CHAPTER 12: CLOSING THE KNOWING-DOING GAP.

R. Dufour, R.Eaker, and R. Dufour (2005) Closing the Knowing-Doing Gap. in R. Dufour, R.Eaker, and R. Dufour (eds). On common ground. (ppg 224-251) Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

Abstract: This is basically the closing, wrap-up chapter of the book. Now we have the knowledge about PLCs. This chapter tells us how to turn that knowledge into action. The writers realize that educators have to act on this knowledge, or they cannot expect results. There are basically ten barriers which stop us from acting to implement PLCs. The chapter outlines them, and what we can do to overcome them. The first is substituting a decision for action. When this happens, people think that a decision made by a higher up person, will cause people to act in new ways. However, this doesn't really happen. There is a different between something that is intended and something that is implemented. Educators need to implement decisions, not just intend to make a change. The second barrier is substituting mission for action. This is when schools spend a bunch of time coming up with a great mission statement, and then think the entire staff is going to automatically change the way they act to comply with the mission statement. The real mission is revealed by what people do, not what they say. They could be saying one thing, and not really doing it. In PLC schools, the educators develop shared visions to guide how they achieve their mission. The third is planning as a substitute for action. You can plan to create a learning community all you want, but if you don't commit to it and implement it goes no where. Planning needs to be done and adapted throughout the year, not when the school year begins. The fourth barrier is complexity as a barrier to action. Basically the whole idea behind this is to keep it simple. Have simple structures, simple language and simple concepts. Over complexity just limits what you can do. Big ideas and simple messages can help get the points across. The fifth barrier is mindless precedent as a barrier to action. This is when teachers take the "ain't broke, don't fix it" approach. If they are doing things one way and its "working" why should they change? This is a bad mindset that teachers need to get out of. Educators need to be challenged to think carefully about if they are really making progress or not, and how they can improve. The staff should be given information and develop their own conclusions, without making assumptions. The sixth barrier is internal competition. This is when people refuse to admit they could actually learn something from their colleagues, share knowledge, and develop skills. Leaders need to create a "Sharing culture", where teachers don't compete. To do this, leaders must shift the focus from individualism, to school wide and collaborative success. The seventh barrier is badly designed measurement. This is when systems are ineffective in evaluating progress. Badly designed measurements tell educators how they did, not what things are going right and what are going wrong. That is more important. This is basically like having on going feedback, and formative assessments. The eighth barrier is the external focus barrier. That is when people look at things that are going on outside of the organization which impede its progress. People, who don't want to act, can always find justification for inaction. Basically, people who don't want plcs will look for negative things and criticize it. Giving teachers input and having them focus on what they CAN do to improve the school, not what isn't allowing them to improve, helps them. It is kind of the glass half full approach. The ninth barrier is the focus on attitudes barrier. This is when some colleagues are not "ready" to act and are not persuaded to jump on the PLC train. No school is ever going to have 100% agreement about doing PLc's. But after implementation, action can influence attitude. Once a teacher sees the improvements, they will be more likely to change the way they viewed the plc before hand. The tenth barrier is training as a substitute for action. This means there is more time training for doing the task them doing the task. You learn more from experience than you do being told. Basically, implementing PLC's is difficult but definitely do-able. They can have huge impact on student learning and the success of a school.

Reflection:
One thing I liked about this chapter was that it basically cleared up the problems with PLC's I had been thinking about as I read the book. There definitely are some barriers that can stop the effectiveness of PLC's but the awareness of those barriers allows you to remedy them. I think the knowing-doing gap is without a doubt there. Just because a school KNOWS a ton about PLCs doesn't mean they will be effective in creating one. They need to "do". Educators need to set their excuses aside, and give the chance for improvement. If they really care about learning, then they should want improvement. I really hate the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it idea". I was glad that the chapter covered that. I could see a lot of teachers saying, well what we are doing is working, why do we have to change. It all comes down to if you want to make progress as a school or if you want to stagnate. If teachers want to continue to remain where they are and not improve, then, well, too bad. As a school and a teacher you don't want to flat line, you want to constantly improve. Not everyone is going to jump on the PLC bandwagon right off. There are a lot of teachers that have been teaching for a lot of years that might scowl at it. Instead of waiting for 100% commitment to a PLC, leaders should implement it, and then let the progress change the attitudes. Seriously, never is every single person going to agree with what a leader is doing. Someone can ALWAYS find fault. In that case, it is important to think about what’s best for the school and the students, because that is what it is all about. If a teacher can't take off his or her blinders and see the big picture, and how they can help their students, their schools, and improve their teaching, then maybe it’s about time to apply at McDonalds.

Grace, for some reason I cannot get in and edit the previous post, Chapter 11. It is not spell-checked. grrr. Just thought I'd let you know..

Chapter 11: Professional Learning Communities Writ Large

Fullan, Michael. (2005) Professional Learning Communities Writ Large. in R. Dufour, R.Eaker, and R. Dufour (eds). On common ground. (ppg 209-223) Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

Abstract:
This chapter outlines a tri-level solution to creating PLC's. These levels are the school/community level, the district level, and the state or province level. This solution is taking a systems approach, and the strenght is scaffolded throughout the three levels.
At the school/community level, the focus is to improve student acheivement. Schools need a capacity to do this. This capacity comes from policies and programs from the district and state level. The district level looks to change the overall culture of the school district. This means entire districts are pushing to have professional learning communities within the various schools. How can they do this effectively? For success in a district it needs: leaders with driving conceptualization, a collective moral purpose, structure and roles for capacity building, lateral capacity building, deep learning, productive conflict, demanding cultures, external partneers, and growing financial investment. There are however, no examples where district wide PLC's have been implemented, but that doesn't mean it can't be done.The third level is the state or province level and totally depends on the policy the state or province has. Policy makers often perfur quick solutions, like putting a band-aid over a bullet hole type deal. This causes problems because PLC implemation takes time and effort.
There are 4 implications which come from the tri-level solution.
1) The neneds to address bias toward individualized solutions
2) need for system thinkers
3) imporance of learning from one another
4) danger of waiting for others to do something..
This tri-level agenda would make great progress if all three levels were able to become engaged in the process. This chapter argues that without the tri-level approach, it will be impossible for PLCs to work.

Reflection:
I found this chapter kind of confusing. First of all, I have no clue what "writ large" means. When I looked up the definition, the definitions they gave me had nothing to do with the title or the chapter. So I guess I didn't really get what it meant. Hopefully I didn't miss something to substantially important. The capacity thing kind of threw me off too. Maybe that is just the way I was interpreting it though. I thought this chapter was interesting and the idea of a tri level approach is a very good idea. The system has to be in place for PLC's to work, and it is important that it is tackled from more than one level, the school level. Support also needs to come from the district and the state. It is kind of like scaffolding, where levels and intertwined and build upon one another. I did feel that this chapter kind of contridicted itself in a way. It was giving us all these ideas about the tri-level approach and how effective it could be. Then, at the end of the chapter, the author tells us that no PLC's can be implemented without all three levels working. But also, in the chapter, it tells us that no district and very few states have implemented this system at these levels. I guess this was kind of disheartening, because if this is true, then are there no PLC's out there that work? I don't know. I guess I just felt like we have all this great information about PLC's and how they should work and will improve learning and stuff, then we are finding out that you need to have all three levels for them to work, and no schools have two of the levels yet. Ahh!

Chapter 10: Chicago Public Schools

Citation:

Eagan-Watkins, Barbara. (2005). Implementing PLCs in the Chicago Public Schools. In R. DuFour, R. Eaker, & R. DuFour (Eds.). On common ground. (pp. 193-207) Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

Abstract:

This chapter is all about how the Chicago public school system implemented PLC's. The school system has over 620 schools and 434,000 students, so this change wasn't exactly done on a small scale level. The majority of the students are from low income families and 14% were limited in english proficiency. Before PLCs were implemented the teacher's and staff were overwhelmed by the demands a large urban school has. The district implemented PLC's to ensure every student in every school received a quality education. The district had to take three steps to implement the PLC. First they had to develop a clear and common vision and mission for the schools. Through careful research and planning, the developed a Education Plan that had three goals. These goals were 1) to provide students with a differential, engaging, challenging curriculum, and strong instructional programs 2) to develop innovative approaches to maintain high quality leadership and teaching, and 3) to maintain schools as strong communities with open communication between teachers, the principal, and other staff. Second they had to support the vision with resources and incentives. Third, they had to commit to allowing time for real change and growth to occur. They created a program called STARS: School Team Achieving Results for students which was focused ono improving instruction and achievement through school leadership teams. There were 135 teams that participated in STARS. The teams were made up of the principal and 4 teacher leaders. The program had 6 major components, to build school capacity, to understand and manage change, to design powerful teaching and learning, to build PLC's, to develop a school leadership team, and to plan for action. The school continues to implement change based around their education plan.

Reflection:
I really liked this chapter because it actually showed PLC's in action. The other chapters have told us all the ways to create a successful PLC, but didn't really show us one. One thing that I found particularly interesting was that the Chicago Public School district had about 85% of their students coming from low income families. Often we hear of low income students being at-risk students, and this district was made up of most of them. This just proves how effective PLC's can be if implemented. They improved learning for all these students, who may not have the support or resources that higher income students have. One thing this chapter showed is the effort that goes into changing a school, and that it doesn't just happen over night. You can tell that the school implemented many programs to help teachers jump on board the PLC and to help them improve professionally. I thought it was really good how much attention was paid to teachers collaborating and working as teams like in the STARS program. I found this chapter particularly helpful, because it actually showed a PLC in motion.

Chapter 9: Effective Schools:

Abstract: This chapter was all about Effective Schools and the qualities and traits effective schools have. Effective schools make a difference in the lives of children and the community. Schools which do not make a different are not effective schools. There are 7 important correlates that help make Effective schools. These are; instructional leadership,a clear and focused mission, a safe and orderly environment, climate with high expectations for success, frequent monitoring of student progress, positive home school relations, and opportunity to learn and time spent on task. Schools that have these qualities can definitely make a difference. Many schools need to change to become effective schools. School change requires three things. First, it requires that the people who work in their schools change their behavior to some degree. Second, each organization and operating system within the school would need to change. Third, in order to initiate change there need to be specific process characteristics to spark this change. Two important process characteristics are involvement: by teachers administrators and support staff, and collaboration. Within collaboration there are three different types of powers which exist. These are "stick power", the power of threat, "carrot power" the power of incentive, and "hug power" the power if a shared vision and beliefs. Effective schools need to have a leadership group, who has 6 core beliefs. The first belief is that school improvement is a one school at a time process. We shouldn't try to reform every school at once. The second is the belief that there are only two kinds of schools, the declining and the improving ones. Thirty, is that every adult in the school is important. Forth, is that schools have the capacity to improve themselves already, colleagues are already doing the best they can with the knowledge they have. Six, all children can learn and the school can assure all students WILL learn.

Reflection: There were a couple things that I particularly liked about the core beliefs. I think it was really important that they make a point that schools have the capacity to improve themselves already,, and that they make a pint that teachers are already doing the best they can with the knowledge they have. The good thing about this is that they weren't putting the blame on teachers for the schools not improving. It was more like they were saying that each school has the ability to improve and they can if teachers are given the knowledge, than making the teachers feel bad or incompetent about themselves and their teaching. Another important thing was that schools should be improved one at a time and not all at once. I feel like a problem with effective schools is that the whole district will start trying to revamp everything and each and every one of their school's. This process of change would just be completely overwhelming for schools. We can't try to do too much at once, or change will not sustain or be effective.

Chapter 8

Abstract:
This chapter is about leadership and its importance in teaching, learning and relationships. Leaders are extremely important for the long term maintenance of professional learning communities. The quality of leadership by principles and teachers, directly effects how effective teaching and learning will be in a school. Leaders are extremely important to overcome the barriers which most professional learning communities come across. There are three fundamental barriers which all professional learning communities come across. These are a lack of clarity regarding values, intentions and beliefs, a dependence on people outside of the school to tackle school problems, and a sense of resignation that robs educators of energy.
Successful learning communities are places where everyone is both a teacher and a student. Leaders need to invest time and energy into engaging those around them into the idea of both teaching and learning. A leader needs to commit to teaching, create the conditions being taught and help students have self confidence to engage and teach as well. Leaders need to have Teachable Points of View. Teachable Points of View are cohesive sets of ideas and concepts that a leader can clearly articulate to others. It’s basically like having a mission statement or a cohesive goal. Creating these TPV’s is what makes people great leaders. The chapter recommends writing as a way to create a TPV, specifically writing about plc’s., and other important subjects to a school. These range from 5 minute power speeches about visions or a mission to full day interactive activities. TPV’s have many different purposes, and can be implemented as a dialogue answering the question “who am I?” “Who are we” or “where are we going?” Dialogue in PLCS should focus on shared meaning and learning, should respect differences, should suspend role and status distinctions and should involve sharing responsibility and leadership.

Reflection:
I definitely agree that good leadership is really important if you want to have an effective PLC or an effective school in general. Schools that lack strong leadership also suffer academically and in student learning in my opinion. A good leader isn’t an authoritarian dictator who tells everyone what to do and accepts no other ideas. A good leader is accepting and is a teacher and a learner in my opinion. I was kind of confused by the way TPV’s were explained in the chapter, but I think they are pretty much just mission statements, speeches or activities about certain important aspects of PLC’s or important aspects of teaching and learning. I think it is important for leaders to implement these kinds of activities to get everyone on the same page, especially if you want to have a successful PLC. I don’t think a PLC would ever work with an unenthusiastic, unmotivated leader. These are two extremely important qualities in any leader, as well as the fact that they need to be accepting and open to ideas. I think that like in any situation, a group, community or an institution without a good motivated leader will rarely last long. Leadership is very important.