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Browsing by Subject "PLC"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Block Scheduling: Structure and Professional Community Matter
    (Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement, 1998-09) Freeman, Carol
    The question examined here is whether differences in the characteristics of professional community found in the schools related to their success in implementing block scheduling. The name block scheduling is given to a schedule that has fewer, usually four, class periods per day for approximately twice the usual number of minutes. This paper draws from data collected in a broader study conducted by the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement (CAREI), University of Minnesota, on effects of block scheduling on high school teaching and learning.
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    A case study of a first-grade teacher team collaboratively planning literacy instruction for English learners
    (2013-06) Frederick, Amy Rae
    Teachers, researchers and policy-makers in the areas of literacy and language development have recently touted teacher collaboration as an innovative approach to better serving elementary English learners. Collaborative planning and instructional approaches are becoming widespread in educational practice. And though research seems promising in terms of benefits for teachers and students, there is scant information about the collaborative meaning-making practices of teacher teams and the instructional decisions that result. In the current study I explore the practices and perceptions of one first-grade team as they collaborate to plan instruction for their English-learning students. My study is situated within a sociocultural framework (Vygotsky, 1978; Johnson, 2009) and uses case study methodology to provide an in-depth exploration of the actions and perceptions of teachers within a unique context (Merriam, 2009). I highlight three major findings: the team's planning practices were significantly influenced by multi-layered policies in both supportive and restrictive ways; the team's collaborative planning promoted practices that may improve the teachers' understandings of English learners and support improved classroom practice; and the participants, though dissatisfied with aspects of their collaborative practices, felt that overall they were better teachers because of them. Findings from this project add to the fields of professional development and literacy instruction for English learners by identifying the influences and tensions embedded in the teachers' work and exposing the everyday negotiations of complicated issues that teachers undertake.
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    FACETS: Focus on Arts, Culture and Excellence for Teachers and Students
    (Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement, 2011-11) Dretzke, Beverly; Rickers, Susan
    In 2008, a 3-year Professional Development for Arts Educators (PDAE) grant was awarded by the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) to the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) to support professional development for arts educators. The funded project was titled Focus on Arts, Culture and Excellence for Teachers and Students (FACETS). Project funding provided professional development opportunities for music and visual arts teachers in elementary and middle schools characterized by high poverty, where 50% or more of the students were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. FACETS had two primary purposes. One was to enhance music and visual arts teachers’ knowledge and skills related to providing effective instruction for students of the ethnic/cultural backgrounds present in their classrooms, especially African American, Somali, Hmong, Latino/Hispanic, and American Indian students. The second was to support the creation of on-going professional learning communities (PLC’s). MPS contracted with the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement (CAREI) at the University of Minnesota to serve as the external evaluator of the project. This report presents an evaluation of the 3 years of the FACETS project, 2008-2011, including a description of the components, the modifications that were made from year to year, and the results of teacher surveys and teacher interviews.
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    Feedback in professional learning communities: exploring teachers’ and administrators’ experiences and implications for building systemic and sustained learning
    (2012-10) Roloff, David Jonathon
    American educators are provided with far less time to improve their professional practice than their international counterparts, often experience professional development in short and disjointed ways, and work in systems whose structures too frequently isolate them from the practice of their colleagues. Professional learning communities (PLCs), however, recognize that improved teacher learning is essential to improved student learning and thus create structures which engage educators in regular, job-embedded, collaborative action research directly tied to their individual teaching contexts. However little is known about the specific feedback which educators in PLCs provide and the ways in which various feedback loops in educational systems assist in improving teacher practice. How does feedback made available through a PLC model impact the practice of teachers and administrators? This phenomenological study utilized a pre/post design to explore the role of feedback in the lives of two administrators and eight high school English educators at a central Wisconsin high school. The findings discuss the ways in which participants gave and received feedback prior to their involvement in PLCs and how feedback changed as their school and district adopted a PLC model. The study identified five major themes: 1) the need to build trust to encourage an open sharing of practice; 2) reduced isolation, improved collaboration and increases in the amount of and teachers' desire for additional feedback; 3) a shift from covering content to assessing student learning through instructionally-sensitive data sources; 4) the need to consider feedback and power implications when mandating structures, increasing transparency and enhancing accountability so as to improve feedback and reduce frustration; and 5) critical considerations in systemic structures including fostering collaboration, making feedback meaningful, and addressing the key issue of time. The study concludes with recommendations for teachers, administrators, district policy makers and researchers, pointing to ways in which those working in educational systems can develop feedback structures which heighten teacher learning.
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    A study to determine the practices of high school principals and central office administrators who effectively foster continuous professional learning in high schools.
    (2009-12) Borchers, Bruce Todd
    The purpose of this study was to discover the ways that central office and school level leaders initiate and advance a culture of continuous professional learning in high schools. The conceptual framework for this study was built from a synthesis of literature related to professional learning and leadership for continuous improvement. Relying heavily on the five dimensions of professional learning communities advanced by Shirley Hord (2004), multiple descriptive research methods were used to investigate the leadership practices and development processes that resulted in a learning culture in two high schools. A survey (Oliver, Hipp, & Huffman, 2003) was given to all licensed staff in order to assess the perceptions about the leadership practices and development processes. Interviews were conducted with administrator and teacher leaders. Documents that archived the aspects of the development process also were sought and used in the data analysis. Findings revealed the following development strategies were employed by leaders in both school districts and high schools: (1) defining a reason for change, (2) aligning resources to the mission and vision, (3) engaging in shared decision-making that is accepted and practiced by all, (4) offering high quality professional development, (5) supporting and respecting teacher leaders, (6) creating structures for accountability and reflection, and (7) designating leaders to provide accurate and purposeful data on which to base instructional decisions. Each high school was able to create a culture of continuous professional learning by implementing these seven dimensions at critical periods during their journey. Further, a three-stage framework became apparent during data analysis that provides a chronological description of how the two high schools journeyed to create a culture of continuous improvement and professional learning. Specific implications for practice, policy and research are offered in the concluding sections of this thesis.
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    Weaving Through Neural Webs: Measurement of How Students Connect the Visual Literacy Skill of Horizontally Translating Across a Chemistry Curriculum
    (2022-12)
    Biochemistry is an upper-division course that teaches topics using visual representations of systems of data, which can be a challenging way for students to learn. To lessen their cognitive load, students may find that improving visual literacy skills aids their understanding of biochemistry. There is little existing research that assesses how students interpret and store biochemical information and representations in their long-term memory. Previous studies performed with undergraduate general chemistry I students measured structural knowledge, or neural networks, of topics by asking students to assign the relatedness of chemistry-related words/phrases. Our study intends to analyze neural networks of a biochemistry visual literacy skill where undergraduate chemistry and biochemistry students to rank the relatedness of biochemical representations as an alternative to words/phrases. Specifically, this study assesses students' structural knowledge of the horizontal translation visual literacy skill, relating to the oxygen binding concept in comparison to the enzyme-substrate concept. We want to determine if there are pedagogical strategies and/or course instructional modalities that impact students' neural network development toward expert-like organization of the horizontal translation visual literacy skills. Preliminary analyses assess whether students are becoming more expert-like in correlation with their exposure to chemistry and biochemistry concepts. The data from student responses are analyzed in Pathfinder against an expert reference network to generate average degree and eccentricity values, path length correlation (PLC), and neighborhood similarity (NS) values, as well as patterns in organization/chunking. Degree values indicate the most branched nodes, while eccentricity values indicate the most central node in the neural network. PLC indicates how well each node is connected, and NS values are similarities in the grouping of concepts around the central node. Moreover, patterns in organization/chunking allow for similar groupings of nodes to be assessed. Through this study, we hope to improve curricular materials for biochemistry learning, in hopes that students will become more expert-like throughout their chemistry and biochemistry sequence. The outcome of this analysis may aid the improvement of curricular materials for optimal learning and retention of information.