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Becoming a PLC requires that we take on the characteristics of learning, collaborating, and getting results through collective inquiry, action research, and a commitment to continuous improvement. In an era of accountability, collective responsibility for continuous improvement has given way to teams and departments in silos, with school improvement primarily focused on test scores. Regina Stephens Owens discusses the essentials required to develop the culture and collective responsibility to ensure that all learn at high levels. Participants in this session: • Explore designing and developing a culture based on the mission, vision, and values of a PLC. • Examine ways to ensure transformation, from first order to second order, leveraging the six characteristics of a PLC. • Learn how to develop a learning infrastructure and measure behaviors to ensure sustained transformation and produce collective efficacy.
Anthony Muhammad focuses on the systemic implementation of a PLC at Work’s four critical questions. Participants learn what it takes to move from theory to practical, systemic implementation. Dr. Muhammad’s strategies are immediately usable when participants return to their schools. Participants in this session: • Practice developing essential standards and student outcomes. • Learn to create valuable and valid common assessments. • Discover how to establish an intervention system that meets all students’ needs.
When teams commit to the PLC process and decide to engage in a cycle of continuous improvement, the first critical step is to examine their personal and systemic beliefs about students, themselves, and learning. Only then can they exclaim with confidence that “all really does mean all!”When teams commit to the PLC process and decide to engage in a cycle of continuous improvement, the first critical step is to examine their personal and systemic beliefs about students, themselves, and learning. Only then can they exclaim with confidence that “all really does mean all!” This session provides participants with strategies and protocols to examine mindsets and collaborative processes to ensure higher learning levels for all students. It is designed for general and special educators. To develop a culture of learning for all, participants will: • Learn past and current realities regarding special education. • Discover strategies to build and reinforce school and district cultures. • Reflect on practices and policies that do and do not align with the culture. • Examine what it looks like when general and special educators purposefully collaborate on teaching and learning for all. • Apply instructional decision making that leads to high levels of learning.
Luis F. Cruz shares how schools use PLC strategies to help English learner populations flourish. By effectively using PLC components, administrative and teacher leaders close achievement gaps for students learning English as a second language. Dr. Cruz shows how EL task-force leaders reculture and restructure while introducing best practices to increase learning outcomes for all students. A task force can initiate seven steps to ensure that English learners are included in the “all means all” mantra that defines a school’s fundamental purpose of learning for every student. Participants discover how: • Teacher-led task forces increase academic performance for English learners. • PLC practices highlight stark realities when English learners are not learning. • Adults change their expectations and behaviors when listening to English learners’ needs, resulting in significant improvements in student achievement.
This interactive session establishes, reboots, or re-energizes the work of collaborative teams. Schools nationwide are using this simple learning–assessing process to connect the dots of a PLC. Maria Nielsen helps teams see the big picture of a PLC and put it all together in a recurring cycle of collective inquiry. The 15-day challenge is a practical way to bring the PLC process to life. Participants in this session: • Clarify the work of collaborative teams. • Establish steps for a guaranteed and viable curriculum. • Explore the learning–assessing cycle in a unit of study.
Collaborative teacher teams are the engine that drives a professional learning community. When these teams are highly engaged in the right work, student learning accelerates. When they are not, learning sputters and stalls. Because teachers traditionally must attend grade-level or departmental team meetings, schools often mistakenly assume that merely renaming these gatherings “PLC time” represents teacher collaboration. The act of meeting does not make a team, but instead, simply a group. Participants in this session: • Assess if they are currently part of a group or a team. • Review the essential work of teacher teams in a PLC. • Learn how to navigate team disagreements successfully. • Leave with specific action steps to improve your teacher team.
Organizational purpose, collective beliefs, and commitments affect building systems at all levels. How can we ensure that all practices and procedures are intentional and personify organizational beliefs? It all begins with the why. Regina Stephens Owens shares strategies to move cultures from attitudes of compliance, coercion, and fear to ones that are respectful, responsive, and reflective. Outcomes include learning how to: • Promote high standards of achievement for all. • Create a collective, rather than individual, leadership focus. • Design and develop cultures that are respectful, responsive, and reflective.
Educators promote a strong sense of student efficacy within schools that focus on learning. Several studies show self-efficacy is one of the greatest factors of student motivation and engagement. In this session, participants examine ways to build a growth mindset through data notebooks. Tim Brown shares products teams have developed to engage and empower students in self-reporting and reflection. Tim answers these questions: • What are the key components of a highly motivated and engaged classroom? • What products do teams build to improve student learning and ensure self-efficacy in the PLC process? • How can teachers effectively use products to help students own their learning?
Within any PLC culture, teachers can feel overwhelmed by the relational expectations and chaotic noise that sometimes occur. Ours is a profession of “emotional labor,” and it is easy to experience compassion fatigue from the daily actions of our work life. Timothy D. Kanold notes, “I have been exhausted. Off and on, I have lost contact with the joy of my work life. So it is for you. Sooner or later, the world of your professional life stretches you beyond your limits. But there are ways to regain your joy and cope with the stresses you face.” By understanding their heartprint and soul story, attendees learn routines to overcome stress and maintain professional lives full of energy, joy, and balance. Dr. Kanold draws from his award- winning HEART! Fully Forming Your Professional Life as a Teacher and Leader (2018) and the companion SOUL! Fulfilling the Promise of Your Professional Life (2021) to provide research, insights, and reflective tools for this session. Participants can expect to: • Examine the H (happiness) and E (engagement) elements from HEART! and the S (searching) element from SOUL! • Consider root causes and antidotes to emotional exhaustion and burnout. • Learn to reflect upon and pursue a sustaining professional life that inspires students and colleagues each and every day.
Anthony Muhammad explores connections among personal and institutional mindsets and academic achievement gaps. Inequality in student learning outcomes has been studied and debated for years. Dr. Muhammad asserts that our individual and collective thinking is the primary culprit in overcoming the achievement gap. As a result of this session, participants understand: • The true meaning and value of school culture • The power of mindsets and their influence on educator effectiveness • How to shift from damaging mindsets (superiority and inferiority) to high levels of efficacy (liberation mindset)
Participants in this session examine the what and why of establishing a guaranteed and viable curriculum. Then, they test collaborative team protocols to see how standards drive instruction and formative assessment planning to help all students become proficient. Finally, participants use a data set and protocol to analyze data to plan instruction, intervention, and extension. Outcomes include: • Exploring essential elements of a guaranteed and viable curriculum for all • Becoming familiar with a protocol that facilitates deep learning based on standards and targets • Using the protocol for robust pre-instruction planning • Analyzing common formative assessment data to drive instruction and intervention via the protocol
Academic research and accounts from educators worldwide confirm that PLCs when implemented effectively, lead to high levels of learning for every student. However, questions remain. Who is responsible for initiating a PLC? How does a team establish the foundational pillars of a PLC? How does this process take shape? Is it normal to expect staff resistance to this process, and is there a difference between rational and irrational forms of resistance? Luis F. Cruz explains the who, why, and how associated with the PLC process. Participants in this session learn: • How to initiate a PLC process • The role of a guiding coalition • How to establish the foundation of a PLC
Maria Nielsen helps teachers move past “sit and get” in the classroom to a place where all students actively participate in learning. She shares engagement strategies to assess student understanding throughout a lesson or unit of study. Participants can expect to: • Explore the nifty nine best teaching strategies. • Learn how to assess student learning by implementing engagement strategies. • Identify the differences among assessment questions, open questions, and engagement questions.
“Creating lifelong learners” is a key objective in the mission statements for many schools and districts. Because today’s average high school graduate will change careers at least four times by the age of 40, ensuring that all students master the skills and behaviors needed to guide their future learning is essential to ensuring their future success. A study of highly effective, learning- progressive schools worldwide found these schools share two common elements: they operate as high-functioning PLCs with well-implemented RTI structures, and they promote student agency in the learning process. Mike Mattos discusses how to build a highly effective school where students are engaged in personalized learning experiences and empowered to take ownership of the four critical questions of the PLC at Work process. Outcomes from this session include: • Discussing the essential knowledge, skills, and behaviors required to “future proof ” our students • Defining how to create collaborative teacher teams within the PLC at Work framework and foster teacher transdisciplinary skills and behaviors • Discovering how to use the four critical questions of a PLC to form pathways and progressions for personalized learning in the classroom • Learning how schools utilize the RTI process to ensure every student develops agency and personalized learning opportunities required to thrive in a global economy
In a time of tremendous focus on data, it is imperative to grow a rich collaborative culture through dialogue and data protocols—moving from a deficit mindset to a growth mindset. Participants in this session discover ways to create this culture, use data protocols, and increase team capacity and student learning. Outcomes include: • Focusing on results through the lens of data • Obtaining tools, tips, and templates to impact team and student learning • Moving from data to demonstration of learning
Talking about grading practices is often touchy, full of emotions, opinions, and personal beliefs. However, when schools shift from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning, they must be willing to examine policies, practices, and guidelines to see if they support learning principles. Tim Brown shows how staff can engage educators in a collaborative process committed to grading practices aligned with learning outcomes. Participants discuss these essential questions: • What do principles of learning, student motivation, and grading have in common? • What are the reasons and rationale behind changes in grading practices? • What grading practices and guidelines do successful teams and schools implement?
At the epicenter of the PLC life is community. It is through community that educators find the heart and soul of their work lives. Educators achieve the greatest accomplishment and well-being by knowing how they enhance the lives of students and colleagues. The defining feature of a great teaching life is contributing to something beyond the self. Timothy D. Kanold draws from his award-winning HEART! Fully Forming Your Professional Life as a Teacher and Leader (2018) and the companion SOUL! Fulfilling the Promise of Your Professional Life (2021) to provide insights into the PLC life as a deeply meaningful one. Participants explore daily routines for personal well-being that promote a culture of unity, belonging, vulnerability, trust, and validation. Dr. Kanold emphasizes that educators should not let their individual voices get lost in the collaborative shuffle. Participants can expect to: • Examine differences between their first and second “mountain climb” as part of their professional growth journey. • Consider ways to improve their relational intelligence and impact on others as part of the PLC culture. • Discover research-specific strategies for thriving at work through a culture of belonging, trust, vulnerability, and validation.
School-site, guiding coalition, or central office leaders face the challenge of leading others into the PLC life. Yet, they also must overcome obstacles that prevent full, ongoing, and sustained implementation of the PLC life in their programs, schools, or districts. In this interactive one-hour discussion session, Timothy D. Kanold reveals how school district leaders, administrators, program leaders, and instructional coaches can become dynamic decision makers that others want to follow. As participants identify primary barriers to the PLC life, Dr. Kanold facilitates dialogue to find meaningful solutions based on what is “loose” and “tight” in a PLC at Work culture. Dr. Kanold indicates, “As we become professionals, we tie our workplace decision making to the vision for our work life actions and the results of our leadership wisdom, in order to promote coherence—and celebrate the difficult daily actions of others.” Participants learn how to: • Help others eliminate districtwide barriers to PLC process implementation by connecting daily actions to measurable outcomes and vision. • Commit to a complex yet simple and clear leadership heuristic to avoid randomness, chaos, and incoherence when implementing the PLC culture.
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Without question, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused educators across the world to face unprecedented challenges. Regardless of the safety-driven shifts to virtual learning and social distancing, our mission remains the same: to ensure every student acquires the academic skills, knowledge, and behaviors needed for future success. Mike Mattos builds the case that teachers should not view current teaching conditions as something to endure until things get back to normal. Instead, they should see this as an opportunity to better prepare students for the demands of postsecondary education and the 21st-century global economy. Grasping this opportunity requires educators to learn new tools. The PLC at Work process is the best way to support the adult learning needed for educators and students to thrive during these difficult times.
Anthony Muhammad addresses two vital stages in creating a PLC culture: 1) establishing philosophical agreement and building shared purpose, and 2) addressing staff frustration and reluctance to change. He leads an exploration of theories linking school culture and student learning, and participants leave with practical strategies to transform the culture at their schools and districts. Learning targets include: • Addressing counterproductive belief systems and forming a cohesive team of • student advocates • Analyzing and managing staff frustration • Understanding the balance between support and accountability
Schools that function as PLCs must ultimately do two things: 1) build a collaborative culture to promote continuous adult learning, and 2) create structures and systems that provide students with additional time and learning supports. After examining the key ingredients of systematic intervention and enrichment, participants receive criteria to assess their own schools’ responses and an action-planning template for next steps in raising the bar and closing the gap. Participants examine strategies and structures to collaboratively: • Examine core beliefs. • Use resources (human, material, and temporal) to meet the needs of all learners • Develop schedules to ensure that intervention is timely, systematic, and directive. • Tap data to drive intervention, with a focus on progress monitoring to drive actions. • Examine the most common mistakes in response to intervention. • Review a tool for assessing the progress and opportunities for interventions within a district, school, or team.
Throughout his professional life, Richard DuFour shared insights to guide educators in continuously strengthening PLC process implementation. One of his most notable keynote presentations captured which aspects of the PLC process must be tight and which could be loose. Luis F. Cruz honors the life of Dr. DuFour by reminding audiences about Rick’s message and his purpose of ensuring learning for all students. Outcomes from this session include: • Understanding why adopting a collaborative culture is a “must do” in a successful PLC • Learning why ensuring a guaranteed and viable curriculum is essential to the PLC process • Exploring why allowing teachers the “defined autonomy” to teach how they believe most effective is a loose aspect of the PLC process
What should happen when a team starts to struggle? As teachers move toward becoming interdependent teams, challenges inevitably arise. Ensuring high levels of learning for every student requires a change in thinking and practice. Participants briefly review the work of highly effective teams, consider scenarios showing common team challenges, and work collaboratively to identify strategies for moving a team forward. This session is based on a book of the same title (Solution Tree Press, 2019), coauthored by Maria Nielsen and other educators who possess a wide range of backgrounds and experiences in all education levels. Participants in this session: • Identify common challenges that limit a team’s efficacy. • Collaboratively resolve specific challenges and share strategies to help teams progress. • Practice specific coaching strategies designed to assist teams in their critical work.
Identifying which students need help is not the biggest obstacle most secondary schools face in providing interventions; it is how to schedule the time needed to provide that help during the school day. This session provides real examples from a high-performing school showing how it creates time for supplemental and intensive interventions. Participants learn specific steps to implement a flexible secondary intervention period, including how to: • Determine what interventions to offer each week. • Require students to attend specific interventions. • Monitor student attendance. • Allocate staff. • Extend student learning. • Address potential obstacles. • Do all this within teachers’ contractual obligations.
Effective teams are essential to the PLC at Work process and continuous improvement. Regina Stephens Owens shares strategies to leverage technology to support teamwork and ensure growth through collective inquiry and action research. Participants learn how to: • Use technology as a motivator to advance the work of teams. • Leverage web resources to address the four essential questions of a PLC. • Use technology to build collective capacity and ensure continuous improvement.
Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ (2005), argues that teams start on the path to greatness by explicitly stating their values. This is true in PLCs as well. A critical step in the PLC process is developing a shared vision of instruction, assessment, and interventions at the classroom, team, and schoolwide levels. Tim Brown shares strategies and provides examples that educators use in developing collective commitments and a common vision. Participants can expect to: • Understand the importance of developing explicit commitments with a team. • Learn strategies to develop collective commitments as a team. • Explore processes and protocols that make values more than a one-time event.
Timothy D. Kanold explores how collaborative teams can improve student achievement in mathematics through the balanced use of lower-level- and higher-level-cognitive-demand tasks and classroom discourse combined with meaningful formative feedback during instruction. This session is based on his book Mathematics Instruction and Tasks in a PLC at Work from Solution Tree’s Every Student Can Learn Mathematics series (2018). Dr. Kanold shares six research-affirmed lesson design criteria essential to student perseverance and sustained effort in mathematics class every day. He shares sample mathematics tasks and online resources for teacher support. Participants use the PLC mathematics lesson design model to: • Define the difference between relevant and meaningful mathematics. • Consider how to use prior knowledge and academic vocabulary activities effectively. • Examine the balanced use of lower-level- and higher-level-cognitive-demand tasks during class. • Consider the balanced use of in-class student discourse as part of formative assessment feedback when students get stuck during a lesson.
The word equity has been used frequently within the field of education and in our society-at- large. What does it mean? What does it require? How do we get there? Anthony Muhammad explores the history of the school equity movement, what we have learned, and why the PLC at Work process is well positioned to deliver on the promise of educational justice for all students. This session forces participants to reflect on their moral, personal, and professional ideologies and challenge assumptions and ideas that have perpetuated school inequality. Participants will: • Gain a clear understanding of the concept of equity in schools. • Understand how PLC practices promote and deliver on the promise of equity. • Adopt tools that equip educators to start their equity journey immediately.
Highly effective PLC practices are built on the foundation of high-functioning collaborative teams. These teams recognize that each member brings different perspectives to the table. Participants explore the dynamics of collaborative teams and tools to assess developmental stages. Objectives include: • Defining the characteristics of high-performing teams • Engaging in an activity to build understanding for team members • Exploring tools to assess a team’s efficacy
The third critical question of a PLC, What do we do when students don’t learn?, often stumps teachers and administrators. Luis F. Cruz showcases methods that schools use to guarantee collaboration (taping the room) and to ensure a collective response when students do not learn (painting the room). Participants learn how the PLC and RTI processes complement each other in increasing academic achievement for all students. Participants learn: • How effective teacher teams collaborate and respond when students do not learn • Ways to ensure a guaranteed and viable curriculum • The critical role of common assessments
The secret is out: Common formative assessments are the key to improving student learning! Formative assessments are powerful when teams of teachers create assessments in common then share and discuss the results. This collaborative process leads to a dramatic increase in student learning and to improved teaching practices. Maria Nielsen provides proven tools to use common assessments across grade levels effectively and departments and illustrates practical strategies for implementing and using assessments to improve student and adult learning substantially. Participants in this session: • Examine the benefits of using common assessment as a grade level or department. • Understand the balance between formative and summative assessments. • Gain formative assessment tools to increase student and adult learning. • Discover quick and easy ways to look at data and drill down to individual students.
The principal has an essential role in creating a PLC. Without effective support and leadership, achieving this outcome is virtually impossible. Targeted to site administrators, this session provides proven practices and examples of leading and supporting collaborative teacher teams. Participants are called on to: • Learn how to create an effective site leadership team. • Effectively address violations to a school’s collective commitments. • Monitor and support the work of collaborative teams.
Singleton teachers are accustomed to seeking solutions and understanding opportunities as they arise. Operating efficiently and effectively within a PLC can be challenging. Team members must collaborate on common denominators, work with peers to improve professional practices and student learning, leverage technology, and authentically engage in the PLC at Work process. Regina Stephens Owens shows how to use best practices in collaboration, and participants learn how to design action plans supporting the work of schools and singleton teachers in a PLC. Outcomes include learning: • Ways to overcome challenges that singleton teachers face in small schools by connecting stakeholders to learning goals • Solutions that leverage success for educators and learners by understanding interdependence more deeply • Support high levels of learning by ensuring singleton teachers function effectively in the PLC process
Lee G. Bolman and Terrence Deal write in their book, Leading With Soul: An Uncommon Journey of Spirit (2011), “Organizations without a rich symbolic life become empty and sterile. The magic of special occasions is vital in building significance into collective life.” Learning-centered schools do not just communicate messages about the ability of every student to achieve. Instead, learning- centered schools define specific actions that everyone can take to turn those core beliefs into reality. Tim Brown offers practical strategies to communicate, motivate, and celebrate learning for students and staff. Using these positive strategies, educators can communicate high expectations of team members and the students they support.
Timothy D. Kanold explores how mathematics assessment and grading can either inspire or destroy student learning. This session is based on Mathematics Assessment and Intervention in a PLC at Work and Mathematics Homework and Grading in a PLC at Work (2018). Both are from Solution Tree’s Every Student Can Learn Mathematics series. Dr. Kanold reveals eight research-affirmed criteria for creating high-quality unit assessments (quizzes and tests) and the accurate scoring of those assessments. Participants also reflect on and answer the formative question “Now what?” when an assessment is returned to students. The session ends with a brief discussion about research-affirmed criteria for high-quality mathematics homework routines and practices. Participants in this session: • Use high-quality mathematics assessment-design criteria for evaluating the quality of current math quizzes and tests. • Consider using a protocol for the accurate scoring (grading) of all quizzes and tests. • Develop formative strategies for student response, intervention, and ownership of learning during and at the end of a mathematics unit of study. • Explore research and discussion tools to design highly effective mathematics homework routines and practices.
How is a culture of collaboration created? How can an environment be established where people embrace collective responsibility? Anthony Muhammad addresses the collaborative characteristics of a high-performing PLC. Participants learn how teachers, support staff, school administrators, and central offices work together to improve school performance. Dr. Muhammad also discusses staff resistance to change and the leader’s role in building consensus. Participants in this session: • Construct and protect productive collaborative relationships. • Create organizational coherence and ensure collaboration at all levels of the school community. • Understand the balance between support and accountability.
Is your system overwhelmed with data? Using protocols to transform data into information is an efficient and effective way to achieve improved results. Participants examine tools that empower teams to use data to drive instruction, impact student learning, and identify processes to meet district needs. Attendees can expect to: • Review research related to data-driven decision making. • Explore multiple protocols for data analysis. • Reflect on their school or district’s current reality while identifying tools that can be used or modified to meet specified needs.
As educators initiate the PLC process, they need practical tools to begin and enhance the journey. However, educators might discover that their staff needs convincing. How and why is the PLC process the best way to accelerate learning for all students? Luis F. Cruz shares articles, templates, activities, and videos to provide administrative and teacher leaders the tools to amplify improvement at their sites. Participants learn: • The difference between rational and irrational forms of adult resistance and how to address each • The art and science of effective leadership and how to maneuver in both directions • Practical actions to accelerate the PLC process
Maria Nielsen takes educators on an interactive journey to gain new and exciting ELA and writing strategies as a team. In this fast-paced session, elementary teachers gain clarity about ELA standards and explore how reading and writing go hand-in-hand for increased student learning. Participants also learn how to focus on year-long essential standards while using a district- prescribed curriculum. In this session, participants: • Gather tools and graphic organizers to connect reading and writing. • Understand learning progressions on literacy-focused instruction and assessment. • Overlay essential standards with district-prescribed curricula. • Examine research-based teaching strategies to improve classroom instruction.
How does your school respond when students don’t learn? Compelling evidence shows that response to intervention successfully engages a school’s staff in a collective process to provide every child with the additional time and support they need to learn at high levels. Yet, at many schools, this potential lies dormant, buried under layers of state regulations, district protocols, misguided priorities, and traditional school practices misaligned to the essential elements of RTI. This session shows how the PLC at Work process creates the larger, schoolwide framework required to implement a highly effective, multitiered system of supports. Outcomes from this session include: • Understanding the guiding principles behind a multitiered system of interventions • Learning essential actions that collaborative teams must complete at Tier 1 to respond when students don’t learn effectively • Prioritizing resources to address academic and behavior interventions • Beginning the process of creating a pyramid of interventions
Leveraging the strengths of all community members can be challenging. Where do we start? How can we monitor and measure to ensure growth for staff and students? How do we work interdependently to accomplish goals? Regina Stephens Owens facilitates a collaborative discussion as participants discover ways to increase results through collective responsibility. Participants explore how to: • Build a community of compassion where all stakeholders work interdependently to ensure students are ready for college, career, and life. • Develop experiences where staff and students learn and grow, resulting in the alignment and achievement of individual and organizational goals. • Invest in personal mastery that results in increased capacity, collective responsibility, and increased achievement.
Educators promote a strong sense of student efficacy within schools that focus on learning. Several studies show self-efficacy is one of the greatest factors of student motivation and engagement. In this session, participants examine ways to build a growth mindset through data notebooks. Tim Brown shares products teams have developed to engage and empower students in self-reporting and reflection. Tim answers these questions: • What are the key components of a highly motivated and engaged classroom? • What products do teams build to improve student learning and ensure self-efficacy in the PLC process? • How can teachers effectively use products to help students own their learning?
The PLC life is a path of continuous growth, experimentation, and defining moments. Educators blink, and they see pieces of their past in the rearview mirror. They look ahead, and the date always arrives, ready or not. Their seasons of teaching and leading stack up, one upon another, and become the path they build as they walk it. There is an ebb and flow of stress and strain, adversity and hope, until there are no more seasons. Timothy D. Kanold highlights the priority for participants to pay deep attention to their professional wellness to bring their best selves to their students and colleagues. During this session, participants design a “first zero” (starting point) to “second zero” (ending point) timeline of their current professional lives. They identify defining moments from the past, and they discover how to create courageous signature moments in the future, including new “firsts.” Participants can expect to: • Create a professional timeline and identify defining events. • Discover how to recognize and model elements of professional courage. • Consider four primary criteria that create spontaneous signature moments; learn how to use those criteria to plan for defining moments before it is too late. • Learn about the two-minute rule and a five-step process for developing effective routines for increased joy and gratitude at work.
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More than 20 years ago, the first book on PLC at Work was published by Richard DuFour and Robert Eaker. The PLC at Work model has been celebrated and validated as the most promising way to improve student learning, yet so many schools remain stalled at the beginning stages of implementation. Why does this reality of “PLC lite” still plague our profession today? Without exception, schools that use this model to transform their practice have one thing in common: effective leadership. This session explores the keys to effectively transitioning a school or district into a model PLC. Outcomes from this session include: • Understanding leadership challenges and lessons learned from more than 20 years • of PLC at Work practice • Learning the difference between leadership behaviors that undermine and those • that promote the purpose of a PLC • Exploring practical strategies that improve participants’ ability to lead others through the change process and build consensus
