Most regular Radical readers know that I am a passionate believer in the Power of Professional Learning Communities.
Done right, nothing has the potential to professionalize teaching and to energize teachers. More importantly, done right, nothing has a greater impact on the achievement of our students. That’s because teachers who study their practice together in professional learning communities are more persistent, more likely to set challenging goals for themselves, and more likely to experiment with their instruction than teachers working in isolation.
But here’s the thing: PLCs aren’t ALWAYS done right.
Sometimes, teams are asked to collaborate with one another, but not given any real guidance into what “meaningful collaboration” actually looks like in action. Other times, teams are asked to collaborate together before they have learned anything about the basic practices embraced by the highest functioning collaborative groups.
How do I know?
Because that’s what happened to me fifteen years ago when I started working in my first Professional Learning Community.
My team — which was comprised of four of the most motivated and intelligent colleagues that I’ve ever worked with before — struggled from day one. We didn’t know what norms were or why they were important. We weren’t sure how to identify essential standards or to develop common assessments that were meaningful reflections of what it was that students had learned. We pushed extension to the side because we weren’t convinced that we could make it doable.
Sound familiar? Teams often struggle with initial attempts at collaboration because they lack the kind of explicit structures necessary to make their work both efficient and productive.
That’s why I’m excited to share with you my newest book — The Big Book of Collaborative Tools for Teams in a PLC at Work — which will be released in early May and is now available for preorder.
It is filled with just under 100 tools and templates that are designed to help teams work through common team challenges.
Need a template for your weekly meeting agendas? Trying to figure out how to write a good common assessment? Want to integrate student self-assessment into the work of your teams?
The Big Book of Tools for Collaborative Teams has you covered.
Not sure how to use norms to govern the work of your team? Need help coming to consensus about important decisions? Ready to integrate more extension activities into the work of your collaborative team?
The Big Book of Tools for Collaborative Teams has you covered.
Want to evaluate the regular work of your team? Know that it is important to track performance by student and standard? Ready to learn more about how to decide if a learning target is a “need to know” or a “nice to know?”
The Big Book of Tools for Collaborative Teams has you covered!
Long story short, I’ve spent the past fifteen years working as a teacher on collaborative teams and as a consultant charged with helping schools to strengthen their professional learning communities. In that time, I’ve learned a thing or two about how to make collaboration professionally rewarding for teachers and academically rewarding for students.
And I’ve shared every resource that I’ve developed to support learning teams in this one book.
Want to explore a few of the tools before you purchase the book?
Then check out this presentation — which I’m delivering to a school in Nashville that is looking to strengthen the collaborative practices of their teams. There are a ton of tools linked inside the slides — and all of them are included in The Big Book of Collaborative Tools for Teams.
Give it a look. I bet you will find SOMETHING that helps you.
And who knows — maybe it will even encourage you to pick up a copy or two of my book!
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