Iowa Core Discussion

It is amazing how all schools are similiar, when it comes to the nuts and bolts. We all have a group that have multi-talents if we could work with each other and benefit the students it would be a good day.

This is a great resource! It goes very deep into the motives of using PLNs and breaks it down into a few ideas and questions so you can reflect on what a successful PLN would look like and how to utilize it for students' engagement and success.

In the article, one district had late starts on Mondays for planning time for their PLCs. Our district plans to have groups meet once a month for 30 minutes. I'd like to hear what other districts are doing.

We are going into our 3rd year of PLC in my district. I think the idea is great and can be incredibly valuable. However, the group is only as powerful as the members in it. If all members buy into the concept, great things can come out of it. If members view it as a waste of time, come unprepared or do not participate then it truly is a waste of time. Getting members to believe is the most difficult part.

We are just starting PLCs at my school. So far we have just had a training session about it. I will be interested to see how it works during the next few years.

The biggest hurdle for some districts may be having enough technology/computers available

This is the first year of PLC's for Charles City. We are following a very 'patient' approach by 'dictating' the direction of the PLC's (everyone studies characteristics of effective instruction) for the first several months. Hopefullly, this will allow everyone to to understand the dynamics of PLC first before we allow individuals to 'breakout' by content or topic.

This is our first year of PLC's in the Dike-New Hartford District. Like Charles City we are also easing into the direction our group wants to go. Right now we have two early dismissal days a month to meet. We are too getting to know the dynamics of PLC's to make them effective in our district.

This is our second year of PLC at GR. I ahve found working in our group this year during the extra 8 hours outside of school time very beneficial. Going 1 : 1 computers, this sharing has given us time to find new sources for ourselves and students to use as we improve learning.

How do you get something like this started in your school? Can you get everyone on board?

Collaboration is key. Cant be a complaint session. Must have input from everyone.

I agree. When we start working on solutions to challenges, rather than complaining, educators can make incredible gains.

Our PLC made little flags with photos of Norm from "Cheers" on wooden sticks. When one of us starts going down a different path with the discussion, any of us can hold up our "Norm" to remind us to stay on track. This works well for us because it is a humorous way to keep organized and doesn't hurt anybody's feelings.

Diane: I love the creativity and team-bldg. by using humor ...and yet being organized and productive.

Just attended a PLC of 4 regional schools last friday where we were trying to develop curriculum alignment amongst school. Develping this network on line will allow us as a gorup to "steal" activities from others, discuss best practices and share our successes and struggles.

It seems as though my school's PLCs have been overshadowed by PD and our mixture of content teachers, while good in theory, has not worked in practice. I am a foreign language teacher, the only one in my school, and I am always paired with art, music, PE and the guidance counselor. Then we are so structured that any type of 'ah-ha moment' cannot be realized, due to the constraints of the itinerary.

Teachers a educational coaches, gleefully running amok admist constantly changing technology, leading their students to think and act outside of the box. Whould be interesting.

This article had a great point about the use of Web 2.0. It isn't just that we progress to a new level and use the newer technologies. Rather, we allow them to be used as a tool by students to encourage them to become more engaged learners.

Being a part of a collaborative culture helped to take my first year from being a complete, disorganized disaster to a year of successful learning for both the children and me.  I felt the mentoring process was a form of collaborative culture.

The time for groups of teachers to work together is key. This can be difficult at the secondary level, districts and administrators are getting more creative about finding ways to make this happen.

Specials teachers also like to be included in these communities. It seems like we get placed in the position of working with students while other collaborate in our building. Not sure how to solve this scheduling issue.

Allysen is right! key is time for teachers to work together and learn the technology available

Scheduling is so hard! Love having ideas! I loved when we went to Chicago and saw how they all took times to help with intervention times and every team was able to meet to help all children from this! 

This is perfect! Our school is in the middle of revising our master schedule for next year. Lots of changes coming and we are all trying to contribute solutions.

I keep wanting to put this into my schedule and no one will jump on board with me to help. I knew I was on the right track! Now to do some sharing and convincing!

Thanks for sharing this article. I have used Twitter for some time, but on a personal level. I have a side business as a portrait photographer and have used it to stay connected and for some marketing. I was interested in how the article described the use of Twitter for a school community.

Great ideas! Our school just launched a Twitter and Facebook account this school year. We are still in the beginning phase and this will help push it!

I too liked this...helping my learning curve rise much faster as I develop my PLN using Twitter and Diigo etc..

This article has really made me think about how I can use Twitter in the Art room... my brain is overflowing with ideas!

I used to be against twitter but now I am starting to see the possible benefits of using twitter for the classroom.

I see the increasing interest in the use of twitter, but I am having a difficult time convincing other colleagues to use it. It seems to take fire only when twitter is an 'all in' tool for a staff of teachers. As much as I like twitter and see the usefulness so this as a tool of education, it has a significant amount of growth to do in order to be the mainstream tool within a school.

I see a use for Twitter by our school's Administration to push out notifications for: meeting reminders, congratulatory messages, weather related school closings, and sports scores. However, I believe schools and teachers need to be conscious of how much we push out -- having multiple posts a week by each of the seven or eight teachers that a high school student has in a day could be obtrusive. Our system uses PowerSchool and individual teacher websites to post: assignments, scores, and additional course specific information. Parents and students should be able to look up what they need when it is convenient for them as opposed to being messaged when it may not be.

This link "listen now" isn't working....

Oh my! I am not a current Twitter user, so I am not familiar with exactly how it works, but I think I have an idea. This is probably a good examply of the "line" that separates those who are used to this technology and those who are good at technology but at the point of trying to figure out how and when to apply it. WHen I read the "Think First" section, I just kept picturing in my head classes/students/teachers being bombarded and interrupted all day long if they possibly hoped to keep up with Twitter posts. But as I read farther and saw it might be more intended to tweet to the public, I thought "ok", but ...... So, while I'm not turning my reception off to Twitter, I am interested to know how, when and for what purposes Twitter can be used in education. Interesting notion! I look forward to hearing more about its application.

I might substitute the word "time" where Evan writes "effort"

To a large extent, time is a function of effort. Those things we deem worthy of our effort seem to find plenty of time to get done.

It's amazing how we find time to do things we like to do. A readjustment of priorities by any teacher is never a bad thing.

I agree that identifying their owns strengths and areas of improvement can be a useful tool

Student self assessment is becoming both more important and more difficult in classrooms. It seems as though students sometimes aren't ready to admit their faults or concerns when it may help the teacher conduct formative assessment tasks. Sadly, teachers often rely heavily on that very self-assessment, which may or may not be entirely accurate.

I have actually found that those students who take their education seriously (and there are more than I think) are almost fault finding rather than confidence building. That is when I take the opportunity to build them up and point out their successes.

I agree with Kevin's comment that students do not want to admit fault. They are also timid about asking for help. We recently had a student who did not hand in an assignment that was a substantial part of his grade for the term. We asked several times if he wanted/needed help. His response was always no. Finally, after about 3 weeks the teacher made him come into her room during study hall and work on the assignment. He failed to understand one of the key steps and after it was explained, he finished the essay. It was a failure on both our parts. The student should have asked for help, but if we had a better system in place to check for understanding at key points, it would have been less stressful for both parties. We need to consider doing more of these things at my school.

I really like the last question, especially with students I work with. It is most important that the student see their progress, for the sole reason they don't believe anyone. Also, the fact they are to see themselves as learners and what they have discovered. Love it!!!

I think if students are given their expectations a head of time, you will see progress in their work. Their are special cases where this is untrue, but we all like expectations that are obtainable.

I agree with Chrisine. Students are quite honest and critical of themselves and it gives them the oportunity to see growth within themselves.

I agree that if we let the students know from the beginning what the expectaions for the class are, they can follow their progress in the class and see their improvment. Also, giving a norgraded quiz is also a good idea but I'm wondering if they would do their best knowing it isn't graded at the beginning.

'student friendly language' is key... great ideas!

These are all excellent components to learning and helping students move forward with learning. Could there also be a parent component which would allow for more communication opportunities?

I use non-graded quizzes regularly -- the word "quiz" helps them take it seriously -- to assess where students are. I think I will try adding the self assessment of where they are on the learning targets to the end of the quiz. Rather than collecting and going through myself, I will let them assess what they know and what still needs to be worked on. When I collect them, we will both be on track to fill the gaps.

I like having students identify their own strengths and goals...gives them ownership and accountability.

I like the idea of "student-friendly" language and for students to look at their own progress would be very helpful. Using rubrics would be similar but adding it into technology would make it more engaging for students plus it would be paperless.

A big part of DuFour (Solution Tree, PLC) is non-graded formative assessment. The claim is that, once a student sees a grade, the learning stops. No matter what amount of feedback you give, all they are concerned about is the grade.

As a high school teacher, I have found that students generally don't take seriously non-graded assessment. I do though strongly agree that incremental formative assessment is key to developing desirable levels of skill and understanding. Over the years I've developed two different schemes for addressing the need for incremental formative assessment, while avoiding the barriers that "grades" can impose. For Junior and Senior students, it has been useful for the students to allow them retakes, so they may retake any incremental formative assessment whose score is not what they would like it to be. I take the most recent score for better or worse. If they wish to retake a third, forth, or umpteenth time then they may do so (with the same better or worse consequence). Though this scheme is helpful for them, allowing them to see how the prep work leads to assessment items, and thus focusing their instruction to make them more efficient test-takers, it is somewhat burdensome in paperwork (as every incremental formative assessment has multiple versions -- many tailor-made to suit specific learning preferences). As the Freshmen student class sizes are so much greater and as Freshmen are less mature in the ways of the grades, the aforementioned retake scheme has not proven useful with them. Many Freshman consider that a nongraded assignment is "busy work" and don't give it their best effort. More importantly, the results of such nongraded assignments are considered to be unimportant primarily because the students knew they didn't utilize their best effort. The scheme that has proven to be most successful with them is "risk ratcheting". Students are given prep work which is designed to help them with note-taking skills. the answer to all the prep-work material is reviewed in class with the understanding that if the prep work was done poorly, then it is a sign that your notes need to be fixed (corrected, culled, or added to). The next assessment item is small and each ind

I agree with Todd here. We have done it both ways and we went to teach another school about PLC's where they would be assigning groups. I do not think they would find as much joy and success that way as DuFour says in his book having a choice is key! 

Van Meter has given teacher flexibility when doing PLC. Meeting at Early but allowed to leave early of whatever the group works out.

Gladbrook-Reinbeck Elem teachers have been having their PLC's on Wednesday mornings before school. Unfortunately, we didn't have much focus or direction. Some of our teachers are going to a training this summer, so hopefully next year will be better.

In the article, one district had late starts on Mondays. Our district is having teachers meet for 30 minutes once a month. I'd like to hear how other schools are setting up planning time for their PLCs.

At Charles CIty we are have late starts on MOnday. Teachers will have 80-85 minutes to work in PLC's that are being 'dictated' this year with the idea that they will 'breakout' next year.

I would definitely like to spend more time re-reading this article. However, as a teacher who has worked with similar forms for years, why are all the examples about elementary students with relatively easy barriers to track? The position that online record keeping has more immediacy was interesting.

good question, re: elementary. Does anyone have any secondary examples to share?

Denise, as you know the SCEP program has been diligently trying to get Iowa Core and 21st Century infused in all our subjects. A big job, but I have learned so much!

The Core 21st century standards are imperative skills that students need to experience and practice.  Every teacher is responsible for making the changes necessary so that we can meet the needs of workers/society/families/businesses currently in place and in the future.

We have to work harder on these skills to remain competitive.