I just returned yesterday from Montreal where a crew from the school district heard Rick and Becky DuFour speak on their rendition of the "Professional Learning Community" model of education. Everything they said was dead on ~ their model makes sense and they have the data to back that up. However, I do feel like it's difficult to apply their model to a small school.
My understanding of their model (in a nutshell) is to have teachers who teach the same course or content administer the same test to their students, and then they'd have data by which they can assess how effective their teaching is. Then teachers can ask each other for help with their areas of weakness.
Sweet. Basing decisions on data seems like a good idea. :)
But how do you do this in a small school? I am the only one teaching my content area. So here are our options (which I have to think a bit about since I'm the PLC leader for the science department):
1) The science teachers talk about the big ideas of science that connect us, and we collect data on those things: inquiry, ethics, sustainability, etc.
2) We find people in the region who teach our same course and we collaborate with them about our actual content, administer similar tests and compare data to each other to see our strengths/weaknesses and then learn from each other.
I'd like to pursue both options, but for now option 1 will be the most easy to implement. I do feel like it might feel somewhat contrived, if we find that we may not actually have that much in common - or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'll surprise myself.
In any case, I miss my kids. I hate having to write sub plans :(
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