Principals’ Retreat

August 11, 2011

Start Talking About What We Care About

Human conversation is the most ancient and easiest way to cultivate the conditions for change. If we can sit together and talk about what’s important to us, we begin to come alive.

We share what we see, what we feel, and we listen to what others see and feel. . .The simplest way to begin finding each other again is to start talking about what we care about.

~Wheatley, 2002

Bracketing

• Create a “to-do” list for the things you would be doing if you were not here today.

Revisiting Norms

• Review the emerging norms that were generated yesterday.

• Identify a norm that you want to work on during your learning today.

• Share the norm and your reason for focusing on it with an elbow partner.

Meeting Procedures and Routines

High FiveLook for the “high five” as a signal to come back together—a signal to wrap up your final point during a discussion as a sign of transition

Meeting DocumentsGo to subfolder “Administrative Meetings” in shared folder for “Continuous Improvement” –look for meeting date to locate materials and processes and protocols

In Case of EmergenciesFor meetings at DEC, have administrative assistant contact Judy Sherin at ext. 6279. At ASC, contact Jan Larsen at ext. 2005

Meeting By MemoLook for a “meeting by memo” that communicates information, shares resources, and provides updates that don’t need to be addressed at our meetings

Clear to Partly Cloudy

• What became clearer as a result of our learning yesterday?

• What is still partly cloudy?

Key Objectives for August 11

• Strengthen our commitment to norms• Share learning about leading PLCs• Explore 3 Big Ideas and 4 Focus Questions for PLCs• Explore structures and purposes of DLT• Learn about proposed revisions to Q-Comp (Pro-Pay) program• Connect expectations to commitments

Collaboration “Lite”

• Avoid collaboration “lite.” Collaborative time can’t be about sharing. It has to be focused on student learning. Continue to keep the focus on learning and always ask, “How does this help kids?”

Clear Expectations

• Schmoker states, “Clarity Precedes Competence.” If we are to be clear about expectations, then how do we structure our PLC time so that focus on collaboration, learning, and results?” How do we not turn our PLC time into book studies?

What’s Our Focus?

• Fullan writes, “Collaborative cultures, which by definition have close relationships, are indeed powerful, but unless they are focusing on the right things, they may end up being powerfully wrong.” What is the caution for what we need to be focusing on?

Collaboration

• Collaboration, teamwork, and norms. Our collaborative teams have to work with one another if we are going to make a difference for kids. How will we (the adults) behave in order to accomplish our purpose? How will we hold each other accountable?

Interventions

• If you are going to make a difference, you must put interventions into place--no excuses! “If you have lots of kids failing (or not doing well), you don’t have an intervention problem, you have a ‘what you’re doing all day problem.’”

Common Assessments

• The power of common assessments comes not from giving them, but from what we do with them after we give them. We need to develop a school-wide systemic plan to filter all decisions through the lens of their (common assessments) impact on learning.

Learning for ALL Mission

• Our most complex and difficult challenge is how to ensure high levels of learning for all students, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status and language. What will it take if we really had a learning for all mission--not just in words, but in action?

Focus on Students and Learning

• We have to develop and sustain a positive culture of collaboration where we develop and monitor norms and where our time is spent with a laser-like focus on students, their needs, and their learning.

Reflection on Learning• When you reflect on the themes that were shared

and think about your role in leading collaborative teams, what do you want and need from TLLT to be as effective as you can be?

• Document your wants and needs as a table.

3 Big Ideas of PLCs

• Focus on…–Collaboration–Learning–Results

3 Big Ideas of PLCs: Inventory

• Complete one the inventory for one of the Big Ideas for PLCs

• Think about how the 3 Big Ideas inventories can be used as school processes/program data.

FOCUS ON…

CollaborationLearningResults

Identifying Goals: Long Range and Quick Wins

• As you review your responses to the self-assessment, identify a quick win goal and a long-range goal.

What is something that you could do to

improve to get a “quick win.”

What is something that you want/need to do that will

take more time?

Turn & Talk: Why a Quick Win Goal?

• What are the benefits of setting quick win goals?

• Turn and Talk with one of your table mates.

Go See Vera!• Be back and

ready for more highly-caffeinated learning in 10 minutes!

Aligning PLC Work to SIP: An Example

From “Self-Assessment for a Focus on Learning” Item E:

ITEM E: We use the data from formative assessments to guide instructional differentiation decisions, pacing decisions, and intervention decisions.

SIP Goal: 100 % of classroom teachers will incorporate and document the increased use of formative assessments to guide instructional differentiation decisions, pacing decisions, and intervention decisions during the 20111-2012 school year.

SIP Components

Current Reality/Needs Assessment

Bold Stretch Goals

Action Plans

Budget Summary for Interventions/Enrichments

Action Plan: Components and Implementation

Required Components:

1. Core Instruction2. System of Interventions3. Climate and Culture4. Community

Engagement

Implementation:

1. Actions/Strategies2. Evidence of

Implementation3. Evidence of Impact4. Resources Required5. Persons Responsible6. Tools and Timelines for

Progress Monitoring

About the SIP…

• The development of the plan is a process.

• The plan is a living, learning document influenced by data analysis, by PD, by progress monitoring…aka continuous improvement.

• The components of the plan will be more deeply studied and developed throughout the year.

Aligning SIP and AYP

• TLLT will assist with AYP plan updates and development.

• Needs assessments MAY require minimal updating for MDE.

• Other generic components of the plan will be “crafted” by TLLT.

• Buildings should only need to “cut and paste.”

• The AYP plan should not be part of any “crazy making.”

ALIGN! ALIGN! ALIGN!

JUST A THOUGHT…

If we are doing the right work and asking the right questions, then requirements for MDE are taken care of.

Got Questions?

• What questions do you have about the development of the SIP?

• Record questions that your horizontal collaborative team generates…think about how TLLT can support your leadership.

Reflection on Learning

Walk and Talk– Join a colleague with

whom you have not had a chance to process your learning

– Spend 5-7 minutes walking and talking about what you learned and/or plan to do

Aligning SIP and PDSIP Goal: 100 % of classroom teachers will incorporate and document the increased use of formative assessments to guide instructional differentiation decisions, pacing decisions, and intervention decisions during the 20111-2012 school year.

PD Strategy: All staff will learn more about the benefits of formative assessments and incorporate strategies into their instructional planning at late starts.

PD Monitoring Strategy: All staff will bring reflections on their teaching and learning copies of formative assessments to their collaborative team meetings when talking about student data.

PD Monitoring Strategy: All instructional staff will contribute to a formative assessment “toolkit” in shared folder, including only those assessments that have informed their teaching and impacted their students’ learning.

PD Plan Components

• Develop SMART Goals for PD

• Create an Action Plan

• Identify PD Dates• Create a Budget

Think About…PLC WorkHow do your PD dates differ from your PLC dates?

Think About…AlignmentIs what we are planning directly and tightly aligned with our SIP goals?

Required Component: SMART PD Goals

Professional Development SMART Goals – Specific– Measurable– Attainable– Realistic– Timebound

• Site goals need to emerge from your SIP's current reality and be aligned with the District PD goals.

• Determine the professional learning that is required in relation to the four focus areas of the SIP: core instruction, system of intervention, climate and culture, and community engagement.

Required Component: Action Plan

• Create an action plan that details how the learning for adults will be implemented and monitored.

• Include the components in the bulleted list to the right in your action plan:

• The specific learning that your site will engage in

• The timeline for when the learning will occur

• The timeline for monitoring the learning (getting at impact and results)

• The processes you will use for monitoring learning (i.e., reflections on learning, reflections for action, student learning, etc.)

• The resources required to support your PD

• The person(s) responsible

Required Component: Sustainable Focus

• Schedule building PD for workshop week and late starts (9/28, 11/16, 2/1, 3/21, and 5/16).

• PD may be scheduled during some PLC meeting times if the learning goals fit with the work of the PLC.

• Teaching and Learning will coordinate PD for 10/17, 1/23, and 2/20.

The focus of PLC work is for teams to focus on processing the four questions that guide PLC work:1. What do we want our

students to know?2. How will we know they are

learning?3. How will we respond when

they don't learn?4. How will we respond when

they do learn?

Required Component: Budget

• Use the template in the PD guidelines document (part of SIP plan).

Questions to Consider:• How will the use of PD

funds connect to and/or extend work on our SIP goals?

• Do the expenditures align with high-quality PD?

Monitor Learning and Impact of PD

• As part of the professional development session at your site, be certain to allow time for individuals, teams, and your building to respond to the following questions:1. What concepts, strategies, or practices did I/we learn?2. What will I/we do with what we learned? What is our plan to

implement our learning?

• After learning has been implemented, individuals, teams, and buildings should respond to the following question:1. What did I/we learn as a result of what I/we implemented? How

has my/our practice been changed? How did my/our learning impact my/our students?

The Whys of Reflection

Reflection on PD• Allows the narrative or story of

individuals, teams, and buildings to be systematically documented

• Aligns with expectations for reflective processes connected to the proposed updates for Pro-Pay (Q-Comp)

• Is required for the teacher license renewal process required by MDE as of July 2012

Lunch Break

Be back and ready to continue our learning at…

DLT: What’s NEW

• What do you NEED, EXPECT, and WANT from our work as a DLT next week?

• Work with your horizontal collaborative team to document expectations that will shape our agenda.

NEEDEXPECTWANT

SIP and PDP: DLT, BLT and Other TLAs

• What needs to happen during and/or with DLT to support the development, implementation, and ongoing assessment of your SIP and PD plans?

• What do we need to do to support the work of BLT with regard to the development, implementation, and ongoing assessment of your SIP and PD plans?

Proposed Revisions to Q-Comp• At your table, view the frameworks by

wearing different hats.• As we work our way through the

proposed changes to Q-Comp, approach the plan as teachers.– What questions would you

(teachers) have?• Think about the implications for you.– As administrators, what questions

do you have?• Record your questions on the Q-Comp

Questions Form at your table.

Process Overview

deBono’s Thinking Hats

Encourages multiple perspectives

Looks for gaps…potential problems…undiscovered possibilities

Love the Questions

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day into your answers.”

From poet R. M. Rilke

PLC Planning

• Meet with your vertical collaborative team and discuss…

• How you are going to shift the focus for your PLC work to a focus on learning, collaboration and results?

• How you are going to use your PLC time?

To the Moon!

A group of US Senators were visiting NASA at the time when funding was under threat. One Senator asked a man cleaning the floor, “So, what are you doing here?” The man answered, “I’m here putting a man on the moon.”

The Journey of Organizational Change

2013-2014

2012-2013

2011-2012

The journey isn’t linear. It’s a journey—a process of continually asking, “So, how are

the children?” It’s an opportunity to be and become better for our students.

Connecting Expectations & Commitments

• Given what we have learned as a community of learners the last two days, what are we collectively committed to doing for our staff, our students, and each other this year?

• 8:30 – 11:30 Secondary• 1 – 4pm ElementaryAdministrivia

• 9:30 – 12:30 in clusters• Rotate sitesVertical

Collaborative Team• 8:30 – 11:30 Secondary• 1 – 4pm ElementaryHorizontal

Collaborative Team• 9:30 – 12:30 • ASC or Great RoomDistrict Alignment

Meetings focused on the “Right Work”

Site Visits, DLT work, and PD calendar aligned to support the work of principals and BLTs

Norm Check

• How effectively did you follow the norm you were focusing on?

• How effectively are we doing?

Key Messages

Think about… Creating collaborative

cultureDeepening our

understanding of PLCsClarifying our DLT work Exploring Q-Comp

revisionsConnecting expectations

to commitments

What were the key messages that we learned today that will guide our work and learning with one another?