Professional Learning Community (PLC) Sessions

PLC / Activity
Meeting 1 / Baseline Data
The teachers will give their students a short series of problems to assess baseline knowledge of the topic from the previous training day. These questions will be generated by the authors of this module and could be differentiated by grade. The teachers will use a rubric to sort student responses before the first meeting.
The teachers will share their results, compare student strategies and plan future instruction for their students. The lead teacher will help the teachers get started with advice for activities related to topics discussed in the previous training session. The discussion will include assessment strategies. The teachers will have to use additional planning time to finalize the activities and use them before the second meeting day. The lead teacher will provide support for teachers as they plan and implement their activities.
Meeting 2 / Teaching Sequence
The teachers will use the activities with their students and collect examples of student work before meeting 2. Two components that will be emphasized in the sample activities are student to student communication and informal assessment techniques.
The teachers will reflect on how the activities worked with their students during the second meeting. They will share the results of the informal assessments and give examples of student thinking.
Meeting 3 / Teaching Interview
The teachers will be given a protocol for a teaching interview. They will interview several of their students before meeting 3 to assess the level of thinking and then use the questioning techniques to push student thinking to a higher level.
The teachers will share the results of the teaching interview with each other during meeting 3. They will also share the effectiveness of the various questioning strategies they tried.
Meeting 4 / Summative Assessment
The teachers will give a short summative assessment to all of their students. The assessment will be provided to them by the authors of the module with a scoring rubric. The teachers will score the student work before meeting 4.
The teachers will share the results of the assessment and discuss how this will influence future teaching of this topic. They will discuss intervention strategies for students who did poorly and compare student strategies. Misconceptions that appear will be discussed. The teachers will bring the results of all the assessments to the next training day.

Created on 3/17/2009 2:20:00 PM