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When Learning Teams meet, the leader should review the Strategic
and Action Goal(s) the team is focusing on. After discussing,
the team may find it necessary to revise some of their Action
Goals. It is critical, however, that the team establishes
a measurement of student performance.
- As the faculty and staff Learning
Teams work as “Critical Friends,” they will
find themselves engaged in conversation with colleagues
about the quality of student work. The Leadership Team
may find it helpful to have a list of questions to guide
such discussions:
- What did we ask the student to do in this
assignment?
- Are the skill expectations aligned with
curriculum standards?
- Did we teach all of these skills
and curriculum standards?
- What attributes would this
piece have if it were excellent work?
- What attributes would this piece have if it were
above average work?
- What attributes
would this piece have if it were average work?
- What
attributes would this piece have if it were below average
work?
- What can we do to improve the preparation for
this assignment?
- What teaching strategies would address
deficits in performance?
- Have we checked instructional
research for other teaching strategies?
- What interventions
will we all agree to try?
- What is our time frame?
- In what ways might we observe/assess
this strategy?
- Each teacher in grade level or subject
area Learning Teams can select 3-4 student work products
from one assignment that they feel represents a range of
performance of students in their class. The assignment
must illustrate an area they all agree to study as their
Action Goal. For example, using Demming’s Plan-Do-Study-Act
cycle:
- After sharing their insights using the above
questions, the team will discuss, research, and PLAN
to implement the lesson with an agreed-upon intervention—be
that a different teaching technique, pre-lesson experience
or preparation, or the use of different resources or
materials.
- They will then DO the lesson within an agreed-upon
time frame. Prior to implementing the lesson, however,
they will want to decide how they will STUDY their
intervention. They should consider ways to observe
the students’ activity and the teacher’s
activity (peer observer, video tape, etc.), and multiple
ways to assess the performance.
- They will reconvene
to discuss their findings and agree to implement or
ACT according to what they learned.
- Finally, they will
REPORT their findings to the entire faculty and begin
the cycle again to examine other
instructional issues related to their Action Goal.
Next: 3. Encourage
Professional Learning
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