All the activities of a PLC are designed to support student achievement with the goal of improving teacher practice. Successful PLCs bring together all three ways to improve student learning as defined by the Instructional Core model: Academic Content Classroom Pedagogy, and rich Student Engagement. To improve opportunities for student learning, PLC members need to attend carefully to all three of these areas. 

ACADEMIC CONTENT

Florida Standards: Teams interpret the Florida Standards much better when they answer a very important question during a PLC; What do we want our students to know? Teams that work collectively and collaboratively analyzing which standards to focus on must build consensus on what those standards should look like once students have mastered the skills. The Florida Standards reflect our foundational expectations of what ALL students should know and be able to do in each grade from Kindergarten through 12th grade.

Rigor: When teachers work in high-performing collaborative teams during a PLC, they discover that they have a much better chance of increasing the rigor for students and impacting achievement. This process lays the foundation for a deeper understanding of what rigor means for students and what it should look like in a classroom. The Rigor Relevance Framework (Daggett, 2014) is a tool to assess instruction along two dimensions of higher standards and student achievement. 

Analysis of Student Work: PLCs can be powerful when teachers use authentic student work to analyze current trends. It is important for members to stick to the agenda and for the teachers sharing student work to present the group with the lessons and materials used. To get started, your PLC can view and discuss a video of an exemplary 4th grade PLC (27:33) as they refine a rubric for reviewing student writing. Effective analysis of student work would require participants to ask clarifying questions and engage in thoughtful feedback, both “warm and cool,” regarding the data. These powerful reflection sessions empower teachers to incorporate self-analysis and drive for self-improvement found in master teachers, as well as help improve instruction based on analyzed data. 

Technology Integration: 21st Century Learning is the cornerstone of today’s education. PLC members can support each other in finding ways to integrate digital resources, infusing the ISTE Standards in their pedagogy as appropriate. The Technology Information Matrix (TIM) can help guide your planning and discussions. They should also capitalize on the creativity and enthusiasm of teachers within the PLC who have already shown a real interest in or flair for incorporating technology, and possibly assign them the role of Technology Mentors or “Super Users”. If possible, suggest that other teachers visit the Super Users’ classrooms to get ideas for integrating technology into their own lessons. Find out what Broward County Public Schools is doing to develop 21st Century Learners. More resources for technology integration are below.

CLASSROOM PEDAGOGY

Learning Objectives: The first step to increasing student achievement is creating clear Learning Objectives. By instilling an outcome-focused classroom approach where teachers and students have a clear understanding of the expectations, schools can get the most "bank for their buck" towards their school improvement goals. Learning Objectives define what is taught/learned each day (standards), why the day's learning is an important thing to know or know how to do (relevance), and how to do it (process). Outcome-focused PLCs are a process, not an event. Your PLC can access the resources below to help understand and use learning objectives:

• 6A-1.09401: Student Performance Standards
• Bureau of Standards and Instructional Support News

Common Assessments: Professional Learning Communities provide educators with an opportunity to collaborate and develop Common Formative Assessments (CFAs). During PLCs, educators can collaboratively write the questions for the CFAs to model the variety of questioning mechanisms on the Florida Assessment of Student Thinking, thus providing students the opportunity to respond to the variety of question types in advance of the state assessments. Educators can also analyze data from CFAs during their PLCs, and use this data to make adjustments to instructional practice and delivery. In Common Formative Assessments: An Overview, Larry Ainsworth explains that CFAs can do what large-scale summative assessments cannot: provide classroom educators with timely, credible evidence of their impact on student learning and achievement. Focusing energy and time on the analysis of small-scale, school-based assessments to improve instruction can help educators meet the diverse learning needs of all students.

Performance-Based Assessments: Performance-based Assessments are an authentic way to assess our students learning- and get insight into how our students process information. Performance-based Assessments require students to get “hands-on” and actively engaged to produce a product or demonstrate a process. Within PLCs, educators can create a variety of Performance-based Assessments for their students.

• Building models
• Playing musical instruments
• Participating in oral examinations
• Giving speeches or debates
• Creating portfolios
• Developing athletic skills
• Writing critiques, short poems, stories, and term papers
• Long-term projects

Performance-based Assessments help all learners, regardless of their learning styles, showcase their knowledge base in a rigorous, yet meaningful way. As we to strive to prepare all students for College and Career, performance-based assessments will require students to think, rethink, integrate, and apply information. PLCs should keep the following three components at the forefront of their discussions when designing authentic Performance-based Assessments; content knowledge, process skills, and work habits. For additional ideas on how to incorporate Performance-based Assessments into your curriculum, watch this video of a high school using these assessments to make math relevant and meaningful for the students.

Formative Assessments. In addition to being common, CFAs are also formative: they are formal and informal testing procedures that teachers conduct during the learning process. The objective of formative assessments is to understand student thinking so teachers can make course corrections along the way and adapt their instruction to improve student achievement of learning objectives related to the standards. CPALMS has created a Mathematics Formative Assessment System to assist teachers with this process.

STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

The degree of attention, interest, and passion that students show for learning are measures of their engagement. The more students are engaged, the more likely they are to have better learning outcomes. The SCORE (Success, Curiosity, Originality, Relationships, and Energy) student engagement model suggests that teachers ask four essential questions:

1. How might we create conditions that lead to student Success?
2. How might we stimulate students’ Curiosity?
3. How might we help students develop self-expression and Originality?
4. How might we motivate students to pursue their desire to develop good peer Relationships?

You and your PLC colleagues can explore these resources to help you foster student engagement:

Increasing Student Engagement by Steve Barkley
This article describes a model for how PLCs and leadership teams can improve engagement.

New Perspectives on Student Engagement by James Hall
This article talks about the different types of student engagement, why it's important, and how applying SCORE can help achieve better student outcomes.

References

Daggett, W. R. (2014). Rigor/Relevance Framework: A guide to focusing resources to increase student performance.