Math 1 Plc Reflection

I taught a seminar on a professional development day on how to utilize formative assessments within your lessons to maximize student learning. All of the FA math teachers attended this PD (p. 17 links). As an assistant principal on eof my roles is to 'review the daily lesson plans of all of the math teachers in Freshman Academy. Having the background knowledge through the work of the PLC, I knew these teachers were 'lacing an emphasis on hands-on learning and real-life scenarios and was able to provide feedback through google docs. to each of these teachers (p.17). Through the initial work of this assignment one of the recommendations was time to develop common assessments, I was able to request and secure this time. From this work, which

This training was led by the Du Fours and was held in Asheville, NC in March of 2014. I gained a tremendous amount of knowledge about the process and was able to return to my PLC and use this to better lead the PLC. Participating in a PLC is some of the best professional development teachers can be involved with. This concept is based on looking at what works and what didn't so that all students achieve not just the majority. Working with various people also provides a multitude of ideas and strategies that a single person may not have thought about. By having the EC teacher with us, we were able to gain yet another valuable perspective about how to prepare students for constructed response questions on the Math 1 EOC. Through my initiation of the PLC process the Math teachers were able to receive a stipend for the work they completed in the summer on the common assessments. Through the PLC process the team was able to identify what we wanted, which was to increase proficiency. We established ways to know if the students got it, through benchmark testing. We created ways to address what happens if they don't get it through remediation and rewards. And we developed a time line to continually look to see if students were making gains in proficiency throughout the year. As a PLC we identified some research based best practices (Content Literacy Continuum) and other practices to see if these had

Through this process I managed to facilitate heated discussions about a couple of topics. One of the teachers was passionate about the use of the unit organizer. Another teacher was not an advocate. The other two teachers had not received formal training in the Content Literacy Continuum enhancement routine so they did not have much input. The discussion was concluded with the fact that SCHS school improvement plan stated the use of CLC strategies as a goal under curriculum and instruction. The other conflict was over the philosophical view point of an intrinsic society. This led to facilitating a consensus about the rewards and incentives. Each of these outcomes was decided on by considering what would most benefit the students. The pedagogy behind the decision was supported with the research by Marzano and the identification of the best instructional practices. The unit organizer is an advanced graphic organizer and rewards and praise;both are listed as best