Annual ISN Fall Meeting
The Annual ISN Fall Meeting was held on November 29-30. Continuing from last week, the ISN newsletter will be reviewing the main points of breakout sessions.
Professional Learning Communities and Professional Development
One aspect of a successful professional learning community (PLC) is its ability to evaluate the impact of professional development on student learning. Graves County uses the District Instructional Leadership Team (DILT). They guide the district through the process of providing effective professional development to the teachers and administrators in the district.
Graves County has been very successful implementing the basic concepts of the PLC. They have moved from a traditional professional development delivery system focused on “sit-n-get” sessions to job-embedded professional learning activities. Now, teachers and administrators are involved in book study groups, collegial professional learning networks, peer collaboration, coaching (both by administrators to teachers and peer coaching), mentoring, formal and informal observations, instructional demonstrations, collegial feedback, personal reflection, team planning, collaborative problem-solving and analysis of student work.
The Graves County system relies on five categories or steps in an effective system:
· Accountability – Teachers need to understand the goals and expectations they will be expected to achieve.
· Data – In order for the system to deliver the right professional learning, all decisions must be student-centered and must come from looking at and using data continuously.
· Training – The professional learning must be intentional, specific and job-embedded.
· Feedback – What has been the result of our professional growth opportunities in the classroom? How do we know its impact?
· Recognition – Celebrate the successes in the classroom. Most of them can be tied to the professional learning the teacher(s) received.
Kim Harrison, elementary supervisor and professional development coordinator for Graves County, said, “Much of the success we have achieved in Graves County can be tied to the development of our District Instructional Leadership Team and making it the vehicle for the delivery professional growth in our district. The team makes sure that all of our professional learning is intentional, specific and based on student needs.”
How Professional Development Impacts Student Learning by Closing the Achievement Gaps
The Fayette County Public Schools has found a way to make every child accountable for every standard no matter the barriers by having a team of teachers working together to teach the content standards to every child, every day with no exceptions and no excuses. “Interventions will not matter, if you don’t have all the same content,” said Carman Coleman, one of the directors for elementary schools for the district.
The Fayette County district provides professional development for teachers to "work on the work” by reading and discussing core content with teammates. Teams make daily outcomes with objectives and assessments allowing students to demonstrate mastery of the content. Students monitor and record their own data. Every assessment is reviewed and corrected, demonstrating how it can become distinguished. The district is currently working on the standards for high-quality work. Instruction has been changed from activity-based to outcome-based across the entire district. Staff is constantly evaluating each other within their school and school system.
The philosophy of the Fayette County leadership is this: in order to close gaps, the district must connect the dots for students by everyone being consistent with the same focus on instruction and structure. Fabio Zuluga, another director for elementary schools, said, “You have to create a paradigm shift of beliefs of teachers; you can’t change them by preaching to them, but you can change the context of the work. Teachers can no longer just teach a unit, give a test, go over the test aloud in class, move on to the next unit and then never look back, getting the same results and widening the same achievement gaps.”
Fayette County's district staff believes that schools have to read and discuss Core Content with teammates. “You CAN control the context of their work, the content of their work, your expectations and the quality of the work they do, as a matter of fact….WE (teachers, school and district leaders) are in complete control of the results of our students, period. Every Child….. Every Standard…..Every Day.”
Quotable Quotes
“Sometimes, the hardest part of learning new things is unlearning old ways.”
Dr. Phillip C. McGraw, TV talk show host
and family counselor