Minneapolis, MN June 1113

Wednesday, June 11
Registration

Lower Level Foyer

Continental breakfast

Exhibit Hall A

8:009:45 a.m.

KeynoteRebecca DuFour
First Things First: Building the Solid Foundation
of a Professional Learning Community at Work

Main Auditorium

9:4510:15 a.m.

Break

10:1511:45 a.m.

Breakouts

Titles & locations: pp. 35

Descriptions: pp. 1125

11:45 a.m.12:45 p.m.

Lunch (provided)

Exhibit Hall A

12:452:15 p.m.

Breakouts

Titles & locations: pp. 35

Descriptions: pp. 1125

2:152:30 p.m.

Break

2:303:30 p.m.

Panel discussion
A Q&A time with the presenters. Receive practical answers
to your most pressing questions.

Main Auditorium

Registration

Main Auditorium Foyer

Continental breakfast

Exhibit Hall A

8:009:30 a.m.

KeynoteRichard DuFour
Leaders Wanted: Keys to Effective Leadership in Professional
Learning Communities at Work

Main Auditorium

9:3010:00 a.m.

Break

10:0011:30 a.m.

Breakouts

Titles & locations: pp. 35

Descriptions: pp. 1125

11:30 a.m.12:30 p.m.

Lunch (provided)

Exhibit Hall A

12:302:00 p.m.

Breakouts

Titles & locations: pp. 35

Descriptions: pp. 1125

2:002:15 p.m.

Break

2:153:30 p.m.

Team time
A collaboration time for your team. The presenters are
available for help in team discussions.

Exhibit Hall A

7:008:00 a.m.

Continental breakfast

Exhibit Hall A

8:009:30 a.m.

Breakouts

Titles & locations: pp. 35

Descriptions: pp. 1125

9:3010:00 a.m.

Break

10:00 a.m.12:00 p.m.

KeynoteRobert Eaker
Kid by Kid, Skill by Skill: Being a Teacher in a Professional
Learning Community

6:308:00 a.m.

Agenda

Agenda

Thursday, June 12
7:008:00 a.m.

Friday, June 13

Main Auditorium

Agenda and presenters are subject to change.

Breakouts at a Glance
Presenter & Title

Wednesday, June 11

Thursday, June 12

Friday,
June 13

10:1511:45 a.m. 12:452:15 p.m. 10:0011:30 a.m. 12:302:00 p.m. 8:009:30 a.m.

Tim Brown
Auditorium 3

Did You Come to School Today Ready

to Learn? Communicating High Expectations

L100 CE
Auditorium 3

From Forming to Performing: What Does

a Leadership Team Need to Know and Do?

Auditorium 3

Luis F. Cruz
English Learners and PLCs

L100 IJ

Implementing a PLCFrom Theory

to Practice: How One High School Made
It Happen

Breakouts
at a Glance

Raising Questions and Finding Answers

in Our Grading Practices

L100 IJ
L100 IJ

Auditorium 3

The Role of Parents in a PLC: An Invaluable

Resource

Auditorium 3

Rebecca & Richard DuFour

Building the Collaborative Culture
of a Professional Learning Community
at Work (Part 1)
Building the Collaborative Culture
of a Professional Learning Community
at Work (Part 2)

Auditorium
Auditorium

Rebecca DuFour
Raising the Bar and Closing the Gap:
Whatever It Takes in Elementary Schools

200 CH

Lights, Camera, Action! Setting the Stage

for PLC Success in Elementary Schools

L100 IJ

Developing Leadership Capacity in Your

School: One Is the Loneliest Number

L100 FH

Richard DuFour
Raising the Bar and Closing the Gap:
Whatever It Takes in High Schools
Common Formative Assessments:
The Lynchpin of the PLC Process
Getting Started: Building Consensus
and Responding to Resisters

Auditorium
Auditorium
200 CH

Breakouts at a Glance
Presenter & Title

Wednesday, June 11

Thursday, June 12

Friday,
June 13

10:1511:45 a.m. 12:452:15 p.m. 10:0011:30 a.m. 12:302:00 p.m. 8:009:30 a.m.

Robert Eaker
Friday Night in America: A Commonsense
Approach to Improving Student Achievement

L100 CE

A Focus on Learning: What Would It Look

Like If We Really Meant It?

L100 CE

Aligning the Work of a Professional Learning

Community: Central Office, Schools,
and Teams

L100 CE

Developing a Stretch Culture

L100 CE

Cassandra Erkens
21st Century Skills and ELA Assessments

205

Scales and Rubrics With ELA Standards

205
205

Healthy and Productive Teams

205

Timothy D. Kanold
Teaching, Leading, and Living in the Flow
of Your PLC Life

L100 FH

Central Office and the Four Pillars of a PLC

at Work: Inspiring a Vision for Change

L100 FH

Your K12 PLC Mathematics Focus:

Instruction and Tasks

L100 FH

Your K12 PLC Mathematics Focus:

Assessment and Tasks

L100 FH

Mike Mattos
More Powerful Than Poverty

200 CH

Simplifying Response to Intervention

(Part 1)

200 CH

Raising the Bar and Closing the Gap:

Whatever It Takes in Middle Schools

200 AB

Simplifying Response to Intervention

(Part 2)

200 CH

Learning CPR: Making Your Current Site

Interventions More Effective

Auditorium

Carolyn Carter Miller

Bringing Your PLC to Life: Keeping It Real!
What Does It Look Like When Teams
Respond to Student Performance Data?

200 AB

200 AB
200 AB

200 AB

Breakouts at a Glance
Wednesday, June 11

Presenter & Title

Thursday, June 12

Friday,
June 13

10:1511:45 a.m. 12:452:15 p.m. 10:0011:30 a.m. 12:302:00 p.m. 8:009:30 a.m.

Regina Stephens Owens

Critical Thinking and Cool Technologies

Auditorium 1

PLCs for Singletons in Small Schools

With Cyber Connections

Auditorium 1
Auditorium 1 Auditorium 1

Clicking, Connecting, and Collaborating:

How to Create and Sustain an Online
Professional Learning Community

Auditorium 1

Will Remmert
The Importance of Transparency

L100 AB

Stop Overwhelming Your Intervention

Structure

Auditorium 2
L100 AB

Using #atplc to Grow as a Professional

L100 AB
L100 AB

Laurie Robinson-Sammons
Assessing Students Responsively:
Differentiating With a Laser Focus

200 IJ

Feedback: The Breakfast of Champions

L100 IJ
200 IJ

PLC and Accurate Common Assessment:

The Dynamic Duo

200 IJ
200 IJ

Kenneth C. Williams
Everyday People

Auditorium 2

At Risk or Underserved? Focusing

on What Really Matters in Student Learning
Collective Responsibility in a PLC:
Engaging the Heart, Head, and Hands

Auditorium 2
Auditorium 2

12 Angry Men: The Impact of One,

the Power of Team

Auditorium 2

Agenda and presenters are subject to change.

Elevator
(Levels 1 & 2)
Elevator
(All Levels)

Minneapolis Convention Center

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Minneapolis Convention Center

Minneapolis
LEVEL ONE

Convention
MEZZANINE LEVEL
9

Mezzanine Level

Minneapolis Convention Center

810

Session Descriptions

Tim Brown

Raising Questions and Finding Answers in Our Grading Practices

Lets face it, talking about grading practices is a touchy subject, full of emotions, opinions, and
personal beliefs. However, when schools make the shift from a focus on teaching to a focus on
learning, they must be willing to examine policies, practices, and guidelines to see if they support
the principles of learning. Tim Brown shows how a staff can engage educators in a collaborative
process to commit to grading practices aligned to learning.
Participants discuss and share beliefs and practices on essential questions, such as:
What do the principles of learning, student motivation, and grading have in common?
What is the reasoning and rationale behind changes in grading practices?
What grading practices and guidelines have successful teams and schools implemented?

Did You Come to School Today Ready to Learn? Communicating High Expectations
Lee G. Bolman and Terrence Deal write in their book Leading With Soul: An Uncommon Journey
of Spirit, Organizations without a rich symbolic life become empty and sterile. The magic of
special occasions is vital in building significance into collective life.
Tim Brown offers practical strategies for students and staff to communicate, motivate, and
celebrate. Using positive strategies, educators can identify high expectations for learningfor
students and one another.

From Forming to Performing: What Does a Leadership Team Need to Know and Do?
Getting on the bus, finding the right seats, and keeping the vehicle in motion is never a oneperson show. Tim Brown offers tools and strategies to work in an effective leadership team. In
addition, participants explore dynamics that cause teams to be dysfunctional. Greater insight into
these dynamics can help team members overcome issues that sometimes get in the way of a teams
effectiveness.

Session
Descriptions

Participants discuss and share thoughts and practices on these essential questions:
How do principals and teachers communicate high expectations to students?
How can teachers establish a classroom culture centered on learning rather than compliance?
Why are celebrations important, and how do we make them part of our symbolic life?

Participants discuss and share their thoughts and practices on the following essential questions:
What are the stages teams go through and why?
Why do some teams work more effectively than others?
What is the role of the leadership team and how does it function?
What are some of the products and strategies that effective leadership teams use?

11

Session Descriptions

Luis F. Cruz

English Learners and PLCs

Luis F. Cruz shares how a school community infused the characteristics of a PLC into strategies
to help its English learner population flourish. This session details PLC components that teacher
leaders used to close the achievement gap for students learning English as a second language. Dr.
Cruz describes how listening to English learners helped educators understand how to meet the
academic needs of this critical student population.
Dr. Cruz discusses how:
A teacher-led task force increased academic performance for English learners.
PLC practices were implemented to confront the stark reality that English learners were
not learning.
Listening to the needs of English learners resulted in changing adult expectations and
behavior and achieving significant results.

Implementing a PLCFrom Theory to Practice: How One High School Made It Happen
How did a high school in a low-income, Spanish-speaking, mostly immigrant Latino community
in southern California transition from a focus on stopping lunchtime fights to boasting a 92
percent graduation rate? Luis F. Cruz, former principal of Baldwin Park High School, explains
how he used what he learned from PLC at Work institutes to guide his schools transformation
into a functioning PLC.
Participants in this session:
Recognize how a collaborative culture can result in student success and soaring
graduation rates.
Learn how the journey began with a meaningful mission statement.
Grasp how two specific structures generated meaningful collaboration.
Discover the leadership necessary to support an evolving PLC culture year after year.

The Role of Parents in a PLC: An Invaluable Resource

Luis F. Cruz shares how parent participation and input strengthened a high school PLC within a
low-income, Spanish-speaking, mostly immigrant Latino community. He shares insights that led
to the discovery that parents can and should take part in collaboration and intervention to ensure
learning for all students.
Dr. Cruz shows how:
Assigning new roles or rearranging the seats on the bus (as Jim Collins notes in Good to
Great) led to finding the right person to oversee parent involvement.
Parents played an instrumental role in building the school mission and vision.
The school counseling department and intervention coordinator created structures to
facilitate parent and student conversations and enhance learning.

12

Session Descriptions
Rebecca & Richard DuFour

Building the Collaborative Culture of a Professional Learning Community at Work

(Parts 1 & 2)
Powerful collaborative teams are the fundamental building blocks of a professional learning
community and a critical component in building a collaborative culture.
Learn how educators transform their congenial groups into high-performing collaborative teams,
and get a sense of the specific work those teams undertake. Discover ways to provide time and
support for collaborative teams during the school day. And most importantly, identify structures
and strategies to help teams stay focused on doing the work that results in student achievement.
This two-part continuing session is designed for educators at all levels and is highly recommended
for all participants who are new to PLC concepts.

Rebecca DuFour
First Things First:


Building the Solid Foundation of a Professional Learning Community at Work

As Steven Covey writes, Effective leadership is putting first things first. The first step in the
never-ending journey of continuous improvement in a PLC at Work is establishing a solid
foundation for all subsequent efforts. This foundation rests on four pillars, each of which asks a
particular question:
1. Why does our school or district exist and what is our fundamental purpose?
2. What must we become as a school or district to fulfill that purpose?
3. How must each of us behave to create such a school or district?
4. Which targets will we pursue first and which initial steps must we take to reach them?
Becky DuFour leads participants in an examination of each question and ways to move educators
responses beyond rhetoric to a reality that shapes the culture of their schools and districts.

Raising the Bar and Closing the Gap: Whatever It Takes in Elementary Schools
Schools that function as PLCs must ultimately do two things: 1) build a collaborative culture to
promote continuous adult learning, and 2) create structures and systems that provide students
with additional time and support for learning.
Participants in this session examine strategies to collectively:
Respond to the learning needs of each student in a timely, directive, and systematic way.
Create and sustain strong parent partnerships to enhance student learning.
Make celebrations part of the school culture.
After examining different models of systematic intervention and enrichment, participants receive
criteria to assess their own schools responses and an action-planning template for next steps in
raising the bar and closing the gap.
This session is recommended for elementary school educators.

= Keynote

13

Session Descriptions
Rebecca DuFour

Lights, Camera, Action!

Setting the Stage for PLC Success in Elementary Schools
Elementary school educators beginning the PLC journey face the immediate challenge of how to
provide the time and structure essential to the PLC process. This interactive workshop is designed
to help elementary educators address that challenge.
Becky DuFour provides effective templates and proven strategies for reallocating existing resources
to support learning for all. Participants are invited to bring their creative ideas to this session.
This session is recommended for elementary-level educators who have an interest in and/or
a responsibility for creating schoolwide and team schedules.

Developing Leadership Capacity in Your School: One Is the Loneliest Number

Educational researchers and organizational theorists have concluded that widespread leadership
is essential to the success of a learning organization. To initiate and sustain the PLC process in
your school or district, a lot of leaders are necessary.
In this interactive session, participants examine a case study, identify specific strategies to develop
and support leaders, and create structures for the widely dispersed leadership characteristic of PLCs.

Richard DuFour
Leaders Wanted:


Keys to Effective Leadership in Professional Learning Communities at Work

Rick DuFour uses research, real-world examples, videos, analogies, and anecdotes to examine:
1. The kind of leadership essential to the professional learning community process
2. The ways in which leaders at all levels of a school system provide such leadership
3. The nondiscretionary aspects of the PLC process that must be honored by educators
throughout the system
4. The most powerful strategies for sustaining the PLC process until it becomes deeply
embedded in the school culture

Raising the Bar and Closing the Gap: Whatever It Takes in High Schools
Rick DuFour uses the video Through New Eyes: Examining the Culture of Your School to help
participants compare and contrast the response of traditional schools and PLCs when students
arent learning. The session challenges participants to examine the issue from a students
perspective. Dr. DuFour examines various schedules that allow for the kinds of interventions and
enrichment that research shows are necessary to help all students learn at high levels.
As a result of this session, high school educators discover the value of:
Building a collaborative culture that fosters continuous learning for all
Creating structures and systems that provide students additional time and support to learn
Responding to students needs in a timely, direct, and systematic way
This session is recommended for high school teachers.

14

= Keynote

Session Descriptions

Richard DuFour

Common Formative Assessments: The Lynchpin of the PLC Process

The effective use of team-developed common formative assessments is the single most
powerful tool available to a school for accelerating its progress on the PLC journey. This session
demonstrates how educators can use these assessments to better meet students needs and inform
and improve their practice.
As a result of this session participants are able to:
Define common assessment.
Define formative assessment.
Use common formative assessments as a powerful catalyst for school improvement.
Clarify the right and wrong way to use common assessment results.
Develop more powerful common formative assessments.
This session is recommended for teachers and administrators at all levels.

Getting Started: Building Consensus and Responding to Resisters

The most significant barrier to building a school culture focused on continuous improvement is the
tradition of privatizing practice, isolation, and individual autonomy that has characterized teaching.
How can a faculty build consensus for significant change? What are the most effective ways of
addressing the concerns of those who resist even when the staff has decided to move forward?
As a result of this session, participants can:
Define consensus.
Apply the most effective strategies for building consensus.
Utilize seven research-based strategies for addressing resistance.
This session is recommended for teachers and administrators at all levels.

Robert Eaker

Kid by Kid, Skill by Skill:


Being a Teacher in a Professional Learning Community

Achieving significant improvement in learning for all students is a difficult, complex, and
incremental journey. While the PLC process provides educators with the most promising vehicle
to undertake this journey, the focus must remain on each students learningskill by skill. In his
keynote, Bob Eaker shares ideas, examples, and research-based methods useful in implementing
proven PLC practices with specificity, precision, and fidelity. At the heart of it, we educators must
ensure that our best intentions and efforts dont simply swirl around our classrooms and schools,
but achieve a real and lasting impact within them.

= Keynote

15

Session Descriptions
Robert Eaker

Friday Night in America:

A Commonsense Approach to Improving Student Achievement
Improving student learning for all students is a difficult, complex, and incremental endeavor.
However, we already know more about how to increase academic success than many realize.
Many of these practices are regularly employed in nonacademic school settings each day.
Practices that coaches, band directors, art teachers, and others use to ensure student success are
similar in many respects to strategies teacher teams can employ to enhance academic success for
all students. In this session, Dr. Eaker shares how teams can suit up and use powerful strategies
to win in the classroom as well as on the field.

A Focus on Learning: What Would It Look Like If We Really Meant It?

There is a fundamental difference between schools that function as professional learning
communities and their more traditional counterparts: a shift from a focus on teaching and
covering content to a focus on learning for every student, skill by skill. While few would disagree
with the importance of student learning, some schools struggle with exactly how to embed
practices that promote student success in the classroom. This session focuses on specific strategies
that schools, teams, and teachers use to enhance student success in schools that really mean it
when they proclaim they want all students to learn.

Aligning the Work of a Professional Learning Community: Central Office, Schools, and Teams
A districtwide professional learning community is more than a sum of individual parts. A highperforming school district that functions as a PLC reflects a thoughtful alignment and integration
of work at the central office level, in individual schools, and in teacher teams. While highlighting
the efforts of highly successful school districts, Robert Eaker describes how these districts
organize and align at each level to implement professional learning community concepts and
practices districtwide.

16

Developing a Stretch Culture

If the goal of achieving high levels of learning for all students is to be realized, then schools must
develop a culture that stretches the aspirations and performance levels of students and adults
alike. Robert Eaker focuses on cultural shifts that professional learning communities make during
the development of a stretch culture. He pays particular attention to the topic of assessment and
providing students with additional time and support.

Session Descriptions

Cassandra Erkens

21st Century Skills and ELA Assessments

The top 21st century skills are a perfect match for the Common Core ELA standards. But what
does that look like when it comes to designing assessments? This session explores the challenges
and changes that ELA assessments must undergo to meet the demands of the new standards and
modern skills.
Cassandra Erkens guides attendees in the following learning outcomes:
Examine the expectations of 21st century skills in lieu of ELA expectations.
Identify assessment design implications.

Scales and Rubrics With ELA Standards

Performance-based ELA standards require sophisticated and accurate measurement tools.
Are scales and rubrics the same? If not, whats different? Where do they come from and how
do teachers best use them? Well-developed rubrics and scales can serve as a window, helping
students see clearly to what the teacher is requesting; they can also serve as a mirror, supporting
students in reflecting on what it is they already know and what it is they still need to learn.
This session explores the creation and use of effective and accurate scales and rubrics in the ELA
assessment process as attendees explore:
Similarities and differences in scales and rubrics
Creating rubrics and scales for ELA standards that will generate accurate data and support
effective use in the classroom

Healthy and Productive Teams

While the concept of teaming implies working smarter, the truth of collaboration sometimes feels
like working harder. The work of collaboration requires that teams not only be productive, but
also healthy. Effective leaders must monitor for both health and productivity in their collaborative
teams. In addition, they must be willing to provide team leaders with the necessary supports to
manage emotion and become self-sufficient.
Cassandra Erkens leads attendees in:
Examining the characteristics of healthy, productive teams
Identifying tools and protocols to successfully monitor collaboration
Exploring strategies, skills, and guidelines to address conflict safely and directly

17

Session Descriptions

Timothy D. Kanold

Teaching, Leading, and Living in the Flow of Your PLC Life

It is easy to be sapped by the occasional chaos of a school culture. By building intentional
practices into their personal and professional lives, educators can stay balanced, maintain high
energy levels, and have a solid impact on the world around them. Timothy D. Kanold draws from
his book The Five Disciplines of PLC Leaders to offer insights and tools for living and leading
dynamic and fully engaged lives.
Dr. Kanold notes, Deciding what to give to those you have taught, influenced, learned from, and
collaborated with over the yearsto remember you byis up to you. By living in the flow, you
can give your best to those around you and make your life great.
In this session, participants learn how to develop and participate in a relationally intelligent PLC
culture. Dr. Kanold shows how PLC teachers and leaders can effectively lead balanced lives day to day.

Central Office and the Four Pillars of a PLC at Work: Inspiring a Vision for Change
Timothy D. Kanold explores the most potent central office weapon: vision as the voice of authority
in a district. In this session based on his book The Five Disciplines of PLC Leaders, Dr. Kanold
examines an essential question for educators, regardless of job title or program leadership area:
What is your primary leadership role as a member of the central office team?
Dr. Kanold lays the groundwork for change by exploring the four pillars of a PLC culture:
Mission: pinpointing the fundamental purpose of a school organization and all jobs
within it
Vision: developing and delivering a vision of instruction and assessment that produces
energy, passion, and action
Values: monitoring and using the grain size of change (teacher and administrative teams)
to improve and unify stakeholders actions districtwide
Goals: monitoring and using the grain size of analysis (units of content within the
curriculum) to deliver improvement in districtwide formative assessment processes and
student achievement
Educators can use the pillars of values and goals to monitor the work of adults in any school
organization. Monitoring methods include meaningful formative feedback, analysis, and action
for teachers, administrative site leaders, and central office personnel.

18

Session Descriptions

Timothy D. Kanold

Your K12 PLC Mathematics Focus: Instruction and Tasks

Spring 2015 mathematics testing is not far away, and educators are getting ready. Common Core
State Standards generate conversations about the essential work and instructional planning of
mathematics teachers and leaders. In this session, Timothy D. Kanold explores how teachers and
teams can achieve mathematics instruction and student performance far exceeding state standards.
Dr. Kanold examines five high-leverage teacher and team instructional decisions, based on the
eight CCSS Mathematical Practices, to increase student confidence, effort, and achievement.
This session draws from the K12 series Common Core Mathematics in a PLC at Work and two
volumes from the forthcoming series Beyond the Common Core: A Handbook for Mathematics in
a PLC at Work.
Participants use the PLC lesson-design model to:
Examine criteria and tools for lesson planning and design to develop student proficiency
in Common Core Mathematical Practices.
Understand how to develop effective in-class formative assessment processes.
Examine criteria and tools for high-cognitive-demand tasks that develop student access to
CCSS mathematics content and more.

Your K12 PLC Mathematics Focus: Assessment and Tasks

Timothy D. Kanold explores how teachers and collaborative teams can achieve mathematics
assessment and performance achievement beyond state expectations and standards.
Dr. Kanold examines five high-leverage teacher and team assessment actions to improve student
motivation and in-class learning. Using the PLC teachingassessinglearning cycle, teachers can
make assessment decisions unit-by-unit, which are supported by collaborative-team research
and critical for effective student learning. This session draws from the K12 series Common
Core Mathematics in a PLC at Work and two volumes from the forthcoming series Beyond the
Common Core: A Handbook for Mathematics in a PLC at Work.
Participants use the PLC teaching-assessing-learning cycle to:
Understand how effective collaborative teacher teams design high-quality assessments and
process work before a unit starts, during the unit, and after it ends.
Know how to use assessment instruments as part of formative assessment processes for
each unit of content and instruction.
Receive the most current timeline and resource information for 2015 assessments by
PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) and SBAC
(Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium).

19

Session Descriptions

Mike Mattos

More Powerful Than Poverty

The achievement gap between poor and non-poor students is twice as large today as gaps related
to ethnicity or language. As educators, overcoming the corrosive effects of poverty is critical if
we hope to achieve our mission of all students learning at high levels. Mike Mattos focuses on
five essential PLC practices proven to have a far greater impact on student achievement than the
power of poverty.
Simplifying Response to Intervention (Parts 1 & 2)
Compelling evidence shows that response to intervention successfully engages school staff in a
collective process to provide every child with the additional time and support needed to learn at
high levels. Yet at many schools this potential lies dormant, buried under layers of state regulations,
district protocols, misguided priorities, and traditional school practices that are misaligned to the
essential elements of RTI. This session provides guiding practices and practical ideas to create a
systematic RTI program that guarantees every child receives the help needed to succeed.
In the second part of this session participants will draft a pyramid of interventions for their school.

Raising the Bar and Closing the Gap: Whatever It Takes in Middle Schools
What does an effective middle school intervention program look like? Mike Mattos provides
participants with practical, proven intervention ideas, including creating a schoolwide process to
identify students for extra help and building an effective intervention period into the master schedule.
This session is recommended for middle and junior high school educators.

Learning CPR: Making Your Current Site Interventions More Effective

A system of interventions can only be as effective as the individual interventions that comprise it.
Despite honorable intentions, many schools use interventions that dont work, primarily because
their efforts are not aligned to the characteristics of effective interventions. In this breakout,
participants learn the six essential characteristics of effective interventions, as well as a powerful
process to apply these characteristics to their current site interventions.
The most significant difference between a traditional school and a PLC school is how each
responds when students dont learn. Mike Mattos shows how to create powerful responses (CPR)
when students dont learn.

20

Session Descriptions

Carolyn Carter Miller

Bringing Your PLC to Life: Keeping It Real!

This session is designed to provide time for reflection about the why behind the PLC process.
Carolyn Carter Miller highlights checkpoints for attendees to ensure they are walking the talk.
Participants confer on strategies used to increase buy-in when the PLC process seems stale and
lacks the bells and whistles teachers expect with a program. The group also reviews the three big
ideas and the four essential questions of PLCs, as they are the keys to guide the work teachers do
for their students.
Attendees of this session:
Participate in engagement activities to take back to their schools to provide professional
development for teams.
Understand the importance of building a solid PLC foundation.

What Does It Look Like When Teams Respond to Student Performance Data?
During this interactive session, participants learn steps to build high-performing teams. They
watch a video clip of a high-performing collaborative team meeting and compare what they view
with steps previously discussed. Carolyn Carter Miller guides participants in collaborative teams
to study and process student performance data and plan their responses to data using a variety of
planning protocols.
Session participants:
Gain knowledge of skills to plan team responses to student performance data.
Practice using protocols to plan responses to student performance data.
Share current practices used in their schools.

Regina Stephens Owens

Critical Thinking and Cool Technologies

How technology is used as a tool for learning may be significantly different in a professional
learning community than in a traditional school. Using technologies alone does not ensure
that 21st century learning skills are met, that students are authentically engaged, or that critical
thinking is occurring. Schools must ensure that teachers are equipped to effectively choose
technologies and are empowered to facilitate learning that results in critical thinking.
Participants in this session:
Apply Blooms taxonomy to evaluate technologies.
Examine technologies that support critical thinking skills.
Discuss various technologies and how to effectively implement them to ensure learning in
their classrooms and schools.

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Session Descriptions

Regina Stephens Owens

PLCs for Singletons in Small Schools With Cyber Connections

Having to seek solutions under unique circumstances are daily realities for singleton teachers.
Operating efficiently and effectively as contributing members of a PLC can be a challenge to
these teachers. However, it is possible to collaborate around common denominators, work with
peers to improve professional practices and student learning, and be authentically engaged in the
PLC process. Regina Stephens Owens leads a collaborative discussion about best practices and
designing action plans that support the work of singleton teachers in a PLC.
Session attendees:
Reveal specific challenges singleton teachers in small schools encounter.
Collectively explore solutions for overcoming these obstacles.

Clicking, Connecting, and Collaborating: How to Create and Sustain an Online Professional
Learning Community
In a world of education that spans brick-and-mortar schools to blended and virtual worlds, can
high levels of learning occur in an online environment? What does response to intervention look
like online? These are just a couple of questions that surface when educators address the need for
improving student achievement in a virtual world through 21st century learning and teaching.
In this session, participants look into the world of an online school and learn how it uses PLC
components to sustain success for students and teachers. Regina Stephens Owens shares the
processes, protocols, and pitfalls of an online school while calling on participants to:
Examine the four essential questions of a PLC and their impact on virtual schools.
Learn strategies that ensure high levels of learning for students and teachers in online
classrooms.

Will Remmert

The Importance of Transparency

Schools are often designed and structured as a series of independent islands where people
work in isolation. Sequestered within the four walls of their classrooms, teachers fail to work
with one another for the benefit of student learning. To become a PLC, teachers must work
interdependently and break down barriers of long-held belief systems and habits. Through the
creation of a transparent culture and data walls to monitor student learning, school culture may
evolve from independent to interdependent. Will Remmert discusses strategies that allow your
school and teams to become transparent and function as a PLC where all truly means all.
Participants in this session:
Understand how creating a school culture of transparency will lead to higher levels of
student learning.
Examine how functioning as a PLC to share data and strategies increases the capacity of
all members of the collaborative team.
Develop a plan of action to implement a transparent culture to ensure student learning.

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Session Descriptions

Will Remmert

Stop Overwhelming Your Intervention Structure

As schools struggle to develop structures to meet all students needs, the responsibility to ensure
learning is often placed on an already-overwhelmed intervention structure. When developing
an effective response to intervention system, it is critical to look at the effectiveness of our core
or Tier 1 instruction before moving kids into Tier 2 and 3 supports. In this interactive breakout
session, Will Remmert leads a discussion about what it takes to develop a strong Tier 1 structure
and avoid overwhelming the current intervention structure.
Session attendees:
Understand best practice for great Tier 1 instruction.
Interact with one another to analyze their current situations, traditions, and priorities.
Develop a plan to begin refocusing their current reality to one that can be done without
additional resources.

Using #atplc to Grow as a Professional

The AllThingsPLC.info website is an amazing resource to help educators improve their current
practices and ensure student learning. In addition to a providing an array of written resources,
AllThingsPLC.info hosts a chat on PLCs via Twitter to help people collaborate and grow
as educators. (It takes place every Thursday from 8:009:00 p.m. Central time. Visit www.
allthingsplc.info/tools-resources/twitter-chat to read discussion archives.) Will Remmert, a
moderator for the PLC Twitter chat, leads a discussion about ways to use both resources as
professional development.
Participants in this session:
Become familiar with utilizing Twitter as a resource for professional growth.
Gain a deeper understanding of the power of online collaboration.
Examine how #atplc provides a collaborative culture where educators are safe to ask
questions and identify common beliefs and understanding while working to improve
student learning.

Laurie Robinson-Sammons

Assessing Students Responsively: Differentiating With a Laser Focus

The learning of the 21st century requires educators to shape curriculum and instruction in
multiple ways to maximize meaning for diverse student learners. This session addresses these
questions: How do we provide multiple ways within a lesson for students to do, show, or tell their
proficiency? How do we encourage students to think critically with teacher guidance and permit
a range of student responses? How do we tailor assignments for students with diverse levels of
achievement without compromising content?
This session includes:
The definition of true differentiation, according to Carol Ann Tomlinson
A discussion of Robert Sternbergs three intelligences: creative, analytic, and practical
Numerous user-friendly ways to teach diverse students, create interest in the lessons, and
foster personal meaning through techniques such as cubing, think dots, tiered lessons,
interest inventories, compacting, and lesson kudos
Practical examples of successful classroom strategies
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Session Descriptions

Laurie Robinson-Sammons

Feedback: The Breakfast of Champions

Yes, school teams engage in data collection, but teachers still do not get the gains they expect.
How can educators take conversations about student learning to a deeper level? The research is
conclusive that the most-powerful, single innovation that enhances achievement is feedback.
In this session, Laurie Robinson-Sammons helps participants:
Understand five elements of a highly engaged classroom.
Establish ways to provide direct, immediate, and short-cycle feedback.
Share numerous practical, student-friendly feedback samples for immediate use.
Discover the importance of developing co-constructed criteria between teacher and student.
This interactive session is chock full of practical strategies leading to improved student
achievement by virtue of descriptive, explicit, short-cycle feedback. Laurie uses tried-and-true
classroom examples rooted in practical application.

PLC and Accurate Common Assessment: The Dynamic Duo

PLC teams must take a step-by-step approach for writing, using, and processing quality common
assessments. These assessments are the foundation for aligning instruction to standards-based
reporting, and teams must approach them with care. In this session, Laurie Robinson-Sammons
helps attendees:
Learn the basic components of building a common assessment using the Common Core
standardsthe what, why, and how.
Discuss ways for site-based schools to take a systems approach in the universal
implementation of common assessments, applying the Common Core standards.
Examine how well-planned formative and summative assessments lead to an efficient and
meaningful reporting system.
Understand how interventions and differentiation can occur from common assessment results.

Kenneth C. Williams

Everyday People
In a school environment, a collaborative culture is critical in ensuring learning for all. However,
characteristics of what one might call everyday people often get in the way of maximizing the
talent and deepening collaboration on teams. Kenneth C. Williams helps participants recognize
the characters who make up everyday people: the Tank, the Firehose, the Town Crier, the Slacker,
and the Showboat.
At this session, Ken helps participants learn ways that they enable and reinforce the negative
behaviors of everyday people. He also examines strategies to empower and bring out the best in
themselves and those around them.
Knowing how to deal with everyday people at work allows educators and leaders to communicate
and collaborate effectively. The truth is, nobody is difficult all of the time, and everybody is some
of the time. These new skills help reinforce positive behaviors personally and with the most
challenging people at work. This leads to improved trust and stronger relationships that can keep
any team focused on its goals.

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Session Descriptions

Kenneth C. Williams

At Risk or Underserved? Focusing on What Really Matters in Student Learning

The questions teachers ask about educating youth impact the results. Participants in this session
learn to shift traditional thinking and change paradigms by collaboratively using expertise and
resources to maximize student achievement. Kenneth C. Williams helps educators capitalize on
PLC principles to ensure success for all students.
Collective Responsibility in a PLC: Engaging the Heart, Head, and Hands
Take a moment of honest reflection and ask these questions: Do you have a deep-seated belief that
all students can learn? Do you and your colleagues share the same beliefs about students? Do you feel
like everyone is rowing in the same direction? Are you part of a cause that will not accept excuses?
Do you feel like you are part of something larger than yourself? If not, shouldnt you?
Every school has a mission and vision statement, highlighting the power and potential of learning
in its classrooms. However, for many schools these statements are not worth the paper on which
they are written. While educators agree that school communities should have values to guide their
work, few can articulate what is being done to make it so.
In this session, Kenneth C. Williams engages participants in building a culture of authentic
alignment, a process by which schools:
Connect with agreed-upon cultural beliefs.
Identify clearly defined, desired results.
Identify commitments and engage in right actions.
Systematically integrate these beliefs, actions, and results into existing school structures.
Move from compliance to commitment.

12 Angry Men: The Impact of One, the Power of Team

Kenneth C. Williams uses the classic film 12 Angry Men as a lens to discuss the five qualities that
characterize effective teams:
1. Open inquiry
2. Accepting responsibility for decision making
3. Participation of team members
4. Productive conflict to discover ideas and reveal new information
5. The essential role of diversity in decision making
The film explores techniques of consensus building among a group of men whose diverse
personalities create intense conflict. Ken shows how teams face and overcome similar challenges
to collaborate and succeed. The primary learning outcome is for participants to gain ideas to
substantially improve team effectiveness.

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