PLC Team Leader Training

Today the team leaders attended a half-day session with Dr. Tim Kanold. 

The focus of our day was Formative Assessment Strategies within a sustainable cycle for continuous improvement.

Topics included: 

• Improving the teacher communication and sharing though Blogs-21st Century Communication!  (hence the construction of this blog)
• Improving teacher team communication.
• Reasons why our district cannot break through the barriers of poor performance in math.
• Getting serious about Formative Assessment and student ownership in learning mathematics.

In an effort to improve teacher team communication we were given two tools to use in this effort.  We will be using these tools in our PLCs to assess where we believe we are as a team, and to help improve or efforts in team communication.  The two tools are:  Knowing Your Team History; and Building Communities of Practice.

Dr. Kanold shared with us a brief analysis of our longitudinal CRT data and our D/F ratios.  Among the celebrations were that compared to five years ago we have made great strides in increasing the availability of higher level math classes to students.  The number of students has increased dramatically.  An area that requires some reflection on our part is that our D/F ratio has remained constant over five years.
 
In order to address our concerns with the D/F ratio we are going to focus on grading accuracy in our teams.  Some recommended steps for our teams are:  establish agreed upon rubrics for scoring all exam questions; conduct a group scoring practice session on a sample of student work and responses; and discuss and resolve differences of opinion regarding discrepant scores based on anchor paper agreements.  This is a powerful professional practice.  The discussions with colleagues about the diversity and quality of student work and ensuring greater accuracy in the score a student receives will provide opportunities for equity among our students in their grades.

In addition to accuracy, the question was posed: why do we assess?  Student mistakes on summative assessments such as quizzes and tests are potent learning tools when viewed formatively rather than evaluatively.  The most powerful single modification we can make in our practice that will enhance achievement is specific and timely feedback for student reflection and response.  This should be required by all teachers.

Finally, we spent time looking at strategies for formative assessments.  Work from Wiliam (2011) was cited:  An assessment functions formatively to the extent that evidence about student achievement is elicited, interpreted, and used by teachers, learners, or their peers to make decisions about the next steps in instruction that are likely to be better, or better founded, than the decisions they would have made in absence of that evidence.  The key phrases: evidence about student achievement is elicited and ...makes decisions about next steps are crucial to the process of formative assessment.  The teacher and the students in conjunction with their peers must act on the evidence.  Without action the formative process is empty in terms of impact on student learning.

The cycle of formative assessment for PLCs consists of 5 steps. 

1. PLC Teacher Team designs assessment unit instruments
2. PLC Teachers implement formative assessment classroom strategies
3. PLC Students take action on assessment feedback
4. PLC Teachers use Step 1 instruments for student reflection and action
5. PLC Teacher Teams use assessment feedback to improve instruction

Step 4 is a new area of focus for PUHSD math teams.  Examples of formative assessments and tools will be shared in your PLCs. 

We wrapped up the session excited and ready to attack student achievement in our teams.  Thank you Dr. Kanold for your insights and support.