3. Collaborative teams monitor student learning through an ongoing assessment process that includes frequent, team-developed common formative assessments.
4. Educators use the results of common assessments to improve individual practice, build the team’s capacity to achieve its goals, and intervene and enrich on behalf of students.
5. The school provides a systematic process for intervention and enrichment.
When collaboratively developed, a SIG promotes ownership of the PLC process and provides a roadmap for improvement. This tool can also be called a continuum or rubric. Some schools use rubrics for evaluative purposes while continuums represent resources that guide the curriculum’s development. To be as precise as possible, we chose the term strategy implementation guide to describe the tool we use to help teams improve their PLC practices.
• Strategy acknowledges that PLC is our choice for an overarching school-improvement plan of action.
• Implementation describes the process coaches and teams engage in to create the conditions for high-performing collaborative teams.
• Guide conveys how coaches will use the document to provide feedback to teams.
The SIG allows coaches and teams to monitor their progress, determine current levels of collaborative practice, provide differentiated feedback, identify next steps, and set new goals.
The structure of the SIG unwraps the components of the PLC process by identifying anchor statements detailing the highest level of performance related to each of the five prerequisite conditions of a PLC. Additionally, each anchor statement is deconstructed into a series of descriptors placed along a continuum of implementation to identify the actions and behaviors of highly effective collaborative teams (see figure I.1).
Source: Many et al., 2018, pp. 59–60.
Figure I.1: Anchor statements in a SIG.
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Teams begin the improvement process by reviewing the individual descriptors within a particular row of the SIG. In doing so, they identify which aspects of the PLC process are going well and which need more attention. Next, teams develop specific plans designed to move them from where they are to where they want to be. During this second step of the process, the SIG serves as a guide and helps teams monitor their progress. Finally, because SIGs represent an agreed-on standard of best practice, teams build on their own sense of efficacy as they make progress toward the goal of improving their PLC practice.
The process of creating a SIG requires schools to take into consideration varying factors that might alter their path and proactively identify alternative possibilities should any of those factors come to pass. Just like the pilot’s flight plan, the SIG is designed to become a plan for moving collaborative teams to an agreed-on destination in the most effective and efficient way possible.
In this book, we highlight the role of a coach in using element-specific SIGs while working with teams to develop the essential PLC elements of collective inquiry, continuous improvement, action orientation, and a focus on results.
The Pathways for Coaching Collaborative Teams
A similar connection can be made between the pilot’s preflight checklist and a team’s pathway tool. The concept behind the pathways is to identify the most critical and important steps in the PLC process and ask probing questions that move teams through a series of tasks in response to the four critical questions of a PLC (DuFour et al., 2016). Each task a team tackles in response to the critical questions could be considered a part of the preflight checklist that ensures the routine but necessary elements of an effective PLC are in place and working properly. Figure I.2 shows the pathway tasks associated with each of the critical questions of a PLC. These tasks reflect the fundamentals of the PLC process.
A parallel exists between the pilot’s preflight checklist and a team’s pathway tool. The concept behind the Pathways is to identify the most critical and important steps in the PLC process and ask probing questions as teams move through a series of tasks in response to the four critical questions of a PLC. Each task in response to the critical questions could be considered a part of the preflight checklist that ensures the routine, but necessary elements of an effective PLC are in place and working properly.
As an example, the tasks associated with responding to question 1, What do we want our students to know and be able to do?, include prioritizing standards, identifying learning targets, determining proficiency levels, planning units, and analyzing strategies. Coaches can help teams use the pathways to monitor the presence and effectiveness of the various essential elements. If teams discover implementation gaps, coaches can provide extra time and support to ensure the various tasks are aligned to best PLC practice. Just as a plane cannot fly if its flaps are not working properly, collaborative teams will not maximize student learning if the basic tenets and big ideas of a PLC are not in place.
Figure I.2: Pathways as they relate to the four critical questions of a PLC.
Visit go.SolutionTree.com/PLCbooks for a free reproducible version of this figure.
Something to keep in mind about a flight plan and a preflight checklist is that it is important to have both; they work in tandem. A pilot could have a flight plan that provides a clear understanding of where he or she is going and how to get there, but if he or she fails to engage in the preflight checklist and something is wrong with the mechanics of the plane, the pilot may never get off the ground. Likewise, a pilot could implement the preflight checklist, but without a flight plan, he or she could end up flying in circles. The same is true for the SIG and the pathways in a PLC; both are necessary for the development of highly effective collaborative teams.
Applying the Best Thinking
With How Schools Thrive, we do not attempt to create a new theory or model; instead, we hope to apply the best thinking in our profession to the goal of creating highly effective collaborative teams. We cannot take credit for identifying the essential elements of a PLC; the recognition for that goes to Rick DuFour and Bob Eaker, as the architects of the PLC process.
We also want to acknowledge the seminal work of Peter Senge, the author of The Fifth Discipline (1990). In his writings, Senge urges leaders to create learning organizations. Educators can draw parallels between Senge’s learning organization and PLCs. Senge (1990) argues that “what has been lacking is a discipline for translating individual vision into shared vision—not a ‘cookbook’ but a series of principles and guiding practices” (p. 9). We agree, and while many principles of Senge’s learning organization are reflected in the PLC process, we believe there is also a need to translate the good things we know about coaching individuals around improving their instructional practice into a shared vision of coaching collaborative teams around improving their PLC practices.
Since the release of Amplify Your Impact, we often hear comments like, “OK, you convinced me; it’s a good idea to coach collaborative teams, but can you tell us exactly what we should coach teams to do that will contribute to high levels of learning for all?” Good question! Once schools commit to coaching as the primary means of improving the effectiveness of PLCs, principals, coaches, and teacher leaders can more readily influence the way collaborative teams engage in the work.
This book will help identify the specific behaviors, routines, and habits that support a commitment to coaching collaborative teams. Creating a coaching culture while simultaneously promoting the team’s mastery of collective inquiry, continuous improvement, action orientation,