busting myths about professional learning communities...• change the name of collaboration to...

Busting Myths About Professional Learning Communities

Douglas Reeves

Day 1—Morning Keynote



Day 1—Morning Breakout

Day 2—Morning Breakout

Day 3—In-Depth Seminar

Douglas

Reeves

i

Busting Myths About Professional Learning Communities

Douglas Reeves, PhDCreative Leadership Solutions

@DouglasReeves781.710.9633

CreativeLeadership.net

Overview• Why Are Myths Enticing?• The Myths of Professional Learning Communities• How to Challenge Myths• Becoming a Critical Consumer of Research

Free Resources• Complete slides from today’s presentation can be found at CreativeLeadership.net.

• Free support for doctoral students can be found at FinishTheDissertation.org.

In the Bell Tower … • Everybody hears your wrong notes.• You’ll never improve without public risk‐taking.• People you never see will appreciate your beautiful music and notice your mistakes.

© Creative Leadership Solutions 2018. SolutionTree.comDo not duplicate. 1

A zero‐risk environment is a zero‐learning environment

Standards of Evidence• Level 1: Belief• Level 2: Personal experience• Level 3: Group experience• Level 4: Systematic observation• Level 5: Preponderance of the evidence

Skeptics and Cynics• Value the skeptics. They want evidence and will consider it.

• Disengage from the cynics. They don’t care about evidence and they will divert your attention from respecting and supporting your best colleagues.

The Appealing Nature of Myths• If there are dragons at the edge of the ocean, then I don’t need to explore.

• If evil is the inheritance of the gods, then I don’t need to be accountable for my actions.

© Creative Leadership Solutions 2018. SolutionTree.comDo not duplicate.2

Why Are Myths So Enticing?• Think of a myth—ancient or new—and explain to a colleague why this myth is appealing.

• Text your myth and explanation to 1.781.710.9633 or Tweet @DouglasReeves.

Express Hypotheses as“If …, then …” Statements • “If we threaten students with failure, then their performance will improve.”

• “If we threaten teachers with failure, then their performance will improve.”

What hypotheses prevail in your system?

PLC EssentialsThe four questions:• What do we want students to learn?• How will we know if they learned it?• What will we do if they don’t?• What will we do if they already have?

You Have a PLC When You Have …• Collaborative teams • Collective responsibility• Guaranteed and viable curriculum• Common formative assessments• Assessment information for respondingto student needs


You Don’t Have a PLC When You Hear … • Who has bus duty for the field trip?• When can I send him to the principal’s office?• Can I take away her cell phone?• Can you just tell me what to do?

The Seven Myths of Professional Learning Communities1) Changing labels means changing practice.2) Assessments before year‐end are “formative.”3) Sorting students means effective intervention.4) Observation means accountability.5) Data analysis means test scores.6) Student performance means ELA and Math.7) Programs will save us.

1: Changing Labels Means Changing Practice

• Change the name of the staff meeting to “Professional Learning Community.”

• Change the name of tests to “formative assessments.”

• Change the name of collaboration to “collaboration.”

2: Assessments Before Year‐End Are Formative, and Other Myths …

• Reliable assessments must have 60 items and take two hours.

• Good assessments must be expensive and external.

• Assessments must address every standard.• The purpose of formative assessments is a report to the central office.


3: Sorting Students Means Effective Intervention

• Percentiles, deciles, and quartiles, oh my!• Bluebirds, robins, and blackbirds• Standards 101—From the Bell to the Mountain

4: Observation Means Accountability • The big lies of teacher observation evaluation• Behind the curtain of team meetings• The value of four‐line e‐mails: Learning Assessment Interventions Extension

The Myths of Accountability• Teachers are fired for failing to cover every standard.

• Schools can fire teachers for failure to meet impossibly complicated student growth requirements.

5: Data Analysis Means Test Scores• “Looking at data …”• Effects and causes• Challenging prevailing hypotheses


6: Student Performance Means English/Language Arts and Math

• Necessary but not sufficient• Rich kids get music and art and engagement• Poor kids get remediation and alienation• Beyond the “Mozart Effect”

Creativity: Process, Not Product• Myth: Draw outside the lines.• Reality: You can’t work outside the box unless you first understand the box.

• Myth: The captain works alone.• Reality: Creative people are collaborative.

The International Sample—Level 4• Research basis: 0%• Multidisciplinary perspective: 9%• Source material: 2%• Clarity of guidelines: 3%• Product: 8%• Process: 3%• Collaboration: 0%• Practice and error: 0%

Hope—Adults and Children Who Score Higher in Hope … • Have satisfaction, self‐esteem, optimism, meaning in life, happiness

• Cope better with injuries, diseases, and pain• Excel in academics from elementary through graduate school

• Perform better in athletics• Have something more important than intelligence and natural ability

(Weisinger and Pawliw‐Fry, Performing Under Pressure: The Science of Doing Your Best When It Matters Most, 2015)


7: Programs Will Save Us• Evidence from 3,000‐plus schools: practices, not programs

• The Law of Initiative Fatigue

Leverage• “What works?” is the wrong question• Assessing leverage Nonfiction writing Professional Learning Communities Effective feedback

Leverage and Focus Require Choices• Unused initiatives• 99% of worksheets—anything beyond initial practice• 99% of “information and sharing” in meetings• Instructional units unrelated to essential knowledge• Observations not accompanied by feedback• Conversations focused on venting, complaining, or psychotherapy—unless you are the patient or the psychotherapist

I Used to Think … Studies of Best Practices Would

Unlock the Key to Success.


What’s Wrong With “Best Practices” Research?• It means nothing if you are not willing tocontrast it with “worst practices.”

• Too many “best practices” are piled on top of50 previous “best practices.”

• “Infliction” is not the same as deepimplementation.

The Law of Initiative Fatigue

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100

0 5 10 15 20 25

Engagemen

t and

Impa

ct

Number of Initiatives

After six “strategic priorities,” the number of initiatives is inversely related to impact on student achievement and faculty engagement.

Why Is the Law of Initiative Fatigue True?• Monitoring, impact, and engagement depend upon degree of implementation.

• It is not possible to monitor and implement deeply morethan about six high‐priority initiatives.

• Frustration and antagonism take over whenimplementation is ineffective.

• Contrast the change hypothesis with the reality ofchange.

What Senior Administrators Listed as Priority Initiatives • Professional Learning Communities• Balanced Literacy• Read 180• Reader’s Workshop• Writer’s Workshop


What Teachers and Principals Listed as Priority Initiatives• Literacy First• Buckle Down• Earobics• Scholastic Reading

Inventory• enVision Math• Harcourt Science Kits• Star Early Literacy• PASS• DIBELS• Success Maker• Writers’ Workshop• Ramp Up to Language Arts

• Teacher Leader Effectiveness

• Math Investigations• Sidewalks• Saxon Phonics• Waterford Early Literacy• River Deep• Reading Counts• Saxon Math• Leap Frog• Accelerated Reader• Fast Math

• Professional Learning Communities

• Read 180• Readers’ Workshop• Data Teams• Ramp Up to Math• Power School• Everyday Math• Response to Intervention• A+ Achievement• Sidewalks• Positive Behavioral Support

The Power of FocusWe all believe in focus, but the reality is fragmentation—dozens of initiatives

all competing for the same time, resources, and attention.

What Is the Evidence for Focus?• Key findings from a systematic review of more than 2,000 school improvement plans

• Schools had as many as 70 priorities and systems had more than 200 priorities

• More than six priorities leads to a counterproductive waste of time

Closing the Implementation Gap

Research The critical variable for Professional learning is DEEP IMPLEMENTATION

(Reeves, Transforming Professional Development Into Student Results, 2010)


Essential Ingredients for Success• Efficacy: Bone deep belief that teaching and leadership matter

• Prioritization: Six or fewer “high‐priority initiatives”• Specificity: Goals are expressed in objective terms• Measurability: Impact of teachers can be measured regularly

• Monitoring: Adult actions, not just test scores

The Power of High Implementation on Academic Performance (All Schools)

‐17.74

‐3.98

11.65

Level 1 Level 2 Level 3

(Reeves, 2010)

High‐Performing Schools

5

10.2

13.9Level 1 Level 2 Level 3

Low‐Performing Schools

‐30

‐14

‐2.8

Level 1 Level 2 Level 3

(Reeves, 2010)


Other Key Findings• More than six priorities were inversely related to achievement.

• With 90% faculty participation, there was three to five times higher achievement gains than 10% faculty participation.

• Notice: Not 100%• Practices, not programs

The “Not to Do” List• Think small: engage the faculty in saving minutes and hours.

• Weed your own garden: lead by example.• Consider the consequences of failing to write the “not to do” list: the “unconscious” list.

• A law of the universe: You will never accomplish everything on the “to do” list, so focus on greatest impact on student results.

Describe Your Perceptions of Decision‐Making• Type I—Discretionary• Type II—CollaborativeType III—Top‐Down

Perceived Decision StructureType I4% Type II

22%

Type III74%


Actual Decision Structure

Type I39%

Type II34%

Type III27%

Facing Uncertainty in 2018Educational Policies• Significant shift from “effect‐based” accountability to “cause‐effect” models

• Shift in educational innovation grants to schools and districts

• Change from “experimental‐control” models to “SAME student to SAME student” models

Text 1.781.710.9633

Exploring Our Hypotheseson Student Engagement• The most important factors contributing to student engagement and success are ...

• Text 781.710.9633.• Tweet @Douglas Reeves.

The Central QuestionWhat do we do when those success factors

are missing?


The Evidence on Engagement• 48 states, 3,300 schools, students grades 5–12• 900,000 students• 50% engaged• 29% not engaged• 21% actively disengaged

What Happens to Engagement During School?

75%57% 55%

45% 41%33% 32% 34%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th 12th

Percentage of Students Engaged at School

Compared to Disengaged Students, Engaged and Hopeful Students Are:• Five times more likely to report doing well in school

• Almost twice as likely to attend a two‐ or four‐year college

Career Beliefs of Adolescents

24 18

7079

0102030405060708090

"Success is related toeffort"

"It's important to beflexible and adaptable"

AgreeDisagree

(Turner and Conkell Ziebell, “The Career Beliefs of Inner‐City Adolescents,” Professional School Counseling, 15(1), pp. 1–14)


Elements of Engagement• Behavioral engagement: presence• Emotional engagement: passion • Cognitive engagement: persistence

Keys to Student Engagement• Hope• Competence• Respect• Efficacy• Choice (within a framework)

Keys to Disengagement• Failure without feedback• Disrespect: personal and cultural• Loss of control• Disempowerment• Hopelessness

Where Do Students Show the Highest Levels of Engagement in Your Schools?• Describe the activity.• How do you know that they are engaged?• Please text 781.710.9633 or tweet @DouglasReeves.


Hope—Adults and Children Who Score Higher in Hope:• Have satisfaction, self‐esteem, optimism, meaning in life, happiness

• Cope better with injuries, diseases, and pain

Hope is more important than intelligence and natural ability in predicting performance.

(Weisinger & Pawliw‐Fry, Performing Under Pressure, 2015)

Who are the students who have overcome the following extraordinary obstacles in your school?• Poverty• Violence• Divorce• Delinquency• Pregnancy• Abuse• Chronic illness of family member

Hope Depends on Resilience

• The response, not the traumatic events themselves, is the key.

• Reframing perception of adverse events: learning or victim?

• Competent, confident, caring• Some caring adult—just one—could make a difference.• Internal locus of control

The Evidence on Resilience:32‐Year Longitudinal Study

(Kornikova, 2016)

Hope• “Tomorrow will be better than today. Next week will be better than this week.”

• “Even though I messed up earlier in the year, I can still finish strong.”

• “My teachers and other adults in my life forgive me for mistakes and encourage me to keep going.”


Synthesizing the Research• Quantitative analyses (correlation among variables)

• Case studies: Fullan, Hargreaves, and many others• Meta‐Analyses: Marzano, McNulty, Waters• Syntheses of meta‐analyses: Hattie and Colleagues

Advantages of Research Syntheses• Avoids cherry‐picking studies• Invites counterintuitive findings• Challenges prevailing orthodoxy Direct instruction Class size Learning styles Multiple intelligences Gender gap (more present in grades than performance)

More Advantages of Research Syntheses• Specific and actionable ideas—feedback, efficacy, understanding of grading systems

• Balances “art” with science—specific pedagogical and collaborative skills and practices

• Focus on high‐impact strategies, not an encyclopedic menu of low‐impact alternatives

Limitations of Research Syntheses• Lack of descriptive rigor and consistency: What exactly do terms like technology in the classroom or creativity programs mean?

• Context dramatically different over four decades of research

• Several “super‐factors” are not controlled by teachers or leaders: Piagetian levels, prior achievement, depression


The Seven Myths of Professional Learning Communities1) Changing labels means changing practice.2) Assessments before year‐end are “formative.”3) Sorting students means effective intervention.4) Observation means accountability.5) Data analysis means test scores.6) Student performance means ELA and Math.7) Programs will save us.

The Arguments Against …• It’s too fast. We should take a more gradual approach.

• You are taking away our local control.• Things are just fine as they are. People are happy, so why change?

• We’re not going to change and you can’t make us.

Brown v. Board of Education—Argument of the Losers“If the appellants’ construction of the Fourteenth Amendment should prevail here, there is no doubt in my mind that it would catch the Indian within its grasp just as much as the Negro. If it should prevail, I am unable to see why a state would have any further right to segregate its pupils on the ground of sex or on the ground of age or on the ground of mental capacity.”

The Court’s Response“Attitudes in this world are not changed abstractly, as it were, by reading something … attitudes are partly the result of working, attitudes are partly the result of action … You do not fold your hands and wait for attitude to change by itself.”

—Justice Felix Frankfurter, responding to oral argument in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, December 9, 1952


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RIck duFouR ([email protected]) was a public school educator for 34 years, serving as a teacher, principal, and superinten-dent. Now an author and consultant, DuFour has been a leading authority on helping schools implement the Professional Learning Communities at Work™ process. douglaS ReeVeS ([email protected]) is an author and consultant based in Boston, Mass.

The futility of plc lite

The professional learning community process, properly executed, can deliver dramatically improved teaching and learning. But too often it’s followed incorrectly and gains fail to materialize.

By Rick duFour and douglas Reeves

Although many schools around the world have claimed to embrace the professional learning community (PLC) process, it would be more accurate to describe the current state of affairs in many schools as PLC Lite. Educators rename their traditional faculty or department meetings as PLC meetings, engage in book studies that result in no ac-tion, or devote collaborative time to topics that have no effect on student achievement — all in the name of the PLC process. These activities fail to embrace the central tenets of the PLC process and won’t lead to higher levels of learning for students or adults.

When educators are working in a school that is truly a PLC, they recognize they must:

#1. Work together in collaborative teams rather than in isolation and take collective responsibility for student learning.

#2. Establish a guaranteed and viable curriculum that specifi es the knowledge, skills, and dispositions students are expected to acquire, unit by unit.

in the name of the PLC process. These activities fail to embrace the central tenets of the PLC

fail fail fail

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70 Kappan March 2016

repeatedly been proven to have a powerful effect on student learning.

There are times, however, when a collaborative team should collectively gather evidence of student learning in a more formal assessment process such as written tests or performance-based assessments. These assessments can also be formative if:

• They’re used to identify students who aren’t yet able to demonstrate proficiency;

• Those students receive additional time and support for learning through a timely process of systematic intervention that never removes them from new direct instruction;

• Students have another opportunity to demon-strate what they have learned; and

• Teachers use the evidence of student learning to inform and improve their individual and collective professional practice.

School systems have paid dearly for many assess-ments that masquerade as formative assessments. Calling them uninformative assessments would be more accurate. Genuine formative assessments are intellectually owned by the teachers who created them, are directly related to classroom instruction, and naturally lead to conversations about intervention for students and the effectiveness of different instruc-tional practices. Uninformative assessments lead to an entirely different conversation which, briefly stated, concludes with, “Thank goodness that’s over — now we can go back to what we were doing.”

Formative assessments not only align with instruc-tion and academic standards but also extend beyond traditional test preparation that too frequently domi-nates classroom time. For example, even if state tests are largely based on multiple-choice questions, ef-fective common formative assessments can require writing, communication, collaboration, problem solving, and critical thinking in ways that are far more challenging than traditional tests. The job of teachers in this case is not to mimic state tests but to challenge students to show what they know in ways that exceed traditional tests.

data analysis

A major distinction between true PLCs and schools engaged in PLC Lite is how the schools use data that are intended to reflect evidence of student learning. Many PLC Lite schools have no process for collective analysis of student learning. As a result, groups of teachers spend their time discussing stu-dent behavior (“Should we allow students to bring their cell phones into class”) or sharing preferences about how they teach a skill or concept (“I have al-ways taught it this way”). In other PLC Lite schools,

#3. Use an assessment process that includes frequent, team-developed, common formative assessments based on the guaranteed and viable curriculum.

#4. Use the results of common formative assessments to:• Identify students who need additional time

and support for learning.• Identify students who would benefit from

enriched or extended learning.• Identify and address areas of individual

strengths or weaknesses in teaching based on the evidence of student learning.

• Identify and address areas where none of the team members were able to bring students to the desired level of proficiency.

#5. Create a system of interventions that guarantees that students who struggle receive additional time and support in ways that do not remove them from new direct instruction, regardless of the teacher to whom they have been assigned.

The four questions

An excellent test for distinguishing between a gen-uine PLC and a school engaged in PLC Lite is the school’s attention to the four questions that drive the work of collaborative teams in a PLC:

#1. What do we want students to learn?

#2. how will we know if they have learned it?

#3. What will we do if they have not learned it?

#4. how will we provide extended learning opportunities for students who have mastered the content?

While the wording of these questions varies slightly among PLC researchers, the essence of the questions is nearly identical. We recommend that faculty mem-bers keep a very simple one-page protocol that helps them focus on these questions. Meetings that only address standards, that focus entirely on disciplin-ary issues and parent complaints, or that center on employee issues may be very interesting, but they do not represent the work of high-performing PLCs.

common formative assessments

The best teachers are constantly checking for stu-dent understanding almost minute by minute as they teach. They direct questions to randomly selected students, check on student work as they move around the room, and use whiteboards, clickers, and exit slips to gather evidence of student learning to help them determine how to proceed with instruction. Students also use this evidence to assess their own understand-ing. This type of ongoing formative assessment has

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Join the conversation

facebook.com/pdkintl@pdkintl

repeat the grade. The research is overwhelmingly against retention, but facts are merely an annoyance to those with strongly held opinions. We only sug-gest that every legislator who thinks that retention is a good idea should be required to chaperone the 7th-grade dance in which 16-year-olds are part of the student body.

The most effective interventions are not the rep-etition of previous unsuccessful teaching; rather, they employ systematic, intensive, focused, and im-mediate individual or small-group instruction. For example, we’ve observed districts in which schools identify students each week who are missing home-work, failing tests, or otherwise being unsuccessful. Imagine how the stress level of teachers, students, administrators, and parents would be reduced if stu-dents went into every weekend with projects and homework up to date and with satisfactory perfor-mance in every class.

These interventions may not be perfect, but they are dramatically better than retention or leaving the issue of how to respond when students don’t learn to each teacher to resolve on his or her own. These interventions do more than improve student suc-cess; they also dramatically improve faculty morale. Imagine what next year would be like if we had fewer repeaters and more elective classes. It might begin to restore the joy of teaching and the reason most teachers entered the profession: to make a positive difference in the lives of students.

Real plcs

We urge schools to avoid labeling themselves as PLCs without engaging in the hard work that goes into becoming a PLC. Too many schools have ad-opted the label without committing to the substance of the professional learning community processes. Specifically, educators must focus on the four ques-tions of PLCs as an integral part of their meetings, use common formative assessments in a way that has a specific effect on teaching and learning, and analyze data not as a way to humiliate teachers but rather as a way to elevate the learning of students and faculty members. Finally, real PLCs include specific inter-ventions that lead to measurable improvements in student performance. When the PLC process is im-plemented deeply and sustained over time, schools can experience dramatic improvement in learning by both students and adults. PLC Lite is an exercise in futility that helps neither students nor the educa-tional systems that serve them. K

Reference

Hattie, J. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800

meta-analyses relating to student achievement. New York, NY:

Routledge.

the teaching group may look at data but only use them to assign students to intervention and not as a basis for discussions of instructional practice. They fall into the routine of teach, test, hope for the best, assign students to intervention, and move on with business as usual.

In a true PLC, collaborative teams of teachers use evidence of student learning as a basis for collective inquiry into instructional practice. The conversation moves beyond war stories and personal preferences to explore which practices are leading to superior results. On these teams, the dialogue is more likely to be, “I see that your students consistently dem-onstrate high levels of proficiency when we assess the ability to compare and contrast. What strategies, practices, or materials are you using to get these great results?” Reflective teaching is powerful when it is done collectively rather than in isolation and when it is based on actual evidence of student learning (Hat-tie, 2009). Any school that is not using the results of team-developed common formative assessments to improve professional practice is not yet fully engaged in the PLC process.

Perhaps the worst examples of faux data analysis are the unfortunately named “war rooms” in which district leaders display data from the previous year’s state tests and use this as a vehicle to publicly praise and humiliate principals and faculty members. This is what military veterans call “fighting the last war.” The most effective examples of data analyses involve not the scores from the previous year but rather from the previous unit. Most important, this is not an ex-ercise in “looking at data” as if we were looking at strange animals in the zoo. The best examples of data analysis lead to specific actions by teachers and administrators so that an examination of the data leads to interventions and changes in instruction, feedback, and support.

Interventions

Virtually every school claims that its mission is to help all students learn, but the relevant question to ask is, “What happens in your school when students don’t learn what you have deemed is essential?” The least effective response to this question is that stu-dents must repeat a grade or a course. In some states, 3rd graders who fail a state standardized test must

Meetings that only address standards, that focus entirely on disciplinary issues and parent complaints, or that center on employee issues may be very interesting, but they do not represent the work of high-performing PLCs.

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