successive wave no matter the frequency or size. Strategies that are supported by research and are predictors for increased student achievement will be our lifesavers. For the purpose of this article, we share five essentials for supporting our English learners. These essentials have always been important for our English learners’ success, but they are even more important now. Our intent is to bring these essentials to the front of our coll e a g u e s’

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minds and provide strategies for addressing them as we move forward with our work to educate all students. Focus on these strategies when planning for and teaching face-toface, synchronous, or asynchronous learning.

Essential #1: Collaboration Now we need each other more than ever if we are going to close learning gaps and discover new ways to meet the needs of all students. The US Department of Education “encourages parents, educators, and administrators to collaborate creatively to continue to meet the needs of ELs” (United States Department of Education Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, 2020). The federal requirement to support ELs hasn’t changed, and it is widely accepted that collaboration between content teachers and English language development teachers is critical for ELs to be successful.

Schools and teams must create systems where planning for the specific needs of English learners is integrated into the team cycle and ultimately becomes a habit of mind, a natural part of the team’s work. The Professional Learning Community at Work process will support teams as they move forward, but where should teams begin?

• Create structures and schedules so teams can meet regularly to plan for instruction and to answer the four critical questions of learning (DuFour et al., 2016). Do not sacrifice team meeting time for other needs.

• Include your English language development specialist or coordinator (if you have one) as a member of your team as they can provide

arners Learning Essentials for Success

En L e a rg l i s h ners

Collaboration

Safe Learning Environment Relationships with Families

Engagement and Accessibility

Language Instruction 13

resources and strategies specifically to meet the needs of ELs. • Focus planning on your team-identified gradelevel essential standards and language skills.

• Co-create outlines for lessons that include scaffolds that differentiate for the needs of all learners. Save them in a common location (for example, a team Google Drive) so that all can access them and they can be used, adapted, and improved on in the future.

• Rely on each other. Be vulnerable and ask clarifying questions of each other.

• Give yourself permission to try something new, to make mistakes, and to adjust your practice as you go.

The primary essential that will get you through this current wave of challenges is to stay true to the main tenets of a PLC and to collaborate and approach all challenges together. The success of all of our students is a collective responsibility.

Essential #2: Relationships with Families We educators share this collective responsibility with parents, too. Because increased family involvement has shown a positive correlation to student achievement and motivation to learn (Mexican American Legal Defense Fund and National Education Association, 2010, as cited in Straehr Fenner & Snyder, 2017), it is more critical than ever for schools to strengthen partnerships with families to help them navigate uncharted waters of remote learning. School and family partnerships strengthen when there is a collective effort made by all teachers, staff, and administration. The following strategies can further cultivate partnerships with families during remote learning.

• Presume positive intentions from families.

Despite increased challenges of providing for their family’s needs during the pandemic, parents continue to want to support their children’s learning. As Laura Gardner emphasizes in her recent webinar, “parents have the capacity to help their children regardless of their background” (Saddleback Educational Publishing, 2020).

• Seek feedback on families’ preferred method of communication. Send out a survey asking parents to identify how they prefer to be in

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touch—phone calls, text messages, emails, or letters mailed home. Try to prioritize what is convenient for the families.

• Provide documents in translation. Many districts offer official translation services with requests submitted in advance. Google Translate is also a valuable tool for urgent communication or when human interpreters are unavailable.

• Send frequent class reminders. Text messaging apps such as TalkingPoints or Remind translate the original message into the family’s home language. Communicate with your team, and commit to using the same approach to offer consistency for families.

• Create and communicate a clear schedule. A schoolwide schedule that is consistent across grade levels is especially helpful for families that have multiple children attending the same school. A clear visual schedule should be mailed home and shared electronically.

• Respond to messages in a timely manner.

Teachers’ timely response to messages communicates to families that their questions and concerns are valued and legitimate.

Aim to respond to parents and guardians within 24 hours.

Remote learning has obligated parents to adopt an additional role as teachers. It has required parents of many young students to learn how to access virtual classes and navigate through new digital platforms. Although parents are not expected to be content experts, teachers can empower them to help establish rich learning environments in their homes. Consider the following strategies to guide families in setting their children up for digital success.

• Create video instructions. Screencast-O-Matic and Chrome extensions such as Screencastify allow users to record their computer screens and explain step-by-step instructions on how to access live sessions or materials.

• Upload a how-to with screenshots. Some families may prefer to read a PDF document that includes instructions with screenshots of each step. This would be easier to access for households with interrupted internet connection.

• Encourage families to lead academic conversations in their home language. ELs who participate in cognitively demanding conversations in their home language will likely navigate academic conversations in English with

more progress (Cummins, 2000, as cited in Freeman & Freeman, 2009). Families can ask their children open-ended questions about what they are learning, dialogue about current events, and share oral stories of their culture.

• Explain to parents that they are not the learning police (Hattie, 2020). When families help their students with schoolwork, they are not asked to be task masters but instead to guide their children to learn from their mistakes and propel them into a growth mindset from a fixed mindset (Dweck, 2006).

Maintaining an open line of communication with families allows schools to monitor their students’ socialemotional health and their learning experience. With fewer in-person interactions with students, educators are relying on parents as the core point of contact to ensure distance learning is a success. Schools must ask ongoing questions and solicit responses from our families to continue to improve our practices.

Essential #3: Safe Learning Environment Another essential for ELs is a space where students feel nurtured, valued, and respected. Developing a safe classroom (in person or online) where students feel

Relationship-Building Activity

comfortable sharing their thoughts and feelings will optimize their learning.

Three components of building a safe learning community are: 1. Building individual relationships with your ELs 2. Adopting a culturally responsive pedagogy 3. Incorporating consistent classroom routines Building individual relationships with students motivates and increases their engagement in the classroom. By building this relationship, you will learn key information that will impact your instruction. You might learn why your student is frequently late to class and implement a flowchart or checklist so that your student can transition easier into the routine when tardy. You may learn more about a student’s home country and find ways to embed that knowledge into content lessons. By just listening and valuing what they have to say, your ELs will see and feel how much you care about them as a person.

Educators who practice culturally responsive teaching “draw on the cultural knowledge, backgrounds and experiences of their students in order to make learning more meaningful” (Straehr Fenner & Snyder, 2017, p. 40). Culturally responsive teaching means that we do the following: • Recognize and value a student’s language and culture.

• Analyze our own cultural identity and think about how our identity might affect our view of others. Do we view communication or classroom

Purpose

Pronounce names correctly.

• Develops student self-esteem • Shows respect and affirms students’ identity

Hold informal meetings with students.

To gain information about students’

Embed students’ interests into your teaching.

• Interests • Background • Goals

• Engages student in learning • Reinforces a positive connection

Strategy • Practice often until you get it right.

• Check if student prefers a nickname.

• • • • •

Actively listen.

Play a game.

Watch a video.

Read a book aloud.

Create a survey.

• Use student interests to select books for read-alouds.

• Use familiar contexts in math word problems.

• Learn words in students’ home language.

Fall 2020/AllThingsPLC Magazine

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Beyond th

Bel 24

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he Bricks and Mortar :

longing Timothy D. Kanold

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.

—M. L. King Jr.

I

was standing in the gym, known as the Fieldhouse, at West Chicago Community High School District 94, and it was 11:05 p.m. on a wintry Saturday night. I was at center court, smack-dab on top of our Wildcat logo. All of the lights were out. And I was alone.

I could see the lights of the red exit signs above all the doors as I circled around the logo and looked up at the shadows of still-open bleachers and the residue of streamers, wrappers, and signs discarded all around. By Sunday night, all the mess would be cleaned up and the bleachers put away. The bricks and mortar of this Fieldhouse would stand silent once again.

In that moment of stillness, it occurred to my 34-year-old brain that the facility itself, the empty gym I was standing in, was just that—empty, soulless. It was just a building. The building was not the reason I felt a sense of belonging.

Just 90 minutes prior, at 9:30 p.m. or so, the building had been on fire with energy. It had been rocking. The soul of that building was in its people. It was in every person in that gym.

It was in every heart pounding and cheering from both sides of the court. It was in the wild roller coaster of emotions from players and fans. The building had reverberated from the heart and soul, the very essence of our diverse community and how

we belonged together, interwoven and blended into that event in time.

I knew too there would be a day down the road when I would come back to this very place and feel the strength of those memories. For it is the people, the experiences, the inclusion, that makes us feel as if we belong. I didn’t want to let go.

I needed this quiet moment with my own thoughts, my own gratefulness; I had belonged to something special.

In the stillness, I felt pain too. Sadness. Grief. The pain surprised me. Not because of the result of the game (we had won).

The final score paled in comparison to the pain of feeling and knowing I would no longer belong to or be a part of the West Chicago community. I had not yet told the players on my team or my students, but I knew it would be my last time coaching in that gym and teaching at that school. I would no longer belong. And it hurt.

We are in perhaps the most unique, vexing, and perplexing time of our educational and teaching careers. The obstacles to our effective teaching and student learning have been relentless.

The year 2020 will long be remembered as a year where the place of student learning was hard to define and became far less important than the culture for student learning created.

Fall 2020/AllThingsPLC Magazine

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A culture of belonging.

And, belonging is such a loaded word. You are in, or you are out. You are included or excluded. You are part of a class, an activity, a Zoom meeting, or you are not. You are connected to your students and colleagues, or you are not.

In this year of remote learning, the bricks and mortar of our schools, as the only place for learning, do not bind us. As teachers, as educators, whether remote teaching or not, we know a culture of belonging is our gateway to student learning.

Neuroscience evidence about belonging informs a painful reality. A school culture—within or outside of the school’s walls—that accepts teacher or student actions revealing any form of not belonging is a dangerous culture.

Studies by Naomi Eisenburger at UCLA found that being excluded activates our pain system, suggesting that it is a threat to our very survival.

When we’re excluded from a meeting, when we don’t get invited to key events, when our ideas are ignored, the pain we feel is experienced in the same areas of the brain as physical pain.

The pain of rejection or humiliation is just as real as a stubbed toe. Whilst social pain may “feel” different (just as the pain of a stubbed toe feels different to stomach cramps), the networks processing it in the brain are the same . . . people are primarily guided by the drive to connect with others and that the majority of their thoughts, emotions, impulses and behaviors are at least indirectly the results of that drive.

Coyle provides a road map to actions that nurture belonging. If they are present, you are well on your way to a belonging and inclusive culture with your PLC teacher team and your students. Examine the following seven belonging cues to measure your daily experiences.

1. Overcommunicate Your Feedback and Listening Do we deeply listen to our students and colleagues without the distractions of social media and the difficulty of remote learning? Small-group chats in Zoom can distract from authentic listening.

A sense of classroom trust and student self-efficacy (the students’ belief in their capability to do the work you ask them to do) is nurtured via a culture of belonging and thrives within a high-energy, positive feedback reassurance culture.

Your essential reassurance message to students sounds like this: 1. This class is special. I have high expectations for the performance of this class. What we are doing here is important, different, doable, and unique.

Being excluded activates

In that context, social exclusion is not simply a misfortune, it’s painful for someone. We tend to think of the pain of exclusion as somehow less impactful than physical pain. But the research suggests we should be more concerned about the potential pain generated by excluding others, especially when this is done inadvertently without the opportunity for amends. (Hills, 2018)

Not surprisingly then, belonging is a prerequisite need for learning. It is not a “nice to have” for student or adult learning.

Education research affirms that school norms of belonging can help bridge the achievement gap and provide support for an improved academic learning environment (Cole, 2008).

Creating a sense of belonging is a hard enough path to walk when student learning and connection take place within the school walls. When student learning is moved beyond the bricks and mortar, our intentional embrace of essential belonging cues becomes an urgent priority.

In his book The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups, New York Times best-selling author Daniel Coyle (2018) indicates culture is not something you and I are as much as it is something we do. There is a difference between being aware of a culture of belonging and acting on that awareness as part of your collaborative team effort.

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suggesting it is a threat to our very

SURVIV

2.

3.

You are part of this class. I know this is not the way you are used to learning. I am in it with you every step of the way because your learning is important to me.

I believe you can reach these high standards. It will take effort and reflective, repeated practice, but you can do it, and I am not giving up on you, ever.

I send you a belonging cue when I listen to what you say during the lesson and activities. I ask for your input as to your sense of self-efficacy to do this work, and I listen to your discussions, feedback, and questions during class time, remote or otherwise.

One suggestion is to include different students (three to four students each day) by asking them to stay on the Zoom session a bit longer, just to chat. Let your students share how they are feeling and doing.

Coyle (2018) describes authentic listening like this: “I kept seeing the same expression on the faces of listeners. The only sound they made was a steady stream of affirmations.” He then states, “Relatedly, it’s important to not interrupt. Interruptions

shatter the smooth interactions at the core of belonging” (p. 75).

2. Spotlight Your Fallibility It takes great strength to admit you do not have all the answers, to say to others, “Show me how this idea can effectively advance our work together” (Coyle, 2018, p. 79).

Coyle indicates we have a natural tendency to hide our weaknesses and appear competent. Instead, open up to your colleagues, show them you too make mistakes, and invite input for help and support.

When we ask for help from our students, we spark a “How can I help” belonging cue in the listener. They feel connected to you as they share in and belong to the solution. When a remote lesson (or otherwise) fails, and it will fail, give yourself some grace and self-compassion.

When we ask for help from our colleagues for insight into an idea or concept or a technology we are unsure about, it causes them to connect to us and to each other. It is a benefit of your teacher team as you hurdle the obstacle of successful remote learning.

3. Overdo Thank-Yous

our brain’s

pain system,

VAL

One phrase from Coyle (2018) says it all: “When you enter highly successful cultures, the number of thank-yous you hear seems slightly over the top” (p. 78).

During my early years of teaching, I did not think of excessive thank-yous as belonging cues per se, but rather as ways of encouraging a spirit of perseverance, effort, and rigor in my students.

Although thank-yous often appeared in verbal remarks, it was my written responses that had the biggest impact on student perseverance. With every piece of grading or lesson feedback, I would simply write “Thank you!” with an exclamation point, a brief statement about their insight, followed by a smiley face.

Coyle indicates thank-yous are more than just expressions of gratitude; they’re crucial cues for belonging that generate a contagious feeling of connection and safety.

If you tolerate a culture of grumbling and complaining, it will take over your school culture in such a time as this. You cannot let this happen. Start a gratitude wall if you must.

Huddle up via Zoom with your PLC colleagues each week; do not let the complainers win the day! Start a massive weekly over-the-top “thank you” stream with every stakeholder in your community—especially your students and parents.

To respond with thank-yous forces an action of gratitude, which in turn will spark small moments of internal joy even on those days when experiences of happiness elude you.

Fall 2020/AllThingsPLC Magazine

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VISION-INSPIRED EMPLOYEES WILL

The Study

ENDURE

Heather K. Dillard

LRN. (2016). The HOW report: A global, empirical analysis of how governance, culture and leadership impact performance. Retrieved from https://content.lrn.com/research-insights/how-report.

First launched in 2012, the HOW Report was begun to test the idea that values-inspired organizations outperform other organizations. The initial report found that “self-governing organizations are purpose-inspired, values-based, led with moral authority and outperform all others” (p. 3). These findings called on organizations to employ a “Human Operating System” that guides employees through shared values and principles and empowers them on a long-term journey of improvement.

This article includes the results of the second iteration of the HOW Report, which was conducted in 2016. Data collected across 5 continents and 17 countries included responses from over 16,000 full-time employees who completed a Likert scale survey on their personal observations of and direct experiences in their work environment.

Based on their responses, 46

AllThingsPLC Magazine/Fall 2020

participants were assigned to one of three categories: selfgovernance, informed acquiescence, and blind obedience.

The category of self-governance included participants whose work was purpose inspired and values based. They were led by a moral authority, core principles, and a social imperative. These employees were encouraged to act as leaders regardless of their role and focused on sustained performance and a long-term legacy.

Informed acquiescence included employees whose work was rules based and process driven. Their companies operated through hierarchy and policy, motivating their employees with performance-based rewards. Although employees identified long-term goals, their work focused predominantly on shortterm successes.

The blind obedience category included those operating in power-based, task-driven organizations. Leaders operated through policing and command-and-control-based principles.

Coercion and threats of punishment were the primary motivators for performance, which was based on short-term goals.

Research Report Implications for PLCs

Findings LRN found that 97 percent of self-governance organizations performed at high levels. For informed acquiescence, it was 80 percent, and 36 percent for blind obedience. These differences in performance were consistent across all 17 countries in the study.

After determining the performance rate of the organizations, the secondary purpose of the report was to describe what self-governing organizations look like and what leaders must do to build and nurture them. A list of 22 organizational and individual behaviors was presented for each of the organization types. Self-governance organizations acted with transparency, integrated high trust, were values and principles based, inspired for the greater good, and promoted universal vigilance, where individuals made values-based decisions, were empowered through individual accountability, and acted on shared beliefs.

These organizations allowed employees to collaborate in order to make one another better. Though they had a high level of trust, they verified what was expected and were guided by doing what was right. There was great satisfaction felt in achieving their mission as they were driven on a journey of significance.

Two key findings from the study focused on trust and inspiration. The report stated, “High trust organizations experience eleven times greater innovation than low-trust organizations [because] trust fuels vulnerability and risk-taking” (p.

10). Additionally, inspired employees performed 27 percent higher than engaged employees. Driven by their shared values, inspired employees “meet challenges with creativity and fidelity to purpose while forging sustainable paths to growth with humility, grit, and hope” (p. 10).

“Articulating a Moral Purpose” is the title of the second chapter in Robert Eaker and Janel Keating’s (2012) book Every School, Every Team, Every Classroom: District Leadership for Growing Professional Learning Communities at Work. The findings from the HOW Report coincide precisely with the content of this chapter. In order for school districts to empower their teachers and leaders, they must articulate the moral purpose of schools “in such a way that it will cause everyone to question and align his or her existing attitudes, commitments, and behaviors” (Eaker & Keating, 2012, p. 25). By aligning the school’s mission, vision, values, and goals, all faculty and staff will understand why they are doing what they are doing to place student learning at the center of all their work. In Michael Hyatt’s 2020 book, The Vision Driven Leader: 10 Questions to Focus Your Efforts, Energize Your Team and Scale Your Business, a lack of vision is cited as a guarantee for failure. With vision comes clarity, which breeds confidence in employees.

Eaker and Keating (2012) also introduce the concept of simultaneous top-down, bottom-up leadership. In the early days of implementation, PLC district leaders must require top-down leadership to define the work of the collaborative teams. As teams experience success with the process, the need for heavy-handed leadership will subside. Once teams reach the level of fully trusting the PLC process, they will do the work of PLCs instinctively as they continue on the journey of increasing student learning.

A large body of research has presented evidence that PLC practices create higher levels of learning for individual students.

The HOW Report reinforces those findings from a business perspective. When teachers are inspired by the vision of their school, they will approach the varied obstacles of teaching with humility, grit, and hope.

References Eaker, R., & Keating, J. (2012). Every school, every team, every classroom: District leadership for growing Professional Learning Communities at Work. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

Hyatt, M. (2020). The vision driven leader: 10 questions to focus your efforts, energize your team and scale your business. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

HEATHER K. DILLARD is an associate professor at Middle Tennessee State University.

Fall 2020/AllThingsPLC Magazine

47

Why I Love PLCs The Heart of Our Work

BY SARAH STOBAUGH

I recently conducted interviews for the upcoming school year, and while the process can be grueling, it is one of the most important jobs of an administrator, as it is the first introduction to the work of the school. During the very last interview of the day, the candidate said, “I don’t think you asked one question that I had practiced an answer for when preparing for today. You focused on me as a person and not just what I learned in my college program. I feel like you really want to know who I am.” She was right. I told her that in order to work in a PLC, it was important that I know what she stands for because the knowledge she brings from a textbook doesn’t matter unless she is willing to learn and get to work for all students.

The candidate then asked me exactly what a PLC meant in our school. I was tempted to quote the definition from Learning by Doing, complete with the Luis Cruz hand motions. (For anyone who has ever had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Cruz speak at a conference, you know exactly what hand motions I am referring to.) Instead, I told her the short answer is that for us at Morrilton Intermediate School, we meet our faculty and students right where they are, we figure out what they need, and then we don’t stop until we reach our goal. I told her it also meant that our students learn from all teachers, not just the one they are assigned to on paper. I sent her with a copy of Learning

by Doing at the end of the interview and paused to reflect on our conversation.

Our school was recently distinguished 48

AllThingsPLC Magazine/Fall 2020

as a Model PLC, and we are constantly asked what a PLC looks like and what has changed in our practices. Sometimes this is hard for me to answer, not because there haven't been major changes to our practice or our culture but because sometimes when you are on the inside and the work is so ingrained, you forget how things used to be. It’s just how we work now. There’s no going back. When this candidate asked me what a PLC meant for our school, I told her we work together for all students. That’s not the whole answer. What it really means is that we have a laser-like focus on all our people— students and faculty. A PLC isn’t an investment in a program and doesn’t rely on a huge budget to make things happen. A PLC is the commitment to work interdependently for all teachers and all students, no matter what—no matter the socioeconomic status, special education distinction, or background of the students.

We never lose focus on the four critical questions. And those four questions are not just reserved for our young learners; they are also applied to our adult learners.

Because when we get better, our students get better, our community gets better, our state gets better, our country gets better. I believe that to my core, and I have seen the proof in our work at Morrilton Intermediate School and our community and state. The faculty and the students are not the same as they were three years ago, and we are only getting stronger together.

I eventually called the last candidate and asked if she would like to join our

team, and she said, “Yes!” I knew that she had been offered a job in another district, and I asked her why she chose us. She told me about one prompt that stood out to her during the interview and made her want to be a part of our team. The question was “Describe a time that your instruction was deeply influenced by a colleague.” That question comes from a blog that I once read by a great teacher and Solution Tree author and presenter Bill Ferriter, and it absolutely gets to the heart of our work. For those of us who have experienced a true PLC, we can answer that question without hesitation. While a single teacher’s influence is far-reaching, the influence of a professional learning community is unstoppable.

SARAH STOBAUGH is the proud principal of Morrilton Intermediate School, a Model PLC School in Morrilton, Ark. During her 14 years in public education, she has served as an English teacher, an instructional facilitator, assistant principal, and principal in grades 4–12.

AllThingsPLC Magazine | Fall 2020 all hings

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Discussion Questions

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Use this convenient tear-out card to go over and reinforce the topics discussed in this issue with the members of your team.

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ING A C H A IN S T AY E D WITH AND ECT FROM CONN

Self-Care in the Time of COVID-19 (p. 9) 1. What was your self-care routine like prior to the pandemic? In what ways did that routine change as a result of the pandemic?

2. What are three things you can start doing today to address your self-care needs?

3. What are some ways in which you can make gratitude and altruism part of your daily life?

English Learners and Distance Learning (p. 12) 1. In what ways were your ELs underserved during the jump to online learning in the spring due to the pandemic?

2. What are your strategies for helping ELs navigate online learning should your school return to that medium this fall?

3. Do your strategies cover each of the five essentials? If not, how can you ensure they do so?

Legacy Thinking Meets NOW Classrooms (p. 21) 1. In what ways are you and your team members locked in legacy thinking?

2. How can your team or school move beyond legacy thinking and embrace learning in the digital world?

3. What obstacles stand in the way of this shift, and what are some possible solutions to overcome these obstacles?

Beyond the Bricks and Mortar: Belonging (p. 24) 1. Is there evidence of each belonging cue by members of your collaborative teams—including remote learning community members?

2. If you could start to improve your school culture with just one of these belonging cues, which one would it be, and what action would you take?

3. What belonging action do all of the adults in your school need to take?

PLCs in Higher Education: Part 3 (p. 31) 1. What is a formative mindset, and how can you use it in your classroom?

2. Are there any dreaded and intimidating assignments in your program that you can turn into a rewarding experience with the help of a formative mindset?

3. In what ways can your team honor Schimmer’s core mission for assessment: create confident learners and provide accurate grades?

SolutionTree.com/PLCmag

AllThingsPLC Magazine | Fall 2020

Refresher Course Because everyone needs a reminder now and again.

The 3 Big Ideas of a PLC 1. FOCUS ON LEARNING 2. BUILD A COLLABORATIVE CULTURE 3. FOCUS ON RESULTS

1

The fundamental purpose of the school is to ensure high levels of learning for all students. This focus on learning translates into four critical questions that drive the daily work of the school. In PLCs, educators demonstrate their commitment to helping all students learn by working collaboratively to address the following critical questions: 1. What do we want students to learn? What should each student know and be able to do as a result of each unit, grade level, and/or course?

2. How will we know if they have learned? Are we monitoring each student’s learning on a timely basis?

3. What will we do if they don’t learn? What systematic process is in place to provide additional time and support for students who are experiencing difficulty?

2 3

4. What will we do if they already know it?

agll thin s

PLC M A G A Z I N E Fall

• No school can help all students achieve at high levels if teachers work in isolation.

• Schools improve when teachers are given the time and support to work together to clarify essential student learning, develop common assessments for learning, analyze evidence of student learning, and use that evidence to learn from one another.

• PLCs measure their effectiveness on the basis of results rather than intentions.

• All programs, policies, and practices are continually assessed on the basis of their impact on student learning.

• All staff members receive relevant and timely information on their effectiveness in achieving intended results.

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