Today as I sit here to write I am so excited to share and process all that I heard and learned over the 3 day PLC Summit in Minneapolis, MN. The conference began bright and early Monday morning so two suburbans filled with Lancaster Community Schools Employees left Lancaster at 3:00 on Sunday. The drive to Minneapolis was filled with moments of fun conversation as well as quiet reading time. Once we checked into the hotel, we headed out by foot to a restaurant that had been recommended to us because of the rooftop seating. It was pretty late (about 8) when we arrived and the weather seemed a little unsettled. After a long drive and it being so late, I was hoping that the burger I ordered would be amazing..... After a pretty long wait and getting rained on, the dinner was okay but not great. We arrived back at the hotel after 10. My roommate, Missy, and I decided we would wait to exercise until after the sessions on Monday since it was already so late. Missy had scoped out a crossfit place that had a class the next day at 4:30 and so we were going to run there and workout and then run back to the hotel. It sounded perfect and it should have meant a good night's sleep.....except that we stayed up way too late watching Friends and talking.
Monday's alarm got the day started and it was a wonderful beginning!
All 12 of us met in the lobby and headed over to the convention center to pick up our packet and enjoy breakfast.
Session 1
Tim Brown was the morning keynote speaker. His session was titled "Setting the Stage: Understanding the Big Ideas and Foundational Blocks of the PLC at Work Process." It was a perfect way to set the stage for two and a half days of building the base for the great work we have ahead. His energy and expertise was a perfect way to connect things I thought about PLCs and a way to make them much better and more effective. The world we live in is changing (he gave some fun examples from the past including a mimeograph machine and floppy disks) and education is no exception BUT the one thing that doesn't change is how important the teacher is in the educational process. What can make that teacher even more powerful is when teachers encourage students and build the students' belief in themselves. Want to make the education even more powerful? Create TEAMS of teachers. Encourage collaboration about the learning that is happening.
Then Tim Brown introduced the questions that PLCs must answer:
-Are the students learning?
-How do we know?
- What will we do if they aren't?
- What will we do if they already know it?
Here's where the transformational and powerful things can happen! A learning community is created and it's so much more than just a team. This learning community is focused on the students! Each person will serve a specific role on that team. I would say that I fit as a 3-romantic or 4-observer.
This work as a PLC is worth it because students will graduate with MASTERY of essential skills and knowledge. Tim Brown shared the data to support but for me it really boiled down to being hungry for results. If there are changes that need to be made to improve our professional practices, then we want to make those changes.
Tim Brown's next focus was on the assessment. FORMATIVE Assessment!!! Don't wait until the end of something to realize that students need something different so that they learn. When looking at Summative assessment do we have a plan once we know how students have done?
The final piece of what Tim Brown shared was about how important it is that leadership is dispersed. Teams are working together and take collective responsibility for what is happening. And then he ended with a call to action:
Session 2
The second session that I chose to go to was Data Notebooks. It was so great. I'd love to tell you more about it but I will share the details in another post.....
Come back soon to find out what I loved about session 2.
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