I was asked to engage an entire faculty in some experiences that would illustrate PLC kinds of conversations. I requested that each grade level (could be department if working with secondary) bring a set of student work in some common area to the faculty meeting. One grade level group brought a piece of writing their […]

 I recently was a guest participant on a Twitter chat with #educoach where the topic was exploring instructional coaches’ work with Professional Learning Communities (PLCs).The facilitators offered a series of questions to spark the sharing. Here are the questions, some of the tweets I shared and my reflections on the responses. The entire chat is […]

In July, Steve Barkley was featured on Dayna Richardson’s Sticky Standards podcast. In the episode, titled “Learning Communities: What Do Our Students Want (Need) Us to Learn? A Conversation with Steve Barkley”, Steve discussed the importance of Professional Learning Communities (PLC) for increasing student achievement. You can hear the entire Sticky Standards podcast featuring Steve Barkley […]

I have been promoting the phrase for some time now that “Teaching is a Team Sport and a Public Act.” I’ve suggested that teams require trust and that being public with our work and our results is necessary to building that trust. In a recent article, “Build trust for professional learning”,  from Learningforward, we are reminded that […]

I wrote another blog that defined confirmation bias and how coaching and videoing can assist a teacher in reflective decision making in a manner that avoids seeking data that only reinforces existing beliefs and negating data that challenges an existing opinion or practice. As I worked with that material I considered that the same problem of confirmation […]

I am at one of those spots in time where several of my experiences and readings are aligning. I continue to be amazed every time that happens, no matter that it often occurs. In the past few weeks I was asked to join a team of teachers, administrators, and coaches who were doing classroom observations […]