The Tempered Radical

How Testing Will Change What I Teach Next Year

Regular Radical Readers know that high stakes testing is in the forefront of my mind right now.  I guess that's just what happens when you live and work in a nation hellbent on tying teacher evaluation to the scores that students produce on multiple choice exams.

The testing pressure is worse than usual for me this year simply because in response to President Obama's Race to the Top initiative, North Carolina has introduced new "Measures of Student Learning" exams for science. 

That means a "value-added" score based on nothing other than results my students generate on a late-May exam will be tied directly to my evaluation -- and, if our Republican-led legislature has its way, will eventually be the SOLE factor in determining whether or not I'm placed on a terminating contract.

Outside of design flaws that will make this "measure of student learning" nearly impossible for the 12-year olds that I teach to actually pass -- it is primarily composed of 35 isolated knowledge-driven questions that cover topics from a 23-page curriculum guide that we started learning in July -- I'm worried for one main reason:

I don't think I'll get through our entire curriculum before the test.

Part of the blame for failing to get through the curriculum before the test rests with the curriculum designers, who really did jam the proverbial kitchen sink into the sixth grade pacing guide. 

Need proof?  Then check out this PARTIAL list of "essential" vocabulary words and tell me whether or not you think it's possible for teachers to engage sixth graders in a meaningful exploration of this content in one year:

Conduction, Convection, Radiation, Heat Transfer, Mediums, Frequency, Amplitude, Pitch, Wavelength, Longitudinal Waves, Transverse Waves, Trough, Crest, Rarefaction, Compression, Electromagnetic Energy, Disturbances.

Melting Point, Boiling Point, Solubility, Solute, Solvent, Saturation, Phase Changes.

Density, Igneous, Sedimentary, Metamorphic, Oceanic Crust, Continental Crust, Plate Tectonics, Alfred Wegener, Convergent Boundaries, Divergent Boundaries, Transform Boundaries, Primary Waves, Secondary Waves, Surface Waves, Parent Rock, Contour Plowing.

Eclipses, Phases of the Moon, Tidal Patterns, Hubble Telescope, International Space Station, Fermi-Gamma-Ray Telescope, Chandra X-Ray Observatory, Gravitational Force.

And part of the blame for failing to get through the curriculum before the test rests with the calendar writers, who have my students taking our end of grade exam almost THREE FULL WEEKS before our school year actually ends. 

If I had another three weeks to work with my students, I'd get through the curriculum without any trouble.

But most of the blame for failing to get through the entire curriculum before the test rests with me.  After all, I spent a TON of class periods covering things that AREN'T going to be tested.

Here's what we were "wasting our time" on:

Sustained Silent Reading:  My interdisciplinary team made the decision long ago to do silent reading once a week in every classroom.  Our thinking was that students need daily time to read silently AND need to see EVERY teacher as a reader.

We're PRETTY sure that this time is well spent. Our team is full of passionate readers this year who love talking about books with us. 

A colleague stopped by the library the other day while we were reading and asked how we got our kids to be so quiet during SSR time.  My answer: Give kids chances to read every single day.

Time "Wasted":  30 minutes per week, or two class periods per month.  16 total class periods.

#measureTHATlearning

Teaching the Nonfiction Reading Skills in the Common Core Curriculum:  Science teachers in North Carolina have been buried in training around the literacy standards for social studies, science and the technical subjects in the Common Core curriculum this year. 

In fact, it was the PRIMARY professional development that I received -- and the expectation was that science teachers would integrate nonfiction reading lessons into their curriculum.

Convinced that teaching students the skills necessary for being literate consumers of scientific text and literate participants in scientific conversations, my learning team jumped into that instruction with two feet.  Check out the lessons that we developed. 

Not bad, huh?

Here's the problem:  NONE of those skills will be tested on the fact-driven "measures of student learning" exams that my kids have to take.  Of course, the language arts teacher on our team is probably jazzed that I spent so much time teaching nonfiction  skills like identifying bias and evaluating evidence, but it ain't going to help me.

Time "Wasted":  4 two-day lessons.  A total of 8 class periods.

#measureTHATlearning

Introducing Information Technology Standards:  Here in North Carolina, there is a required Information Technology curriculum that has to be delivered by core area teachers. 

That curriculum is actually pretty solid -- it addresses essential themes like teaching students to manage and evaluate information in online spaces and encouraging kids to use digital tools to publish for wider audiences.

On my interdisciplinary team, most of those lessons happen in my classroom simply because I'm comfortable with introducing students to digital tools and spaces.  Wrote a book about it, even.

To address those standards, I had my students work in groups to use Diigo to create a shared collection of resources connected to the New York City Soda Ban -- a high-interest topic that played a role in our nonfiction reading work.  Check out the lesson here.

We also talked about the characteristics of collaborative dialogue -- and then practiced those skills by engaging in a VoiceThread conversation about the New York City Soda Ban.  You can see the conversation here and explore the lessons here.

Again -- not bad stuff, huh? 

But nothing in these lessons is going to be tested either -- even though it IS a part of the required curriculum that students are supposed to be introduced to.

Time "Wasted":  8 class periods.

#measureTHATlearning

Spending Two-Weeks Introducing the Scientific Method with an Actual Lab: Probably the worst decision that I made this year was deciding to start the year by introducing the scientific method with a lab activity. 

We spent the first few weeks using different liquids and materials to explore density -- the ONE theme that appears again and again in the content of our curriculum.

It was a pretty awesome experience for the  kids.

They know little about density when they come to sixth grade, so watching liquids separate out even after they are mixed and shaken vigorously raises a TON of wonder questions in their minds -- and because density appears so frequently in our curriculum, I've been able to use that experience as a starting point for a thousand conversations in our study of the required curriculum.

What I loved the most, though, was watching groups ask their own density-related extension questions -- and then try to figure out how they could (1). develop a lab to test their hypothesis and (2). communicate their findings with others.  Those are fundamental scientific behaviors, right?

Unfortunately, they're not TESTED scientific behaviors.

Time "Wasted":  8 class periods.

#measureTHATlearning

Allowing Students to Ask and Answer their Own Wonder Questions:  One of my favorite goals in the Common Core writing standards for science and social studies argues that students should be able to "conduct short research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question), drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions that allow for multiple avenues of exploration."

That's AWESOME, isn't it? 

We are LITERALLY saying that students should be spending regular time in schools asking and then researching answers for their OWN questions.

To tackle this goal, I started the year by having my kids spend 5-10 minutes at the end of each class period recording interesting questions connected to the content that we were studying. 

Then, at the end of the quarter, students had an entire class period to study one of the questions that they had generated during the quarter.

That practice, sadly, was pushed aside at the beginning of the second semester when I realized that we were going to run out of time before testing season started. 

To ensure that my kids were prepared to ANSWER questions, I stopped having them ASK questions -- but not before we'd "wasted" another chunk of valuable instructional minutes.

Time "Wasted":  5-10 minutes per day, or two class periods per month for one semester.  8 total class periods.

#measureTHATlearning

If my math is right, that means I spent 48 class periods on things that AREN'T going to be tested.  That WAS a foolish decision, right?

I should have known better than to spend so much time encouraging reading, introducing the skills necessary to tackle nonfiction text, teaching about the role that technology can play in making learning easier, developing the core behaviors of scientists, and allowing my kids to ask and answer their own questions.

#measureTHATlearning

Never mind the fact that EVERY one of those skills is a part of one of the three different required curricula that I'm supposed to teach or that EVERY one of those skills are skills that sophisticated, responsible learners must master in order to be "college and career ready."

The only thing that matters right now is that NONE of those skills will show up on our "measures of student learning" exam, so spending time on them was a decision that I'll pay for when my students struggle to answer questions about Contour Plowing, Pangaea, Geotropism,  the Chandra X-Ray Observatory or the Fermi-Gamma Ray Telescope in a few weeks.

Unless I get lucky and the 35 multiple choice questions chosen by test writers all cover the content that I DID get through, the results could be disastrous:  My "value-added score" will be low, "needs-improvement" will be slapped next to my name, and I'll be placed on a terminating contract all in the name of "holding teachers accountable."

I won't make the same mistake twice, y'all.  

Science is going to look a lot different in my room next year.  Whether I like it or not, the content that is tested will get WAY more attention than the content that isn't -- and I'm pretty sure that's NOT a good thing.

#sheesh

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Related Radical Reads:

 The Monster You've Created

Stuffing Kids with Content

What DO We Want Kids to Know and Be Able to Do

 

Is High School Academic Purgatory? [SLIDE]

Blogger's Note: My thinking here is unpolished.  I'm wrestling with the time-honored notion that one of the primary purposes of high school is to prepare kids for college.  As a teacher, that's always rubbed me a little wrong.  Not sure I have the answers, but I wanted to have the conversation.  Looking forward to hearing what you think. 

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A comment from my buddy Patrick Larkin got me thinking tonight.  In response to my thoughts about the usefulness of grades as a form of feedback in schools, he wrote:

"My son is just completing his freshman year of high school and has been on high honors throughout the year. Unfortunately, he is focused solely on what he needs to do to get the A and not much more. For some classes that means putting in a lot of effort and for others…not so much.

I am more worried about what he is learning than just his grade. I would not even mind a C if I could see that he was being forced to challenge himself and think deeply. I see little passion for what he is learning about, so while the good grades are certainly a bonus, the grades certainly don’t mean a heck of a lot."

Sound's familiar, doesn't it?  In the eyes of kids like Patrick's son, high school isn't a place for learning.  Instead, high school is nothing more than academic purgatory -- a place to aimlessly toil until they've paid the price necessary for admission into "higher education."

(click image to enlarge)

Download Slide_PrepareforCollege

Are we okay with that?  Are we okay with the suggestion that preparing kids for college -- places that many students find to be nothing more than ANOTHER pointless academic grind -- should be one of the primary goals of our public schools.  More importantly, is preparing kids for college SO important that we're willing to let kids like Patrick's son lose any sense of the passion and purpose that drives learners?

Can we REALLY say that being "college ready" and "career ready" are one in the same?

I guess what I'm asking is just HOW important IS college?

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Related Radical Reads:

Are Grades Utterly Useless?

What DO We Want Kids to Know and Be Able to Do?

Stuffing Kids with Content [SLIDE]

 

 

Are Grades Utterly Useless?

One of my all-time favorite assertions about grading in schools comes from Grant Wiggins.  He writes:

"The most ubiquitous form of evaluation, grading, is so much a part of the school landscape that we easily overlook its utter uselessness as actionable feedback. Grades are here to stay, no doubt—but that doesn't mean we should rely on them as a major source of feedback."

I'm starting to think that Wiggins is right, y'all:  Maybe grades ARE utterly useless as a form of feedback.

Here's why:

 In the minds of many students, learning stops as soon as a grade is given. 

For too many students, grades are end points in the never-ending rhythm of traditional schooling.  Instead of encouraging continued study, they signal that it's time to move on to a new idea -- and that old ideas can be neatly boxed up and filed away and forgotten.  Learning in a graded classroom becomes an isolated act delivered in units that have clear starting and ending points instead of a fluid process of continual exploration and connection and growth and discovery.

Grades have created a world where students have forgotten that THEY can assess their OWN growth towards important academic goals.

Caught in learning spaces where the only feedback that anyone seems to value are scores given by adults, too many of today's students sit passively waiting for the judgment of others, stripped of the self-reflective and evaluative skills that literally define the most successful people.

The crazy part is that BEYOND schools, students assess their own progress all the time.  Need proof?  Then check out the self-reflection and evaluation being done by this boy -- who is determined to learn how to start a fire without using a match.

His behaviors look familiar, don't they?

Every day, the kids in our classrooms are polishing skills and measuring their progress without being graded. Our gymnasts are fighting through bruises to master new tumbling routines.  Our fishermen are learning which baits work in which waters.  Our gamers are experimenting with a dozen new strategies for taking on new levels in their favorite games.

But that kind of self-reflection and evaluation happens almost exclusively BEYOND school.  Once the bell rings, progress-monitoring becomes someone else's responsibility.

Grades mask the real and tangible progress that students -- particularly those who struggle -- ARE making.

Instead of highlighting areas of individual strength and weakness, traditional grades bundle the sum total of a student's academic self-worth into a tidy letter that fits neatly on a report card.  Imagine how hard it is for kids buried in Cs and Ds to maintain any kind of momentum in our schools.

Wouldn't YOU give up if the most important feedback that you ever received told you that you were below average in everything all the time?

Assessment experts Rick Stiggins and Jan Chappius go as far as to argue that teachers have a moral imperative to rethink the role that assessment plays in either encouraging our students from moving forward.  They write:

"Thus, the essential school improvement question from an assessment point of view is this: Are we skilled enough to use classroom assessment to either (1) keep all learners from losing hope to begin with, or (2) rebuild that hope once it has been destroyed?"

For Stiggins and Chappius, regular opportunities for student-involved assessment -- instead of grades given exclusively by adults -- can help students to see that they ARE making progress and growing as learners.  They can  begin to understand that they ARE capable and successful – a message that they may never have heard before from anyone in positions of power in traditional schools.

There's a lot to think about, right?  What role SHOULD grades play in our schools?  CAN they be something more than utterly useless forms of feedback for students?

Perhaps more importantly, what are YOU doing to make sure that classroom assessment is helping YOUR students to maintain their own intellectual hope?

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Related Radical Reads:

@shareski's Right: My Students CAN Assess Themselves

 Another Student-Involved Assessment Experiment

My Middle Schoolers LOVE Our Unit Overview Sheets

 

 

Technology Professional Development Scenarios

Let's start with a simple truth:  Schools have limited budgets and every time that we make careless spending choices, we tie our own hands behind our backs.

As a result, I've worked HARD over the past several years to encourage both teachers and school leaders to think systematically about just what they want to see happening in classrooms before they spend ANYTHING on technology.

To that end, I've whipped up a set of stories that are designed to start conversations about just what good technology integration is supposed to look like in schools.

You can download the stories here:

2. Handout_TechnologyScenarios

What I plan to do with the stories is ask audiences to engage in Carousel Brainstorming -- moving in small groups from story to story and answering the reflection questions found on the final page of the packet.

My hope is that every participant will see themselves -- both who they are and who they want to be -- somewhere in the stories.  More importantly, my hope is that the conversations started in small groups will help participants to wrestle with the rationale behind their own technology spending choices.

Whaddya' think?

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Related Radical Reads:

Developing Technology Vision Statements

Making Good Technology Choices

Buying Teachers Chainsaws

 

What Do You Want From Me?

Blogger's Note: I read a John T. Spencer bit a few weeks back that touched a bunch of emotions.  That's led to a bit of unvarnished truth that I wanted to process here in a post that is decidedly light on the smiles and candycorn.  Hope that doesn't shake you. 

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One of the most painful moments in my teaching career happened several years back when I was working in a language arts classroom.

The results of our state's standardized tests had just come back and I was called into my assistant principal's office to review my scores.  "What are we going to do about this, Bill?" he said, passing a paper covered with red ink across the desk.  "You've got the lowest scores on the hallway again."

I wasn't mad at the principal.  In fact, I considered him a friend and he was only doing his job.  But in that moment, I was definitely defeated by a system that defined the value that I add in such a narrow way.

I lost it.  Literally started to cry in front of him.  I was embarrassed and brokenhearted all at the same time.  I felt like a failure and a fool all wrapped into one.

I was ashamed -- both of my results and my emotions:

Download: Slide_TheProblemwithShame

 

In that moment, I couldn't think rationally.  I couldn't remind myself that the end of grade exams given in our state only measured 2 out of 6 objectives in the curriculum.  I couldn't remind myself that my students excelled at untestable skills like engaging in collaborative dialogue or building new knowledge together.

I wasn't thinking about the kids who left my room inspired each year -- motivated to study new topics or to tackle new tasks or to try new things that they'd never considered trying before.  The power of those connections were forgotten; blurred by the stream of red ink that my state's legislators intended to use as an indicator of the sum total of the contributions that I make in the lives of my kids and my community.

I stormed out of the principal's office, grabbed my things and headed home.

On the way out the door, a parent chased me down in the parking lot.  "Mr. Ferriter.  MR. FERRITER.  Can I talk to you for a minute?" she said.

"I just wanted you to know how thankful I am for you.  My son loves you.  He comes home every day so excited about school -- and your lessons about life are sinking in.  He's proud of himself and he's determined and he told me that you talk about those things in class all the time.

"He means everything to me -- and sending him away for 8 hours a day is hard.  But knowing he's with you makes it easier.  I just thought you needed to know how grateful I am for you."

Her words mattered.  They were a reminder that I wasn't completely useless -- that some people really DO care about something other than end of grade test scores.

The entire experience has left me bitter and angry, though. I haven't let it go -- and I definitely haven't recovered.  Years later, I catch myself thinking back on that day.  

Most of the time, I wonder just what people want from me.  Am I supposed to inspire and encourage -- or am I supposed to grind a collection of random facts into twelve-year old minds in a march to the end of grade test?

Am I accomplished when my kids can spit back facts on low level multiple choice exams, or am I accomplished when my kids care about themselves and each other and their communities?  Can I make a difference even if I have the lowest test scores on the hallway?

And to be honest, my bitterness and anger only grows stronger in a Race to the Top world where even progressive politicians seem determined to use test scores to reward and punish teachers while simultaneously stripping away our resources and publicly celebrating their quest to destroy our profession.

Some days, fighting such a dysfunctional, confused system seems incredibly pointless, y'all.  Things aren't getting better.  They're far worse than they've ever been -- and I don't see any light at the end of the professional tunnel.

#whybother

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Related Radical Reads:

The Monster You've Created

My Work Has Been Gutted

Breaking Public Education to Pieces

Anti-Bullying PSA Project [LESSON]

Over the past few years, I've become convinced that today's kids are best motivated as learners when they are tackling a real-world issue in a meaningful way.  That's why my #sugarkills blog and my classroom microlending project have been so successful.

As Marc Prensky says, technology gives today's students power that they've never had before.  It's our job to help them learn to use that power to change the world in meaningful ways.

To that end, I spent the day whipping up a new cause for my kids to tackle during a school-wide enrichment period that starts next year.  

 Our cause will be called Speak Up Salem and our goal will be to push for a school culture where bullying isn't tolerated by generating influential Public Service Announcements that pair provocative images with interesting quotes.

Here's a sample:

The notion of creating influential visuals ties directly to several of the language arts goals in the sixth grade curriculum -- and learning to use visuals to be persuasive is probably one of the most important skills for grabbing attention in today's information-soaked world.

I'm also excited about the fact that this lesson will give me a chance to introduce students to the Creative Commons -- a new form of copyright where photographers, musicians, writers, and artists are granting other users permission in advance to use their content.

If this sounds good to you, here is a simple overview of the lesson that is designed to help other teachers get a sense for what I'm going to do:

Lesson_SpeakUpSalemSlides

And here are the materials that I'll be using when we start the project:

 Speak Up Salem Quotes and Statistics - http://bit.ly/speakupsalemquotes

This link connects to a Word document with several statistics and quotes about bullying that students can use when creating their Speak Up Salem slides. 

Encouraging students to select a quote or a statistic from this collection will save time in the creation process simply because they won’t have to find their own statistics and/or quotes connected to bullying.

 

Speak Up Salem Slides - http://bit.ly/speakupsalemslides

This link connects to a PowerPoint presentation with 67 different Creative Commons images that students can use when creating their own Speak Up Salem slides. 

Encouraging students to select an image from this collection will save time in the creation process simply because they won’t have to find their own CC images to use in their final products.

 

Speak Up Salem Directions - http://bit.ly/speakupsalemdirections

This link connects to a set of technical directions on using PowerPoint to create an influential visual.  At a minimum, it can help you to better understand the kinds of things students will need to be able to do when using PowerPoint to create an influential visual. 

You may also want to share one set of directions with each student group OR train a few student leaders that can provide technical support to their peers.

 

Speak Up Salem Scoring Rubric - http://bit.ly/speakupsalemrubric

While I don't plan to grade the work that my students do on this assignment -- honestly, I get sick of living in a world where everything has to have a grade tied to it to be considered worth doing -- I DO plan on having my kids evaluate the overall quality of their final products with this scoring rubric.

Hope this helps -- and more importantly, hope you'll stop back and give me feedback if you use this lesson with YOUR kids!  I'd love to know about any changes that you make.

#alwayspolishing

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Related Radical Reads:

 What Do YOU Know about the Creative Commons?

Using Google Docs to Create Digital Kits for Student Projects

More on Using Digital Kits to Structure Student Projects

Quick Guide to Web 2.0 Services [HANDOUT]

As a guy who has written two books about using technology in schools (see here and here) and who regularly delivers two-day workshops on teaching with technology (see here), one of the questions that I'm asked all the time is, "So what digital tools are YOU using in the classroom?"

While my first reaction is always to explain that choosing tools can only start once a practitioner has a clear vision for what they want their students to know and be able to do (see here), I also understand that having a sense for the kinds of services that other digitally driven teachers have embraced is useful -- particularly to people who are just beginning to integrate technology into their classrooms.

To that end, I've created an annotated Quick Guide to the Web 2.0 services that I find useful as a teacher and a learner. 

You can download it here:

Handout_QuickGuidetoWebTools

You can also bookmark the link to the Quick Guide in my Dropbox here.  That may even more useful to you simply because you'll see new additions and deletions anytime that I make changes to the document.

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Related Radical Reads:

Digital Immigrants Unite

Making Good Technology Choices

Technology Will Kill

 

The Handcuffs Holding Us Back [SLIDE]

In a recent bit over on his blog, my buddy Tony Baldasaro argued that the decisions schools make are often designed to support the system rather than to support students or to advance learning.

He writes:

"I’m trying hard to not be so cynical about the institutionalization of our public schools and I remind myself all the time of the amazing people that my kids get to learn from everyday, but when I get notifications of things such as that which I wrote above, I am reminded of how powerful the institutional machine really is."

In a lot of ways, Tony's right about the damage that "the institution" has done to education: The incredibly sad reality is that the principals and teachers working inside of our schools rarely have enough influence over "the system" to intentionally control much of anything that happens inside of our buildings anymore.

(click to enlarge)

Instead, we spend the vast majority of our professional time and energy doing little more than responding to the #edpolicy decisions that govern our work. 

Everything from the time that our students spend in class, to the content that must be covered in our curricula, to the way that we can spend our budgets is often explicitly defined by legislators.

To make matters worse, experimentation and innovation is literally crushed in high-stakes environments that tie our evaluations -- and our public reputations -- to the "results" we produce on low-level multiple choice exams that do little to encourage the kind of progressive thinking and instruction that REALLY matters in our classrooms.

Don't get me wrong: Schools need to change.  And yes, I believe that teachers and principals are the right people to lead that change.

But the simple truth is that practitioners are all-too-often handcuffed by the #edpolicy choices made by legislators working a thousand miles from the classroom. 

Until that reality changes, I'm hesitant to lay the blame for a stagnant system at the feet of principals and teachers.

Any of this make sense?

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Related Radical Reads:

Walking the Moral Tightrope

Are #edpolicies Turning Schools into Brainpower Wastelands?

Value-Added Teacher Evaluation Fails Kids and Communities

Declaring War on Teachers

How Engaged ARE Your Students?

Let's start with a simple truth, y'all:  Student engagement matters. 

When kids care about the lessons that they are learning, they are WAY more likely to master the kinds of essential skills, content and behaviors that will help them to become productive, contributing members of our society.

But the uncomfortable reality -- drawn from this January 2013 Gallup survey of 500,ooo students in grades 5-12 -- is that the chances are REALLY good that the majority the kids in YOUR classes AREN'T engaged:

(click to enlarge)

How can we legitimately defend the work that we are doing in schools -- and our status as professionals -- when over half of the kids that we serve report not being engaged in our classrooms?

Something's got to change -- and from the looks of this survey, it's our teaching.

#enoughsaid

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Related Radical Reads:

Technology Gives Kids Power

Digital Immigrants Unite

Introducing Our Newest Cause: #SUGARKILLS

5 Resources for Leaders Starting PLCs from Scratch

A school principal buddy of mine who I'll keep nameless for the time being reached out yesterday looking for a bit of advice.

His teachers are incredibly excited about the notion of becoming a professional learning community, but he isn't sure exactly where to start in order to lay the right foundation for the work that they want to do together. 

He wrote:

"Not sure what I am asking here… I guess I just feel that I have teachers buying in now and I don't want to blow it… but I also don't want to have the time in which the focus is on conversations rather than actual doing.  I feel we have great conversations but these conversations don't always lead to change.

As we are just starting out in September, we have 3 more staff meetings and a possible day in the summer to discuss/plan for PLC time next year.  Should the focus be purpose, process (norms, etc) for this year and the start of next year?

There are so many resources at All Things PLC that I am a bit overwhelmed and not sure where to look.  Beyond the Learning By Doing book, are there other key resources you would recommend me checking out this year and in the summer?"

As a guy who is pretty passionate about the power of professional learning communities, I get asked this question a bunch.  While there are literally TONS of good resources for helping school leaders to structure professional learning communities, finding practical starting points can be tough simply because there is SO much information to sift through.

Here are five resources from my own work that I think school leaders who are starting PLCs from scratch might find useful:

The Power of PLCs - One challenge that many school leaders face when moving their schools towards a more collaborative future is convincing teachers that PLCs can be something more than just another initiative.  Those leaders might find this post useful.  In it, I give a tangible example of how my own practice changed as a result of an opportunity to collaborate with my peers.

Don't Skip Vision and Values Statements - On a more practical level, it is ESSENTIAL for school leaders to help their faculties define a set of tangible action steps that will guide the work of every learning team in their buildings.  In this post, I explain why vision and values statements matter so much and share the collective commitments and action steps that my school recently developed.

What DO We Want Students to Know and Be Able to Do and Practice-Centered Observation Protocol -  My buddy's primary concern is that the time his teachers spend collaborating might not lead to any tangible change in practice.  That's where these two handouts will come in handy.  Both are designed to help teachers keep the collaborative work that they are doing focused on student-learning.  They can serve as solid starting points for meaningful conversations.

Laying the Collaborative Foundation - In October of 2012, I spent a full day working with the Glenwood Leadership Academy -- a progressive school in Evansville, Indiana that was working to cement their collaborative foundation as well.  This link connects to the workshop materials that I prepared for their school.  It is designed to introduce teams and teachers to a set of tangible first steps that schools can and should take in order to ensure that their PLCs get off to a solid start.

Does any of this look useful to you?

You can find the rest of my PLC content by poking around in the PLC category of my blog or by exploring the handouts from my two PLC books:  Building a PLC at Work and Making Teamwork Meaningful.

Are there any resources that YOU would recommend to school leaders interested in setting up PLCs in their buildings? 

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Related Radical Reads:

PLCs: Why This?  Why Now?  Why Bother?

Why This, Why Now, Why Bother - Part Deux

The Stages of PLC Development