Each Friday Meridian School District is on a one-hour late start schedule. This dedicated late start gives teachers the opportunity to meet for Professional Learning Communities (PLCs).
Teachers gather in grade level or content area teacher teams to review student data and answer four essential questions:
1.What do we expect our students to learn?
2. How will we know if they learn it?
3. How do we respond when students do not learn it?
4. How will we respond when students do learn?
The collaborative teacher teams decide what are the most critical things students need to learn. Then they decide how they will measure whether the students have mastered the critical content. After they teach, they review student data and identify students who have either mastered the critical content or students who may need extra support.
When teacher teams meet, they can share ideas and strategies to support individual students so that all students excel.
“Each teacher brings with them different strategies, tools or experience and so when they collaborate together, they are able to share those practices to best support students,” said Director of Teaching and Learning Adrienne Somera.
The PLC model is effective in that it promotes collective responsibility. This means, for example, a second grade teacher is not just responsible for the learning success of their class but is responsible for the learning success of all second graders. This is the same for all grade levels and content areas.
At Irene Reither Elementary School, fifth grade teachers focused on writing skills for students, specifically writing narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details and clear event sequences.
The fifth grade team focused on this standard because it is assessed at every grade and is built on every year. To check this skill, students were given a photo and asked to write a story based on the picture. Teachers then graded the stories together.
After reviewing the scores, fifth grade teachers noticed a theme that students needed most help in elaboration and organization. To improve this, teachers implemented one-on-one writing conferences, gave feedback that was specific to each student and gave feedback that was targeted to a specific skill. Fifth grade teachers will repeat the lesson with students and then grade them again. They will then be able to compare scores to see if students improved their skills.
“PLCs are important for a lot of reasons. What comes to mind first is calibration. When teachers plan lessons together, assess together or look at data together, it allows consistency across the grade level. All students are getting generally the same experience no matter what class they’re in,” fifth grade teacher Rebecca Kratzig said.
“It also allows teachers to share ideas and put their heads together to solve problems of practice. When multiple educators get in a room together to think through a situation, we can usually find an answer or at least find the place to find the answer. It’s super powerful.”