1. A focus on learning
2. A collaborative culture and collective responsibility
3. A results orientation
These three big ideas do not represent a program, a series of documents, or a project to complete. They represent a way of thinking and doing business in a school. With the first big idea, we ensure that we, as educators, are willing to examine everything to ensure that nothing is misaligned with promoting high levels of learning for all. Big idea number two ensures a collaborative culture exists. This means that all staff members, regardless of assignment, are on a collaborative team that shares norms; common goals driven by timely, user-friendly, and relevant information regarding student learning; common frequent meeting time during the school day; and protocols to guide the work. Members of a team are committed to holding each other accountable. Big idea number three ensures that team members regularly seek out evidence for student learning and use this information to improve the practice of the individual teachers and collaborative teams as they work toward goals, and to respond to the needs of students through intervention and enrichment.
The conduits to much of this work are the four critical questions of a PLC. By examining the four critical questions, teams are doing the necessary work to ensure that they are embedding these three big ideas of a PLC into their practice.
The Four Critical Questions of a PLC
In PLCs, grade-level or same-subject collaborative teams spend considerable time and energy discussing the four critical questions (DuFour et al., 2016).
1. What do we want all students to know and be able to do?
2. How will we know if they learn it?
3. How will we respond when some students do not learn?
4. How will we extend the learning for students who are already proficient?
These questions become the focal point and driving force for collaborative time, as members work to ensure that they are constantly discussing and considering them. This ongoing cyclical process utilizes data to inform the team’s work and ultimately ensures all students learn at high levels.
While all four questions and the work of a PLC are important for this book, this fourth question is our focal point. We seek to provide a way for teams to address students who are already proficient when they walk into the classroom or who quickly gain proficiency early on in an instructional unit or lesson. There are a few different ways that you will hear educators refer to this population, including:
■ Students who already know it
■ Students who are already proficient
■ Students who need to have learning extended
■ Question 4 students (or Q4 students)
■ Gifted and talented students
For the purposes of this book, from this point forward, we will refer to this population of students as question 4 students. Note that we do not endorse only considering students identified as gifted as question 4 students; this is not a “gifted book.” This is a question 4 book that addresses high ability and potential, which is flexible and evolves based on what is being taught. We authors have seen it’s possible that one student might be considered a “question 4 student” one week but not necessarily the next. For example, a student who is not under the “gifted and talented” label but shows high potential during a pretest would benefit from the instructional components we advocate in this book.
Teams often report to us that the four questions are addressed in order, one through four, with the last question typically skipped due to time, priorities, or lack of know-how by the collaborative team members. When this happens, question 4 students’ needs are not being met. We contend that in order to truly consider the fourth question, teams need to address how they plan to extend learning for question 4 students much earlier in the process. If teams wait until a formative assessment is administered to make this determination, it is too late, as instruction has already occurred. This conversation needs to take place at the beginning of a unit to ensure that teams take the needs of all students into account.
The Challenge With Responding to Question 4
Because question 4 very specifically uses the word extend, as we begin a discussion about question 4, we feel it is important to define the difference between enrichment and extension. We have seen these terms commonly used interchangeably when discussions emerge about question 4 and what to do for question 4 students.
Enrichment is a term used to describe “the subjects traditionally taught by specials or electives teachers (such as music, art, drama, applied technology, and physical education) and the activities often used to enrich learning (for example, field trips and assemblies)” (AllThingsPLC, 2016). Extension, by comparison, is:
when students are stretched beyond essential grade-level curriculum or levels of proficiency. Extension can be achieved by asking students to demonstrate mastery of essential standards at a level beyond what is deemed grade-level proficient, providing students access to more of the required grade-level curriculum that is deemed nonessential, or providing students access to curriculum above their current grade level. (AllThingsPLC, 2016)
The strategies described in this book reflect extension. We are providing tools for teachers to extend and stretch students’ learning, particularly for question 4 students. From our experience, question 4 is a question that the classroom staff rarely answer. Teachers and educators in general tend to work through questions 1–3 chronologically, stop at question 3, and not move forward to answer question 4. Many teachers and educators focus on the struggling students (who are the subject of question 3) and their deficits and work toward progress on district, state, or national tests. We often hear educators call students who are just below proficient bubble students and spend time and energy moving them to proficiency. This type of work and conversation often trumps the rich conversations that would otherwise take place around question 4.
However, we can’t just ignore question 4 students. It is easy to assume that these learners will be fine and will adapt to whatever is given to them. This isn’t the case. Experts share that students, when not challenged, will (1) get by and try not to bring attention to themselves (and not be intellectually challenged), (2) zone out and find a different activity to engage their brain (such as doodling), or (3) act out with behaviors that draw negative attention to them (Long, 2013).
Many might look at these three items and think that as long as the result isn’t the third option, things will be fine. We are really short-changing students with this mentality, as studies show the great things that are possible when educators intentionally design instruction to respond to these students. Researchers at Vanderbilt University have been working on a fifty-year longitudinal study of students identified as gifted from 1972 to 1997 (Park, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2013). They have been conducting follow-up studies with the former students at various intervals to learn about how gifted education practices have impacted their lives. Gregory Park, David Lubinski, and Camilla P. Benbow (2013) find that the students in their cohorts have gone on to be top scholars, scientists and inventors, and leaders. One key finding from this study shows that pushing gifted learners by allowing grade skipping resulted in a 60 percent higher likelihood that the students would go on to earn doctorates or patents and be more than twice as likely to get a PhD in a STEM field (Park et al., 2013). The researchers also point out that while this does not happen in most schools, even modest interventions have a demonstrable effect (Clynes, 2016).
Park, Lubinski, and Benbow’s (2013) study shows that question 4 students benefit when we determine how to meet their needs and implement the identified interventions. The problem is that school leaders and teachers in some PLCs often skip this question in their team meetings. Consider the following statements. Does this sound familiar?
If we are going to work together and be able to talk about what we are doing instructionally, it stands to reason that we should be on the same page with at least the standards that we will be teaching.