Working the HMS PLC Cycle
Before selecting activities or resources, what must a collaborative team agree students need to learn?
The essential learning: the essential standard and the knowledge and skills students must demonstrate.
What school leadership group helps guide, monitor, and support implementation of the PLC process?
The Guiding Coalition.
What student-friendly statement describes what students are learning, often beginning with “I can…”?
A learning target.
What are the three Big Ideas of a PLC?
Focus on Learning; Collaborative Culture; Focus on Results.
What shared agreements define how team members will work together and hold one another accountable?
Team norms.
What assessment do teachers collaboratively develop and use during learning to identify which students need additional support or extension?
A common formative assessment - CFA
Why should a guiding coalition include respected teacher leaders representing different teams or perspectives?
To bring varied expertise, staff voice, credibility, and shared ownership to the improvement work.
What describes the observable evidence students can use to determine whether they have achieved a learning target?
Success criteria.
What are the first two critical questions of a PLC?
What do we want students to know and be able to do? and How will we know when students have learned it?
What meeting tool identifies the intended outcomes, topics, time allocations, and preparation needed?
An agenda.
After administering a CFA, why should a team examine results by student and learning target instead of looking only at overall averages?
To identify which students have learned which skills, specific misconceptions, and the support or extension each student needs.
What should drive the guiding coalition’s priorities: adult preferences or evidence of student and team needs?
Evidence of student learning and team needs, aligned with the school's shared goals.
What tool describes a progression of knowledge and skills across levels of proficiency for a learning goal?
A proficiency scale.
What are the third and fourth critical questions of a PLC?
What will we do when students haven’t learned it? and What will we do when students already know it?
What structured process helps a team examine student work or data while supporting equitable participation and focused discussion?
A protocol.
A team identifies students who need reteaching, provides targeted instruction, and then moves to the next unit. What essential action is missing?
Reassess the targeted learning to determine whether the additional instruction worked and identify next steps.
Several teams report that they do not know how to analyze CFA results. What should the guiding coalition organize?
A shared data-analysis process, modeling or coaching, and follow-up support to help teams use results to plan instruction.
A teacher lists “Finish the worksheet and turn it in” as the success criteria. Why is this insufficient?
It describes task completion, not evidence of learning. Success criteria should identify the knowledge, reasoning, or quality students must demonstrate.
A team studies a shared instructional problem, tries a new strategy, examines its impact, and refines its approach. Name two PLC characteristics demonstrated.
Any two: collective inquiry; action research and experimentation; commitment to continuous improvement; results oriented; collaborative teams focused on learning.
A team has posted norms, but members repeatedly interrupt and dismiss others’ ideas. What should the team do?
Use its agreed process to address the behavior, revisit the relevant norm, and monitor improvement. Norms must be practiced and reinforced.
CFA results show that 12 students have not mastered the target, 15 are proficient, and 5 demonstrate advanced understanding. What should the team plan for all three groups?
Targeted reteaching for the 12; extension or application for the 15; and greater depth, complexity, or transfer for the 5—with follow-up evidence to monitor learning and adjust groups.
A guiding coalition announces that every team submitted an agenda, so PLC implementation is successful. What additional evidence should it examine?
Evidence that teams use learning results to change instruction and that students improve—for example, CFA analysis, targeted response plans, reassessment results, and progress toward learning goals.
The learning target requires students to justify a solution, but the CFA only asks them to select an answer. What is the alignment problem, and how should the team fix it?
The CFA does not capture justification or reasoning. Add an item requiring students to explain or defend their solution and evaluate it using shared success criteria.
Name all six characteristics of a PLC.
1. Shared mission, vision, values and goals. 2. Collaborative teams focused on learning. 3. Collective inquiry. 4. Action research and experimentation. 5. Commitment to continuous improvement. 6. Results oriented.
A team ends its meeting by saying, “We’ll reteach next week.” What must it specify to make this an actionable commitment?
Which students need which learning; the instructional response; who is responsible; when support will occur; and what evidence will be reviewed, by when, to determine its impact.