PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES

Studenet Centered Learning Resources

2009-05-22T11:15:00.001-07:00

http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Student-Centered.html

More to come...

AM ESL PLC meeting notes -January 16

2009-01-28T14:58:00.000-08:00

The notes for the Friday, January 16th meeting are here http://www.smace.org/files/Jan16thnotesworddoc.doc

PLC information is also in the teacher share folder on the school network.

Next AM ESL meeting is Friday, January 30 from 11:15 - 12:15 in room 21.

ESL AM Meeting - Friday January 16

2009-01-15T14:07:00.000-08:00

The ESL morning PLC group will be meeting this Friday at 11:15 in room 21. Be sure to bring your outline of your curriculum for your class, i.e., what you actually teach.

Meeting Notes ESL PM January 13 meeting

2009-01-14T11:58:00.000-08:00

Teachers sketched a comprehensive view of the type of school they would like to see emerge from the Professional Learning Communities (PLC) process. It included a vision of a place that inspired the students to set life goals beyond the foundation that our school provides. It would be a place where students would learn the pragmatic English language and local cultural skills necessary to progress. The school would rely significantly on new methods of student input into overcoming barriers, developing curriculum and creating a sense of a school that was both by and for students. See the notes of the meeting here.

Next step - teachers need to determine what is currently being taught at each of the levels. For next meeting - Each teacher brings an outline of what they teach in their class. These outlines will be shared with group and compared to State ESL standards at next meeting on Thursday, February 19 at 8:40.

Upcoming Meetings

2008-12-05T10:16:00.000-08:00

50 + Program Wednesday, December 10, 5:45 - 7:45 in SMART Center Venus Room
Teachers bring your individual assessment ideas based on last session's group brainstorm. (You may have already recorded these on the Nussbaum Domains and Activities Form.)

ESL AM Program Friday, December 12, 11:15 - 12:15 in room 21 (note room change)
Teachers bring your outline of what you want your students to learn in your class. Include both content and general skills.

ESL PM Program Tuesday, January 13, 8:40 - 9:40 in room 29
Teachers will review norms and discuss developing teams as well as next steps.

ESL AM Meeting Notes and Norms

2008-12-03T13:54:00.000-08:00

The meeting notes about the brainstorming of the question "What would the (almost) perfect San Mateo Adult School look like?" from the November 24th ESL AM meeting are posted here
Notes 11/24/08

The Norms for Meeting that were adopted at the November 24 meeting are posted here
Norms

Standards and Curriculum Materials

2008-11-26T10:02:00.000-08:00

The following links will bring you to materials on the school website that may be useful in your team's work.

The ESL Draft Standards

These are the most recent draft of the Adult Education ESL standards. They are a significant change from the last official version of the standards, released in 1992, (and available at the link below)

1992 ESL Standards

These standards were used to develop the San Mateo Adult School Curriculum (link below)

San Mateo Adult School ESL Curriculum Outline

Standards from the Older Adult (50+) programs and Parenting programs will be available shortly. All materials can be accessed from the Teachers tab on the Adult School website as well.

Upcoming Meetings

2008-11-24T09:56:00.000-08:00

ESL AM San Mateo - Monday, November 24 11:15 Room 29

ESL PM San Mateo - Thursday, December 4 8:40 Room 29

ESL AM San Mateo - Friday, December 12 11:15 Room 29

50 + Program - Look for December meeting time

In addition the PLC Network meeting, local Adult Schools who have implemented a PLC or are thinking about starting a PLC, will be held at San Mateo Adult School on Thursday, December 11 from 10 AM - Noon. The meeting will be held in room 27.

What is a Professional Learning Community

2008-11-22T15:34:00.000-08:00

What is a PLC ?
" A Professional Learning Community (PLC) is educators committed to working collaboratively in ongoing processes of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve. PLCs operate under the assumption that the key to improved learning for students is continuous, job -embedded learning for educators.

The 3 Big Ideas of a PLC

- Focus on Learning

Educators agree that the fundamental purpose of their school is to ensure high levels of learning for all students. To keep this in mind they focus on 4 questions:

1) What do we want students to learn?

2) How will we know if they have learned?

3) What will we do if they don't learn?

4) What will we do if they have already learned ?

- Build a Collaborative Culture

Schools improve when teachers are given the time and support to work together to clarify essential student learning, develop common assessments, analyze evidence of student learning and use that evidence to learn from one another.

- Focus on Results

PLCs measure their effectiveness on the basis of results rather than intentions.

PLC Resources

2008-11-22T10:56:00.001-08:00

In Tim's office in the SMART Center there is The PLC Toolkit which has various materials to aid in understanding the planning and implementation of the PLC process. Feel free to check them out as needed.

In addition an online collection of materials related to other schools PLC efforts (mostly K -12) is located at http://www.allthingsplc.info/ The Articles and Research segments and some of the Tools and Resources are most relevant to Adult Schools efforts at establishing PLCs.