My Personal Learning Journey 2012-2013 to support my PLTs

I am working on this new post this summer.  As a Superintendent of Schools, I re-examined how I spent my time and energy and whether it was having any impact on those that I have the greatest opportunity to influence, my principals/vice-principals.  The greatest learning....I had to very clear of what I needed to learn based on the evidence I was observing from my class, my students, my principals/vice-principals.  I had to be transparent with my inquiry, my theories of action (what actions I was going to take), my success criteria for my learning, my evidence of my success criteria, my analysis of my evidence, my reflections of my learning, and my next actions.  I had to be very intentional of what I was going to do, and what I was not going to do.  How I would spend my time, and how I would no longer spend my time.  The support of Steven Katz as our senior team's critical friend, was a key support to push my own thinking about who I believe I am as a leader, how I was spending my time as a leader and whether they aligned.  S. Katz "Intentional Interruption" book was a catalyst to my deeper reflection of my own learning this school year.

Manny Figueiredo

Problems of Practice

Since PLTs have engaged in system supported SEF Self-Assessments in the fall of 2011, with teacher direction teams from each staff (to ensure teacher voice is present as they are the critical implementers of instructional and assessment practices), Principal Learning Teams (PLTs) have refined their learning and hence, their problems of practice for collaborative inquiry:

(Reflections in my December email to principals)

Where we have been:

Thanks for the SEF 1 page foci that have emerged from the SEF Self-Assessments(Collaborative Inquiry). Please keep the narrow focus and continue to engage your direction teams (and others) in the shared leadership of this plan.

Where we are:

PLT's current problem of practice that I summarized from yesterday's Cluster Time:

BGRLHD - How does the Achievement Chart (4 categories) support the learning tasks/culminating tasks that students are engaged in within a TLCP?

QERL - How do Learning Goals and Success Criteria fit into a 3-Part Math Lesson and the Achievement Chart?

LLHHCB - How does student voice/engagement connect with the SEF (Self-Assessment) foci?

SALTFLEET - How are we using data to effectively drive instruction and learning?

Where are we going?

PLTs are determining their next steps for their learning and their staffs learning. Two of the PLTs are moving to a third Self-Assessment Session that will be supported by consultants. The purpose of these sessions will be determined by PLT members through facilitator and with Cluster Consultants (in consultation with me, I hope?)

What I have been thinking about?

The SEF Self-Assessments has really provided an opprotunity for system staff (superintendent, consultants, coaches) and school staff (principal, vice-principal, teachers) to co-learn in looking for patterns and trends in student learning in perceptual data (teachers' vital observations) and student achievement data (EQAO) in order to identify an area of student learning need for the school and an area of action (SEF indicator).

What I have witnessed is the power of ensuring professional teacher observations and voices are present and heard when analyzing data.  As a system leader, I do not own the area of focus nor the action to address it; what I own is the ability to influence the conditions to make the opportunity for collaboration to occur and then support the school need (i.e. resources, time). 

I am wondering about the power of introducing student voice into the self-assessment process?  How do we validate and ensure the area of student learning need and the action schools choose to address it is having the greatest impact.  We know what research indicates (i.e. SEF, Visible Learning by J. Hattie, etc) are the high yield strategies but how do we know it is working for the students in our schools, in our classrooms? 

My Problem of Practice - how to introduce student voice into the data analysis of the SEF Self-Assessment process; not only the level 3 and 4 voices, but the hesitant student voices?

SEF School Self-Assessment Process

SCHOOL SELF-ASSESSMENT PROCESS IMPLEMENTATION

 EXAMINE DATA TO DETERMINE AREA OF GREATEST NEED

Step 1:             Principals ask teachers to briefly summarize what they are seeing from their                                classroom assessments so far (including observations) in the key areas of                                      literacy  and numeracy –what do their students know and are able to do? What                              areas of weakness do students exhibit? Bring summary sheets to Step 2 sessions.

Step 2:             Half-day Facilitated session “Knowing our Students”

Participants:    School administrator(s) with members of their SIP team (maximum 4)

Facilitators:     SOSA, SEF Lead, Cluster consultants (optional – member(s) of the PLT)

Activities and Guiding Questions:      

What are the data sets to examine? What EQAO, Infoview and eSIS reports can we access to help us with the data?

Do we have a school plan and expectations for the use of data (Right Data, Data Capacity, Data Culture)? Who, what, when, why, how? What would a school data plan look like?

What do we observe in terms of strengths and weaknesses of the data we do have? What do we know about our students? What do we know about our students at risk? What patterns, correlations, trends (e.g. 5 year) are there? Are there data disconnects?

If we had to select right now, what focus areas would we select as critical to improving student achievement?

How will we work with our staff to ensure they have a better understanding of the data we have and that there is a school plan to develop capacity in data usage to improve student achievement overall and at the individual student level in particular?

Step 3:             Walkthrough (Superintendent of Student Achievement, School Principal and                                  Vice-principal and S.E.F. Lead) – observations provided to school administration

Step 4:             Schools work collaboratively with their whole staff to develop data capacity and                           to look at available data including walkthrough observations to determine school                 focus areas. Support provided through consultant team, SEF lead and SOSA if                              available.

ALIGN NEEDS WITH THE ANNUAL OPERATING PLAN

SHARPEN THE FOCUS OF THE SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT PLAN TO ADDRESS AREAS OF GREATEST NEED

Step 5: Half-day facilitated session (same participants and support groups)           

Activities and Guiding Questions:

What are the areas of focus our staff selected collaboratively? Is there logic in the selection of this focus (i.e. based on examined data, based on a more than superficial understanding of student performance)? Is the focus area specific to the knowledge and skills you want students to demonstrate?

How does our school focus area align with the AOP priorities? If the school focus area does not align with the AOP, are we certain that our students can succeed in relation to the AOP priority areas?

What were the key focus areas in our previous SIP/previous TLCPs? What evidence of success do we have? Are there areas we still need to improve?  

How can we use the K-12 School Effectiveness Framework to sharpen our focus? Looking at the key areas in the SEF, which ones align most closely with the focus are(s) we have selected?

Unpacking the indicators and evidence for one component of the SEF:

• Given our focus area choice  what Indicators and evidence do we want to select as the basis for our Support Visit later in the year?
• If we select these indicators, what would that look like in our school? What evidence would we have for success? What would we expect to see our students doing? Our teachers doing?

How can we build our capacity for change in the focus area? How can we ensure that the strategies we select will help us improve the outcomes we hope to achieve? What resources do we need to study? Do we have experts on staff or in the cluster to assist us?

What strategies will help us create the desired evidence for students and staff? How will TLCP cycles support the plan?

How will we monitor our progress between the development of the plan and the Support Visit?  How will our Data Plan for the school help us to do this?

Step 6:             School team works collaboratively with staff to utilize K-12 SEF, AOP and                                       previous SIPs to create a coordinated approach for improvement using                                         classroom based TLCP and monitoring points to achieve success.

Step 7:             New date for School Support Visit is set.

Ongoing monitoring of progress through SIP visits, Data Plan implementation and principal classroom visits.  

PLT - creating the conditions for learning

Since February 2011, I have met monthly with each of my elementary PLTs.  Each PLT has one or two principals who are participating (as well as I) in cognitive coaching training.  This training has helped me really focus on creating the conditions for principals (my students) to learn.  I have learned how criticial my behaviour is for creating the conditions for learning.  My default, is to move to the consultant mode; tell people what they need to do and hope they implement with understanding.  Now, in the coaching mode, I am trying to leverage the expertise that exists within the PLT to support our learning or create the environment where it is safe to say "We/I don't know" and then take the lead to provide the responsive PD (just like we expect our teachers to do for our students!).  During our PLT sessions, my role is to take minutes!  Actually, what I am doing when creating the minutes is enhancing my active listening skills, paraphrasing what I hear and then asking specific questions to clarify the thinking of the PLT in order to make their implicit intentions, very explicit. 

Each PLT has a clear focus for learning:
PLT 1: part lessons with the 7 mathematical processes
PLT 2 and 3: assessment continuum: learning goals and success criteria
PLT 4: analysis of student achievement data to inform instruction

As each PLT sharpens their focus, teacher teams within schools have begun to network with other teacher teams.  PLTs are then facilitating these sessions in a responsive, collaborative inquiry mode rather than a descriptive mode. 

For me, my PLTs are providing me with some of the best professional learning!

Principal Learning Teams

I currently support 4 PLTs on a monthly basis by participating, learning and co-facilitating with principals.  Each PLT has at least one principal who is participating in cognitive coaching training with other formal leaders within our system, including all Superintendents.  I am extremely proud of the trust each PLT has established as well as a clear purpose for our learning.  Each PLT is sharing their learning in a First Class conference and one has also engaged in a Lino it as another method of collaborative sharing and learning.  http://bit.ly/lAWjhb  This PLT has engaged in collaborative inquiry regarding learning goals and success criteria.

Principal Learning Team Collaborative Inquiry

Good day folks,

Looking forward to using Blogs to share our collective thinking in order to help us all model 21st Century Fluencies and engage in new learning.