The Big Picture

This morning I spent the day with 5 department teams at the junior high school. The school district offered the teams (AKA Professional Learning Communities, or PLCs)at the schools who wished to participate small monetary bonuses if they did a presentation for their administration and panel of parents on how they are using their Monday afternoons (on early out days for the kids) to collaborate and set department wide goals based on the district's pre-arranged objectives for their group.

It was a great way to see the bigger picture of what is happening at our school. We have some fantastic teachers, but I only have interactions with a fraction of those educators. I got to see them as team members working toward a common goal, regardless of which academic level students they have in their own classes.

The teams were answering the following questions:
1--What are our mission, vision, values, and goals?
2--What do we what our students to be learning?
3--How will be know if they are learning that?
4--What do we do for the ones that aren't learning that?
5--What do we do for the students that already have learned that?

We heard from the Music, English, Art, Health, Career Technology and Counseling, and Science departments. It was fascinating how they all had the same questions but depending on the discipline the answered would vary dramatically.

Seeing how these departments were coordinating their efforts to teach the kids not only the state core curriculum, but beyond the prescribed topics, was gratifying. I was impressed with each team that spelled out to us how they were assessing the student's progress and how that data would help identify kids that needed more help, and what they had to offer the kids that were already excelling.

It made me all the more grateful for the quality teachers my children have had over the course of their academic careers thus far. For the most part, they have been cream of the crop teachers with creative and innovative ways of teaching my kids.