What can happen when teachers get together to discuss student learning?  Lots – and not just for the students, for the teachers too.  That is what I have discovered through the organization of our district’s Arts Integration PLC.  Nearly three years ago, I sent out an email to all the teachers in Amesbury, Massachusetts where I work as a fourth grade teacher, inviting them to join me in a professional learning community focused on arts integration.  I was happy to get interest and even more happy when our first meeting came to fruition.

The group is diverse.  Our membership has ranged from pre-school to high school and yet it works!  Our commitment to student learning and understanding of the importance of arts in education is a common thread that’s powerful enough for us to meet and make a difference in our teaching. We have had wonderful discussions, created great art together and learned so much from each other.  I remember just last year watching the HS foreign language teacher and the pre-school teacher conversing about language, art and the brain.  It was fascinating to hear their ideas and to then later see how it affected their teaching.  It just proved that regardless of what we teach, we are all adults working toward the same thing.

Each year membership may change, but we have a core group that is dedicated and understands the importance of what we are doing.   This year we have eight teachers and we are off to a great start.  We are starting the year thinking about our purpose and vision to focus our intentions.  Because few of us share the same students, we must find a way to discuss student learning in a general, yet purposeful way.  So we are choosing overall skills that all of our students need to learn and will discuss and share ideas to integrate the arts into these areas.  We started our year talking about Vocabulary since our district had just spent a PD day on the topic.   Next month, we will focus on ways to integrated the arts into math.

Since we only meet once a month, I felt it was important to start a wiki for us to keep in contact and continue our discussions.  This wiki is open to ANY teacher interested in the topic of arts integration and we welcome your comments on our discussion threads.  So, please, I invite you to go to artsintegrationplc.wikispaces.com and contribute to the “What is it about arts integration?” discussion under the Discussion tab.  You can also click the PLaiC logo on the right sidebar anytime you are here at The Inspired Classroom.

So join us!  Let’s create a greater Arts Integration PLC that spans the country and maybe even the world!

~EMP

Related posts:

1. Arts Integration Cannot Replace Arts Ed
2. True Arts Integration
3. Arts Integration Course this Summer

Guest bloggers on The Inspired Classroom and I have often touched upon personal philosophies of education.  These philosophies have ranged from technology to special ed, to education and teaching in general.  My first written philosophy of ed (from about 13 years ago) compared teaching to gardening, and I was brought back to those images once again while reading Revisiting Professional Learning Communities at Work – New Insights for Improving Schools (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, 2008).  Early in the book, the authors mentioned how throughout history, many schools have tended to use teaching strategies and assessments in particular to “weed” out the less successful students so that the other students can move on to greater success; a “sort and select” process.

When you first hear this, you may think this is horrible.  I did.  But sometimes you have to face reality and realize that methods of “sorting and classifying” children and young adults happen all the time.  But the image of “weeding” out the students who are not getting it at a steady pace?  That is simply not what education should be about.  So – I ask you (and myself): Are we weeding or cultivating?

If the purpose of education is to develop high achieving students, then we also need to develop learners, life-long learners, people who show a love of all learning as they strive for their personal best.  Sounds corny, huh?  But it’s true.  We need to help students understand that learning is a natural part of life.  Whether they are learning basic skills, necessary curriculum or more about what interests them, our job is to cultivate that learning, not squash it.

In the chapters on assessment that I have read, an example of this really stood out for me.  In a school culture build around PLCs, if  students are given a common formative assessment and fail in any aspect, they are given extra support as well as another opportunity to retake the assessment.  But here’s the clincher: The student’s new grade replaces the old one.

All through my schooling, that would not have happened.  Instead the two grades would be averaged for a final assessment grade.  And this is a practice I have carried into my own teaching (that is until about 2 weeks ago!)  I had to pause for a moment and really think this through.  If a student works hard to learn the material for which he is accountable (even after the majority of the class is done), retakes a variation of the assessment and does considerably better, shouldn’t he receive the new grade and not an average of the two?

Here are two quotes from the book that helped transform my thinking:

• We have yet to find a (school) mission statement that says, “(Students) must all learn fast or the first time we teach it.”
• If some students must work longer and harder to succeed, but they become proficient, their grade should reflect their ultimate proficiency, not their early difficulty.”  (p. 219)

Makes sense, doesn’t it?

Another example of this, which I LOVED, was when the authors wrote about how teachers in one school assigned students to write an essay and then they didn’t give them a grade.  Instead, the teachers wrote feedback for each student, handed the essays back, gave students time to revise and then graded the next draft.  I think this is a wonderful practice that really demonstrates to students that you want them to learn and succeed at what they are doing.

Students who are told that feedback ‘will help you learn’ learn more than those who are told that ‘how you do tells us how smart you are and what grades you’ll get.’ (p. 223)

Again, it just makes sense!

One of my goals in teaching is to cultivate learners.  I try to spend a lot of time getting students to become aware of their learning styles, getting them to take ownership of their own learning.  It’s important to not just preach this, but practice it.  Students deserve the opportunity to learn and even practice how to learn.  And in the 21 century, it’s not about weeding anymore in education, it MUST be about cultivating life-long learners.

~EMP

Click one of the tags from this post to find related posts.

In my last post, “Common Formative Assessments Built by PLCs,” I talked about what common formative assessments are as a reflection of my reading Revisiting Professional Learning Communities at Work – New Insights for Improving Schools (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, 2008).   But you may be wondering WHY you would do this.  I’d like to explore that here.

When you do not have common formative assessments (CFA), the teaching among teachers can be disjointed.  For example, I work in a team of five fourth grade teachers, if we all teach “States of Matter” but do it all in our own way and assess it in our own ways, our students may not all receive and understand the same information.  In addition, we are all doing our own work to prep for lessons and assessments that could be shared with one another.

When teachers come together to create a CFA, all the teachers have an end in mind – a goal for students that has been thoughtfully created and embedded in the standards.  Of course this “end” is not really the end at all.  Since the assessment is formative, the results of such an assessment are then analyzed by the team and students are given additional opportunities to learn the content.

The use of CFAs helps students, individual teachers and teams.  Think about it – you work with other teachers to create and then analyze the data knowing that students will get the help they need to achieve the high standards you’ve set.  Then, those students who are lacking skills can get assistance from anyone in the team of teachers.  It’s not about analyzing the data and pointing fingers at students who aren’t “getting it” or at teachers who aren’t “giving it right.”  Instead, when these teachers meet, they are sharing strategies, ideas and talents with one another.  These types of meetings have the potential to help individual teachers as much as they do individual students.

The key to remember with CFAs is that they are assessments FOR learning not OF learning (as in summative assessments).  The book explains the three steps that must take place in order to have effective common formative assessments (p 217).  Here they are:

• The assessment is used to identify students who are experiencing difficulty in their learning.
• A system of intervention is in place to ensure students experienceing difficulty devote additional time to and receive additional support for their learning.
• Those students are provided with another opportunity to demonstrate their learning and are not penalized for the their earlier difficulty.

See, creating CFAs is not enough in a PLC.  There is an implied step here that teams do not simply create CFAs, but they also meet to reflect and problem solve in the interest of all students reaching high standards.  Teams need to plan for this and some sort of system for flexibility needs to be in place.

Let’s face it, we all want students to do well.   In a PLC, the whole idea is that we work together to make that happen.  I’m sure I mentioned in the last post that my principal and a group of teachers are looking at the PLC model to see how it can be a good fit for our school.  It has such potential and the use of common formative assessments seems to be one of the backbones of implementing successful PLCs.

The great thing to realize is how our teams of teachers do work together often and are always striving for student excellence.  Working toward this PLC model will certainly make our work more efficient and in-depth.  I look forward to sharing more about our journey.

~EMP

Image from http://www.impactconsultingassociates.com

Related posts:

1. Common Formative Assessments Built by PLCs
2. So many assessments!
3. Creating a Safe Learning Environment

PLCs are Professional Learning Communities made up of teachers who work together in a professional environment to discuss student work and help student learning. This year, I joined a book club at my school that is reading Revisiting Professional Learning Communities at Work – New Insights for Improving Schools (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, 2008).  Throught the reading of this book it is our hope that our school starts to look at how implementing PLC time in our days will in fact impact student learning.

To start the year, our principal assigned chapters of the text to people in the book club.  My chapters are on assessment (chapters 8 and 9).  My next couple posts will be about my findings, specifically in common formative assessments – the backbone of strong and effective PLCs.

True student learning occurs when achievement is NOT limited to selected students, but is offered to ALL.  PLCs use common formative assessments to help all students achieve high levels of learning.

Common formative assessments are assessments made by a team of teachers in a PLC that guide their teaching.  This is very different from summative assessments.  Summative assessments take the attitude that at the end of a unit, the grade you get is the grade you get; we are done with this material and need to move on.  When you really think about it, that should not be the goal of teaching, yet, we are probably all guilty of this way of thinking – until, of course, it’s brought to our attention.

The idea of a formative assessment is not only to “check in” with students, but then to put them in a position to learn what they have not yet learned.  In this way, students are held to the high standards of learning.  After a formative assessment, students are given additional tutalage independently or in groups.  That is what’s expected by both the teacher and student.  It isn’t a punishment, simply extra practice so that all students are able to achieve the curricular goals.

The teachers themselves create the assessments that are given.  That, of course, is the “common” part of the assessments.  Then the teachers all teach in their own styles, give the common assessment and meet to review the outcome.  It’s at these meetings that teachers are able to analyze their students’ progress skill by skill and, in essance their own teaching.   They then share ideas and strategies that will allow all teachers to make sure all students are learning all the material they need to understand.  They also figure out how to reach the students who are lacking skills.  They may go back and reteach or break up the students so they can teach those that need it most.

In this way, teachers are sharing, collaborating and using their talents in a professional, collegial manner.  The intent is not to show up another teacher, but to all learn at once as they strive for student excellence across the board.

In my school we have some common assessments.  I would even consider many of them formative.  However, this in-depth approach to team work and meeting to truly assess each student’s progress is what’s lacking and what could be the most important piece to make the most success.

I am actually wondering if it may be best for a PLC of elementary teachers (such as I am) to start working with common formative assessments in a content area that isn’t already “assessed to death” such as math or literacy.  That way, the approach to the creation, use and review of such assessments are more pure.  That is, they are build from the ground up by a team for a team.

As always, I would love your comments.  Please let me know what your thoughts are about common formative assessments and their use in PLCs whether you have experience in them or not.  In the next post, I plan to write more about my reading about these assessments and how I feel they will play a part in my classroom, my team and my school.

~EMP

Related posts:

1. So many assessments!
2. PLCs and PLNs – Go Us!
3. Community Built Through Music

This past week, a group of teachers that work in my district got together for our monthly (3 months strong!) PLaiC meeting.  This is a PLC (Professional Learning Community) session that centers around Arts Integration.  The format for this session was different than that in the past and I believe it was very effective.  We did some creative things together (EXPERIENCE), talked about them (REFLECT) and then discussed ways we could use these ideas in our teaching (APPLY).

This new format is an important change to the group.  When attending my last course in the Arts, Leadership and Learning CAGS program at Plymouth State University, I rediscovered the importance of doing something to understand it.  By living the creative process, I realized that this is what needs to be emphasized and shared with my colleagues.

Experience

Our session began with one of our members, a PreK teacher sharing a movement activity with us which she calls “Rockin’ Roll Yoga”.  We got up to move and dance to some rockin’ music she brought by Spearhead.  When the music was paused, she held up a large yoga card (Body Poetry Yoga Cards by Roylco) and we all got into that pose.

After doing a few yoga moves we stopped and took three “balloon breaths”.  To do one, you take three continuous breaths as you stretch your arms out and above your head and then you let it out slowly.  It was a great way to focus us into our meeting time.  In fact one of our members, an PT teacher mentioned that this type of breathing changes your physiology, making you more focused and relaxed.

The final piece

Our next activity was to create a piece of community art around the table at which we sat.  We started by passing a black marker around and drawing a boarder on the paper in front of us.  Then we claimed our section of the paper and started to fill in the space with our own creations.  As time went on, we found ourselves connecting our sections, making one fabulous piece of art!

Reflection

We followed up with reflections and a discussion of how to use these activities and modify them for our teaching.  The reflection time was nice.  The teachers had a very positive experience both with the movement and the visual activties.  One commented that she liked the freedom of the activity.  Another enjoyed how she was able to just be in the moment.  One teacher appreciated the framework of the visual activity and the ability to “do anything”.  The ELL teacher present noted that kids without profiecient oral language would feel like an important part of the activity.

Application

The brainstorm was great.  Here are some of the ideas we came up with

• Use this to illustrate the practice and understanding of community.
• Use this as a team building activity.
• Tear it up to represent the importance of the process, not the product.
  
• Have students make their own section separately and then put it together to make one piece of artwork, maybe have them work to connect the sections with some more coloring.
• Have students make their own section with specified colored markers.  Put the sections together and then brush over the whole piece with a wet paintbrush to illustrate how all the individual pieces connect to make one.

For additional information about this visual activity and its applications, see this post: Community Built Through the Arts.

Related posts:

1. PLaiC – May 2010
2. PLaiC – Process, Play and Balance
3. PLaiC

It can be quite a discussion when negotiations come around.  How much “prep” time do we allow teachers to have?  How much “free” time should they get a week?  How much time away from students do they really need each day?

Regardless of how much time we teachers have during the school day, it is never enough!  But why?  Is that really legitimate?  What ARE teachers doing when they are not with students?  After all, isn’t their main purpose to be WITH their students, teaching them?

Well, yes, teachers need to be with their students if their students are to learn from them. However, the effectiveness of their teaching has to do with what they do when they are not with their students as well.  Let me list a brainstorm of ideas of what teachers do when the students are not with them.

• correct papers
• write down feed back for their students to read
• look at data
• talk with colleagues
• plan lessons
• refer to curriculum standards
• search for activities and ideas online
• copy papers
• go to meetings with administration
• prepare paperwork for upcoming special ed meetings
• complete paperwork for observations
• complete paperwork for other misc meetings
• organize paperwork students hand them
• sort through piles of permission slips, progress reports and other papers given to them by students and adminstration
• eat lunch
• go to the bathroom
• email parents
• collaborate with other teachers
• plan field trips
• sign up for the computer lab

That’s off the top of my head.  A 2 minute brainstorm.  When teachers are not with their students, they are working very hard to improve themselves as professionals and develop ways to enhance their students’ learning.  Teachers need time to work on their craft during the school day not only to keep up on the day to day tasks of a teacher, but most importantly to be able to connect with and collaborate with other teachers.

We cannot work in isolation, we are much more effective when working together.  This is something I firmly believe!  I love collaborating with my team of fourth grade teachers.  We help each other not only with lesson ideas but we keep each other in check when in comes to effective assessments of our students and the handling of student issues.

It worries me when we feel we need to defend what we do.

I went searching online for examples of this happening in other schools and came across this fabulous example of a school that dedicates 90 minutes a DAY to teachers working together.  Check this out!  (from www.edutopia.org)

Here is another concept to consider – the UNconference.  This week there will be one in Philadelphia, PA @edcampphilly.  Check out this video.  I wonder if this could be a concept other schools (maybe mine) could adopt in place of those PD days we are required to attend the first days of school.  It’s a great concept that really takes into account the talents we have at our schools in our teachers.

Last week, I discussed the importance of PLCs and PLNs.   Our prep time is a variation of this concept.  It’s not just about keeping up with paperwork, it’s about us continuously working on our craft.  We also need to make sure that public perception of this important part of our profession is not misunderstood.  When we are allowed time away from our students to discuss education with other educators, we grow as professionals, schools, districts and as a society.

Important note – That first video was originally published in 2000.   I can’t help but wonder about the success of the program.  Is it still in effect?  How has it evolved?  If it is no longer, why?

Related posts:

1. Touching Students' Lives
2. Teachers We Have Had
3. Needs of Today's Teachers