Developing PLC Facilitators

Christy Beaird, Monday Oct 22, 2007, 05:37 pm

William E. Ferron Elementary serves a population of 600 students. According to the 2006-2007 School Accountability Report the student demographics included 41.8% Caucasian, 39.9% Hispanic, 12.1% African American, 4.5% Asian/Pacific Islander, 54.3% FRL, 22.5% LEP, and 14.8% IEP. The transciency rate for our school was 51.7%. We did not make AYP in ELA due to our IEP subgroup.

This is the 4th year of implementation of Professional Learning Communities at Ferron Elementary. Teachers meet in grade levels once weekly for 40 minutes before school to look at student achievement data and plan for subsequent instruction, instructional strategies, and interventions. Additionally, they share what is and what is not working in their classrooms. Each week they submit a PLC agenda to administration that documents the Topic/Focus of Grade Level, Student Work/Assessment Data Reviewed, Next Step/Responsibilities, and Questions for Administration. Each grade level has a common prep time which can be used at their discretion if additional PLC time is needed during a particular week. The Grade Level Chairperson serves as the facilitator of the PLCs and meets collectively with Administration once a month for 40 minutes as part of the Leadership Team. For the most part, these PLCs are student-centered and very productive.

However, in a review of the PLC agendas and in reflection on the dialog from the Leadership Team meetings, I find that the staff continues to look toward the building principal for answers. I want to develop the leadership skills of the PLC facilitators so that they are empowered to answer their own questions, problem solve within their PLCs, and identify their own professional development needs.

I want the outcomes of this PLC forum to be ideas, suggestions, and resources on how to move my Leadership Team of PLC facilitators beyond just compliance. I am looking for ways to empower them to take more of a leadership role in the school and effectively allow the principal to then serve as a facilitator of the Leadership Team.

I am looking forward to discussing this topic with you.

Christy

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Responses to Developing PLC Facilitators

Christy Beaird says:
October 23rd, 2007 at 7:36 pm

I want to thank Roy Casey from the Western Nevada Regional Training Program for emailing me input related to spending time developing a true "PLC" model with the Leadership Team. As it turns out, we had our October Leadership Team meeting yesterday. During this meeting, we discussed the article "Creating a Culture of Inquiry and Develop Productive Groups" (Garmston, 2007). During this discussion one of the new members of the Leadership Team mentioned that she felt she did not receive explicit training on how to effectively facilitate PLC groups. I have begun reading The Adaptive School: A Sourcebook for Developing Collaborative Groups by Garmston and Wellman to identify resources for some explicit training opportunities for the Leadership Team. Has anyone else read this book? Does anyone in the forum have suggestions or resources for training?
Fredris Breen says:
October 23rd, 2007 at 8:34 pm

You might want to look into these three books - all are great resources to read when looking at building leadership capacity:
Failure is Not An Option, by Blankstein - read section 6 Building Sustainable Leadership Capacity Whole Faculty Study Groups, by Murphy and Lick , chapter 4, Clarifying Roles, Responsibilities and School Culture (defines roles and responsibilities of the study group, but could easily transfer to teaching staff how to facilitate discussions in PLC groups). How to Thrive as a Teacher Leader, by John Gabriel, Chapter 1, Organizational Leadership- Nurturing Leadership in Your School (identifies roles and leadership qualities).
Leslie James says:
October 24th, 2007 at 3:40 pm

I know Christy is grateful for the resources that you provided to her, Fredris, and the feedback she has received so far regarding her issue. Christy, have you read "Learning By Doing: A Handbook for PLCs at Work" by DuFour, DuFour, Eaker and Many? Roy Casey and your teacher bring up a basic point - the PLC structure, process and protocols have to be clearly in place.

The 10/07 Issue Brief from the Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement and Learning Point Associates entitled "Building Collective Efficacy: How Leaders Inspire Teachers to Achieve" by Brinson and Steiner can be accessed at:

http://view.exacttarget.com/?j=fe6c1573756c05797415&m=fefc1575706602&ls=fde51075716d03757410787d&jb=ffcf14

We would love to know if it brings any new thoughts to mind. We look forward to your result of this 2 week discussion which will be to develop a theory of change/action in regard to your issue, trying it out and reporting back.
Gary Obermeyer says:
October 24th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
This looks like a good time to remind ourselves as to what we mean by a "theory of change."

At it's simplest, it is an explanation of how change is EXPECTED to occur as a result of strategies or interventions. It delineates the underlying assumptions upon which these actions are based, the components involved, and an explanation of how the change is expected to occur. For instance, if we begin with an assumption that good working conditions lead to increased teacher success and higher retention, then we would identify specific working conditions in need of improvement and the steps we will take to get there.

Applying this model to Christy's situation, we might begin with an assumption PLC Facilitators are crucial to the effective functioning of PLC teams. Which allows us to narrow the questions to:
- What roles/skills are required of PLC Facilitators?
- What are effective ways to develop these roles/skills?
Do you have some ideas about or experience addressing these questions. If so, we'd really like to hear from you... Let's dump the ideas into this discussion thread and see where it takes us.

Gary

p.s. Theories of change are sometimes presented as logic models. If you are interested in this topic, you might enjoy the PERC website - http://www.evaluationtools.org/plan_theory.asp
Ray Parks says:
October 24th, 2007 at 6:29 pm

I've learned over the past several years that the most important component of a high quality PLC is leadership-especially from the school administrators. Once a staff knows that the administration truly believes in the PLC model and that they are committed to it, buy-in is much easier and occurs at a much more rapid pace. Next it is essential that teams are created in such a manner that the entire staff feels that they have a say in the PLC program. Once these teams a natural leader generally comes to the forefront. If not then the administrator needs to help the teams find their leader by using the necessary people skills that hopefully we as administrators possess. Finally, the administrator really needs to model what he/she expects from their team leaders. This is best done by attending as many PLC team meetings as possible-the first two years is essential. Once the staff and especially the team leaders feel comfortable with taking a leadership role which includes helping to set ground rules for discussion, providing and interpreting data, facilitating the PLC meetings, acting as the liaison between their team and the administration etc... trust between all stake holders will naturally increase and the team leaders will be able to move into the decision making process. I know this sounds like a long drawn out process but it is worth all the hard work and will eventually pay great dividends for students and staff.
Jeff Wallock says:
October 25th, 2007 at 7:22 pm

Spring Creek Middle School (SCMS) has a similar population of students and serves 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. Our PLC set-up with leadership team is very similar to yours and when the PLC's meet the format, accountability, and record keeping is much the same.

One thing we've done that might be a little different is that we've used our leadership team to help us as administrators develop our school improvement plan. We've gone to our leadership team meetings with CRT results by grade listed on spreadsheets and sorted by description, by SCMS content cluster, by ability, by SCMS score and by State standard. There might be other sorting possibilities, but this has worked for us so far with the task we’re working on. We started with math and we're currently working on Reading. We have the leadership team working in 3 groups, 1 looking at 6th grade results, 1 looking at 7th and so on. We give the groups a sheet where they are to first identify and record strong points from the scores; where our students did well. We are asking them to reflect (for a short time in leadership team meeting, and then later in PLC’s) on what teaching practices they utilized for instruction with regards to the standards our students did well with and to continue these practices.

Following this reflection time we have them look at where our students didn't do so well. As administrators we have the groups continue with the sheet they’ve started with. On a separate page there is a table outlining priority concerns, root causes, and potential solutions. The sheet is from the SIP template found at the Department of Education website. Our groups’ instructions are to find 3 priority concerns per grade, brainstorm the root causes and the solutions and record them. As administrators, we take this information and use it to formulate our school improvement plan. In the future, we plan to use it to make decisions for best practices. However, as students change from year to year, the best practices will always be in need of adjustment and so this should be a continual PLC process.

One thing we've noticed from this is that our teachers have begun discussing ways to take the areas of concern and make plans to work on those with a cross-curricular approach. They are taking these back to their PLC groups and discussing this and then bringing this back to the leadership team meeting.
Christy Beaird says:
October 26th, 2007 at 11:46 pm

I truly appreciate the great resources and input. As Leslie reminded me, "Learning By Doing: A Handbook for PLCs at Work" by DuFour, DuFour, Eaker and Many is an excellent resource. I went back to that today and focused on chapter 5, Building the Collaborative Culture of a Professional Learning Community. The authors emphasized the importance of establishing clear parameters and priorities that guide the work of PLC teams. They recommend using the Critical Issues for Team Consideration worksheet on page 100 - 101 and establish time lines for completion of products from the checklist. I see this as a valuable tool that will allow the PLC teams to self reflect and identify priorities specific to their team.

The first item on the checklist is to "identify team norms and protocols to guide us in working together." Although my teams have established norms, I would like to share some information with them from "The Adaptive School: A Sourcebook for Developing Collaborative Groups" by Garmston and Wellman that identifies seven norms of collaboration for teams. They include: 1. Pausing 2. Paraphrasing 3. probing for specificity 4. Putting ideas on the table 5. Paying attention to others 6. Presuming positive intentions 7. Pursuing a balance between advocacy and inquiry (protocols for effective advocacy and effective inquiry can be found on page 105 of "Learning by Doing") I can see how refining the norms within the PLC teams has the potential to increase their effectiveness.

Thank you Ray for your valuable input regarding the roles of the PLC Facilitators. I am beginning to see how my Leadership Team is somewhere on the continuum of the long drawn out process of development that you referred to. I am pleased to say that I see the trust growing within the teams each year. My first grade team is ready to begin the peer coaching process in November. It was exciting to have them take that next step in collaboration.

I also want to thank Jeff for the insights on the relationship between the PLCs and the School Improvement Process. It sounds like your team is really getting to the heart of school improvement by effectively analyzing the data and identifying priority concerns, root causes, and solutions. At Ferron, we tend to look at summative data as a Leadership Team and formative data within the PLCs. Thoughts on this?
Belinda Jones says:
October 28th, 2007 at 5:03 am

Being a new principal I also want to move my PLC groups from compliance to commitment. The grade levels meet on a weekly basis but we are working on having those meetings be more data and student driven. Thanks for all the great ideas and reading suggestions. I'll be busy.
Gary Obermeyer says:
October 29th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
As we move into the second week of our conversation with Christy, let me take a moment to make a point about process. While the intent of this conversation is to develop theories of change for PLC facilitator development, it is very likely to raise many significant, related questions (e.g. the relationship of PLCs and SIPs). We will not have time to pursue all these issues in the depth they deserve in the time remaining in this forum. However, we will capture all the unanswered questions and put them in the hopper for later conversations.

This way, we can keep the focus on the two central questions:
- What roles/skills are required of PLC Facilitators?
- What are effective ways to develop these roles/skills?
We've got a pretty good collection of ideas on the first question. Please continue to address the first question if you have something to add and/or qualify. Let's also share some ideas about professional development for PLC Facilitators.

Thanks in advance! Gary
Christy Beaird says:
October 30th, 2007 at 1:59 pm

Leslie, thank you for the link to the article by Brinson and Steiner. The concept of collective efficacy is very powerful, and I see the PLCs moving in the direction of believing that they have a positive effect on student learning. The authors suggest 4 actions for improving collective efficacy. One of which is to create opportunities for teachers to collaboratively share skills and experience which aligns with our teams initial undertaking of the peer coaching model. Additionally, the authors point out the importance of "focused and ongoing professional development and specific actions on the part of the principal". I see this as a next step for my Leadership Team. I plan to bring the resources that I am gathering from this forum to our next meeting so that we can work together to priortize their professional devleopment needs and identify resources needed to implement the peer coaching model across grade level PLC teams. I am looking forward to other suggestions for developing the roles/skills of the PLC facilitators. :)
Gary Obermeyer says:
October 31st, 2007 at 5:58 pm

Christy, you are doing a great job of "thinking out loud" as we discuss professional development for the PLC Facilitators at Ferron Elementary. It helps raise questions that we might not think to ask otherwise. For instance, your comment about taking the resources from this conversation to the next Leadership Team meeting raises a couple new questions for me...

Are the monthly meetings the only time that PLC Facilitators have for professional development, or are there other opportunities as well?

Do you have a history of using Leadership Team meeting time for professional development, or is this the beginning of a new practice?

Gary
Christy Beaird says:
November 1st, 2007 at 2:05 pm

Gary, your questions bring to the forefront an extremely important issue that is emerging from this forum, and that is taking the time for the professional development of our PLC Facilitators. To answer your questions, we have not set aside specific time for professional development activities for the Leadership Team. We always have a current research article that relates to our SIP and spend the first 5 - 10 minutes of each meeting discussing and reflecting on it. However, the focus of this has not been on developing skills as facilitators. It is evident that we need to rethink how we are spending our time and find a balance between "getting down to business" and developing our skills as PLC facilitators. I will be incorporting these thoughts into my theory of change. I am wondering how other administrators have handled this issue.
Christy Beaird says:
November 3rd, 2007 at 1:05 am

I want to thank everyone who contributed to this forum directly and/or behind the scenes. It was very energizing to get ideas and resources on an important issue for Ferron Elementary. When I began this quest, I was seeking answers/information on how to move my Leadership Team from a place of compliance to empowerment. It became evident early in the conversation that there is a need to have a clearly defined structure, process, and protocols for the PLC meetings. Through our conversations in the forum and with my Leadership Team themselves, I realized that there is a need to set aside time specifically for the professional development needs of the PLC Facilitators. I am going to implement the following strategies as a result:

•Meet with the Leadership Team on a bi-monthly basis alternating meetings between school business and professional development.

•Work through chapter 5 of “Learning by Doing” with the Leadership Team with an emphasis on the process for PLC meetings.

•Develop a clearly defined protocol to be used by the PLCs based on the resources in “The Adaptive School”.

•Develop an evaluation tool that will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the Leadership Team and individual PLCs on a monthly basis.

I believe that these strategies will allow my Leadership Team to make great strides in moving from a state of compliance to empowerment. I will post occasional updates to let you know how things are going and look forward to continuing this conversation.
Leslie James says:
November 8th, 2007 at 6:53 pm

Thank you, Christy, for being the first administrator to post your issue of inquiry on the administrator forum and co-facilitate a discussion over a two week period. I know it has been exciting to network with others to gain resources, move to new discoveries and a new theory of action. This has also been an opportunity for you to focus on an important issue and pause to reflect with your staff to come up with a theory of change and action. The actions you listed pertaining to use of the resources of time, professional development, books, and a plan to develop an evaluation tool show that work on the forum, and as a result of the forum, has been worth your time and effort.

Thank you to Fredris, Ray, Jeff, Belinda and Gary as well for posting comments on this thread. Your postings make the forum work. What I've learned from studying chaos theory, which is not linear, is that provided we have good discussion facilitation - if we share our thinking and have the attitude of "and" thinking, we can often spiral off someone else's thinking to a new thought that leads us forward to clarity. This makes everyone's posted thinking clearly valuable. If there are others of you who would like the opportunity to co-facilitate a topic of interest, let Gary or me know and we will help you set it up. We would also love to have the RPDP folks facilitate a topic or suggest someone to do so. Contact information: Gary - obee@learningoptions.net #503-771-7963; Leslie - ljames@doe.nv.gov #775-687-9134
Christy Beaird says:
January 28th, 2008 at 1:01 pm

I wanted to share the wonderful progress my Leadership Team has been making in developing their skills as PLC facilitators since my last posting in November. First, we found that it was necessary to meet more frequently in order to have time for the discussions and planning needed for professional development. We explored several resources that had been recommended by members of the PLC forum. The team kept gravitating back to School Leadership That Works by Marzano, Waters, and McNulty. The consensus was that in this climate of change that they wanted to develop those skills that would support their PLCs in “doing the right work”. We worked through identifying first-order and second-order changes. We are currently working through the 21 responsibilities of school leaders with an emphasis on the 11 responsibilities that are most related to second-order changes. This was more of a global perspective than I had originally envisioned, but it seems that this was the appropriate starting point for my team. I am starting to get a sense of shared leadership among the members of the Leadership Team.

All of this work to develop my Leadership Team raised a question for me, how do you go about selecting your Leadership Team? Is it by administrative invite only or do you allow the grade levels to select their representative? I can certainly see the benefits of both, but would appreciate hearing from other administrators.

Finally, we plan to begin working on protocols and evaluation tools for our PLCs this summer. If anyone has samples that they would be willing to share with us on this forum we would appreciate it. Thanks!

Christy
Leslie James says:
January 31st, 2008 at 12:14 am

Thank you, Christy, for reporting back on the progress of your Leadership Team after your inquiry process on the Administrator Forum. I think it is interesting that the concensus of the team was more global in looking at how to develop skills as PLC facilitators than you had envisioned. I'm always intrigued by different ideas that are developed than what was originally envisioned - and how that creative process works. I'm wondering if the team was intrigued by such good research pointing to 21 concrete responsibilities of school leaders and first and second-order change.

Can any of you site administrators respond to Christy regarding how you select a "Leadership Team" - admin invite only or grade level self-selection of their representative?

I'm wondering if there are other names for "Leadership Teams" since "leadership" has so many different definitions (true leadership may be more about the depth of commitment for example) and connotations (e.g. hierarchy)? In this case "PLC Facilitator" specifically defines the task of the role. Language plays such a big role in people's perceptions, beliefs and behaviors.
Diane Mugford says:
February 1st, 2008 at 5:56 pm

Hello Christy - I am a colleague of Leslie's at NDE and also have extensive experience in working with and in various leadership teams at the site, district, regional and state levels. During my career as a teacher leader, professional developer, (etc.) I worked closely with principals who faced the challenge you are facing, Christy.

As an administrator, you are working towards a more distributed model of leadership. The amount of input you take from staff on forming any of those teams will depend on how deeply inculturated the change of the system has become.

It depends on other variables, also, such as what resources you have in terms of staff who are equipped and willing to facilitate change and progress. Probably for a school at the beginning of buying into the systemic change you want to bring about, the prinicipal will have to be more directive about who is on the team (or teams) facilitating change. Remember, you are not only changing the way we look at student progress - deriving from data AND observation, and producing solutions that are founded in best practice and shared successful experience, but you are also shifting from directive leadership to shared leadership.

So it makes sense to nurture those who can "infect" others with their vision. This is a different type of "leader" than the traditional grade level leader or department chair, so at least at first and maybe for some time, the responsibility of choice rests with the principal. Later, you might take input as clearly communicated norms are in place for the functioning and purpose of the group.

As the principal, you are always in a curiously dichotomous position: you want to inspire and support distributed leadership, but you also are the person the most accountable for results. So, in the end, the buck stops there -with you, although you are working towards a more shared (and therefore more supported) responsibility, your role is still that of the main vision-setter, "cheerleader", and ultimately as the person expected to make the final judgements (but after considering others input). Also, teachers are coming out of a recent history that has not led them to know how to share leadership (with you and with colleagues). That change of culture will take time and will go forward from a core group to a larger (and hopefully) critical mass.

In response to Leslie's question about the language related to "leadership" - yes, the perceptions that staff have about leadership may be tied to the hierarchical model that you are trying to ameliorate. So intrinsic to the culture (or systemic) shift is a shared discussion of what leadership means in light of the systemic change you are trying to facilitate. Maybe changing the language that is linked to an underlying stereotype about leadership and using a term more closely identified with facilitation would help at the outset to dispel the expectation that the same old hierarchical model is in place. And of course, there are always those who will see the facilitators as the principal's "chosen" group: that perception comes from a world-view that may or may not evolve with the change of culture. The important part is bringing over more of those who are uncommitted or unconvinced but open to change. especially as success is increasingly communicated.

Thanks for this chance to "blog" with you.

Diane
Leslie James says:
February 1st, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Thank you, Diane, for your insights on distributed leadership.

Because the term "leadership" is applied loosely in terms of roles and responsibilities in so many organizational settings, I pulled out my 5 books on teacher leadership and am providing what James Spillane, who is touted as the leading expert on "distributed leadership", says in his book by that name (Jossey-Bass, 2006)...

"Leadership refers to activities tied to the core work of the organization that are designed by organizational members to influence [or intendended to influence] the motivation, knowledge, affect, or practices of other organizational members..." (p. 11)

He likes to use the specific term "leadership practice" - and gives the example of some literacy team leaders working with the intent to influence teachers' literacy teaching in order to transform students' opportunities to learn to read and write at [the school]; teachers understand it as an attempt to influence their teaching; and it is tied to the core work of the school - instruction... this displays leadership practice in that practice is exemplified in the interactions among participants." (p,55)

"Distribution of school leadership responsibilities across leaders does not arise solely through public decrees or private decisions of school administrators. Distributed leadership isn't just delegated leadership. Others, such as teachers and parents, take on leadership responsibility in schools on their own initiative. At one level, then, a distributed leadership perspective attempts to acknowledge and incorporate the work of all individuals who have a hand in leadership practice. It presses us to examine who does what in the work of leadership. One strategy here might be to examine who is responsible for the functions that are thought to be essential for school improvement, including constructing and selling an instructional vision, building norms of trust and collaboration among staff, and supporting teacher development..." (p. 13)

"Teachers construct others as influential leaders based on their interactions with them as well as conversations with colleagues about these individuals. Teachers based their constructions on forms of [in rank order]:"
1. cultural capital - a person's way of being and doing, interactive styles that are valued in particular contexts
2. social capital - a person's social networks and the prevalence of norms such as trust, collaboration, and a sense of obligation among individuals in an organization
3. human capital - a person's knowledge, skills, and expertise
4. economic capital - includes money and other material resources - books, curricular materials, computers... (p. 48)
So, does that perspective (lens) help gel some thinking around your good question, Christy? Your question, Diane's insights, and my ongoing interest in "what do the experts have to say about leadership?" further piqued my curiosity into this matter on school "leadership teams".
Gary Obermeyer says:
February 11th, 2008 at 7:06 pm

Christy, don't know whether you've had time to consider the comments posted by Diane and Leslie. I certainly don't want to overwhelm, but wanted to add a resource on Distributive Leadership to the list:

http://www.e-lead.org/resources/resources.asp?ResourceID=12

It provides a bit of a background as well as links to definitions, tools & resources, model programs, and selected research/articles.

I'm still looking for articles that directly address your question about selection of teacher leaders.

Gary
Christy Beaird says:
February 16th, 2008 at 6:44 pm

Diane, thank you for the input on selecting my Leadership Team. I like the idea of starting with those who can "infect" others. I am in the process of extending invitations to be on the Leadership Team for the next school year. I am extremely pleased with the positive feedback I am getting. I recognize that this process of developing teacher leaders takes time. However, it is exciting that so many schools in Nevada are working toward the same goal. I am hearing similar conversations happening at many schools in Clark County. I can only imagine the impact as we continue moving forward with developing teachers as leaders.

Thank you Gary for the additional resource on Distributive Leadership. I like the term group-centered leadership referred to in the article. As Leslie mentioned, leadership roles aren't always those that are delegated. I think it is important to recognize the various leadership roles going on throughout the school and demystify the term leadership. Everyone can and should contribute to the leadership of running a school.

Thank you all again for the great input and resources. Please keep them coming.
Leslie James says:
February 19th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Great Discussion on Leadership

This was a great discussion on distributed leadership, Christy. Thank you for your inquiry and insights. I loved what you had to say... "I think it is important to recognize the various leadership roles going on throughout the school and demystify the term leadership. Everyone can and should contribute to the leadership of running a school." Then there is a culture of empowerment (doing what you are capable of doing) and ownership in the school community of continuous opportunity and growth. Thanks, Gary, for the resource. I also like the term "group-centered leadership". Thanks again, Diane, for sharing thoughtful comments coming from your years of being a teacher leader.

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