Facilitation Tips for PLCs
Reviewing Assignments and Student Work

  1. Get everyone in the continuous process improvement zone.
  2. Regularly review the notion that our learning process (in the PLC) flows from looking at student performance and then working backwards to design better instruction.
  3. Reviewing student work in a PLC works best if team members are knowledgeable about the standards, key advances, and behaviors supporting standards based instruction (through observation tool). This expertise is developed over time, but a foundation has to be there to ensure a robust discussion.
  4. Time management is important to have closure on each lesson within the assigned time frame. You want to get to step 4! Consider handing out complex assignments in advance.
  5. Encourage/require teachers to submit work which shows the range of student abilities.
  6. Help presenting teachers to get comfortable with listening to the discussion and learning from it rather than preparing for the explanation of the context of the assignment.
  7. Don’t get lost in distracting discussions of many standard levels in multi-level classrooms as an obstacle for implementation. Come up with reasonable solutions.
  8. Stay on top of keeping it positive and productive. Be sensitive to cues that it is too deep or too much information. Shift the cognitive load to less taxing tasks.
  9. Keep it fun! Use humor, encourage connections and collaborations. Offer encouragement and praise as often as possible.
  10. Focus on learning from the details but constantly connect to the bigger picture of improving our instruction for better student performance and outcomes. Remind teachers this is our expertise, this is why they are here!

PLC Facilitation Step by Step: Further Tips

Step 1

  • (Before the meeting), encourage the presenting instructor to share an assignment she would like feedback on (rather than a favorite assignment she doesn’t feel needs much improvement).
  • Encourage the presenting instructor to be very brief (less than one minute) in presenting the assignment to be discussed. The temptation to explain the class background, student levels and interests, and prior class activities will be great, but the team should evaluate the assignment “as is” and look only at the materials that students looked at.
  • If the assignment is based on or tied to reading passages, include it in the assignment material. If the passage is lengthy, consider sending it to teachers to read through ahead of the meeting. If the passage is lengthy and teachers could not preview it in advance, note that it is acceptable to skim. Be sure there is time to discuss the assignment demands.

Step 2

  • Participating teachers my initially be unfamiliar with the CCRS. Allow teachers some processing time, but do not allow the silence to go on too long at this step. After a few minutes, if no one else suggests possible standards, suggest one yourself to start the discussion. With each group meeting, teachers will become more familiar with the CCRS and have richer discussions at this step.
  • In most cases, an assignment will address more than one language skill. Encourage participants to select standards from different strands.
  • Think about the key shifts/advances in determining whether an assignment is weakly or strongly aligned to the CCRS.
  • Remember, complexity does not mean simply that a passage is “hard” for students, but that it incorporates elements such as implied rather than stated purpose, academic vocabulary, non-chronological organization, or figurative language.
  • Evidence may be the easiest key shift/advance to look for. Are students going back to textual details in completing the assignment?
  • It may be difficult to assess whether students had multiple exposures to content-rich texts from a single assignment; briefly discussing this, however, may give ideas for redesign or instructional support when the group comes to Step 4.
  • It is important to consider not just anchors, but level-specific standards. This is where rigor comes in for students. One of the most common insights from the process is that the initial target standards were at too low or too high a level for the group.
  • This may be complicated when dealing with a multilevel class. Participants may select standards from more than one level for a particular assignment. Allow some range to the conversation, but if it becomes too unfocused, concentrate the group’s attention on one level-specific standard. Regardless of level(s) selected, participants need to be able to discuss whether they see mastery of the specific standards in the work provided.

Step 3

  • When the length of the assignment and number of students completing it permit, discuss work from the entire class. When selections must be made, encourage the presenting teacher to bring the full class sample to the facilitator and have the facilitator select the samples to share with the group. (If the facilitator is also the presenting instructor, she can ask a colleague to pull the representative samples.)
  • With a medium or large set of student work, it might be helpful to sort the responses into groups (e.g., high performing, displaying partial mastery, seem confused about assignment).
  • While carefully filling in the chart for each piece of student work is ideal and leads to informed discussion, this may not be possible due to time constraints or the type of student work. It is OK for participants to simply jot notes and impressions on the chart. Be sure to allow time for participants to discuss their impressions with each other.
  • If there are no scoring guidelines or rubrics that were shared with the student, the third column will be “N/A.” Some participants might question why this column matters; although it takes time for instructors to develop them, scoring rubrics are one of the best ways to guide students in assignment expectations and help them monitor their own learning. If an assignment does not have scoring guidelines or rubrics, adding them is something to consider in Step 4.

Step 4

  • Encourage everyone to take notes on the “Redesigned Assignment” page. To get the most out of collaborative assignment revision, deputize someone in the group (ideally, the presenting instructor) to fill in the page in greater detail (she may need to finish this after the PLC meeting, especially if she chooses to type it up) and share this version of the redesigned assignment with instructors all in the group (or even the wider program/region).
  • Begin by agreeing on the target standards for the redesigned assignment.
  • Here, talking about “recommended instructional approaches” means discussing what the teachers can do to prepare students to be successful on an assignment. Allow the presenting instructor to share what she did and her ideas for change or improvement along with the rest of the group.
  • When discussing “lesson learned” from the revision process, participants may initially focus on the negative (e.g., need to choose standards at the correct level, need to clarify instructions, etc.). You may prompt them to also include some of the positive aspects of the assignment (e.g., strong text-based questions, engaging prompt, use of multimedia, etc.).
  • When the PLC group meets again, ask everyone to share something they’ve done differently in the classroom since the last meeting. Give last meeting’s presenting instructor a little extra time compared to the rest of the group, but be sure to leave plenty of time to look at the next presenting instructor’s assignment and student work samples.