Professional learning communities or PLCs can be a treasure of knowledge for the most experienced to the most novice math teacher. In fact, I learned more about teaching math from my 5th grade counterpart than I did from professional development I attended.
If you are at a small school, your PLC might be with math teachers who teach different grade levels which will support you in your vertical planning. If you teach at a larger school, your PLC might consist of teachers who teach your grade level which provides the perfect, collaborative environment. Regardless of your experience, professional learning communities are a great tool for educators to increase their content knowledge and improve their instructional practices.
What makes a good PLC though? If it is going to cut into my planning time, it has to be worthwhile! Here are the 5 (+1 bonus) activities that made PLC time a good use of this busy teacher’s time.
Note: Aim for 1 or 2 of these activities in a PCL meeting. This is just a non-exhaustive list of ways to spend your time together.
1. Ice Breaker/Time Keeper
Here me out! I know, I know. I just talked about a good use of time and now I am telling you to include an ice breaker. Ice breakers help you get to know your colleagues better which is important when you are providing feedback to one another. Ice breakers can be simple as:
- What kind of student were you in middle school?
- Share a highlight from the week.
- What are you looking forward to teaching in the upcoming unit?
This is also a good time to mention that a timekeeper is an absolute must to keep everyone’s time to talk equitable.
2. Student Work Analysis
Taking a critical look at student work with a group of math teachers is valuable for multiple reasons:
- Multiple people can catch misunderstandings, or provide explanations for why students are making certain errors
- Teachers can offer suggestions on how to improve instruction
Recent formative assessments or a simple exit ticket can reveal a lot about instruction. My suggestion is to keep the scope small to one or two problems. My PLC would bring 2-3 examples of a masters, met, and did not meet. We would chat about what each group had in common, what types of errors we saw (conceptual, procedural, or computational), and what we could do moving forward to combat the misconceptions.
3. Teaching Practice and Feedback
With my 6th grade teachers, we were all given the same key point to teach. The key point was connecting the formula for the area of a triangle (A=bh/2) to a model of a parallelogram (A=bh) and why two congruent triangles could fit into the parallelogram. We all took turns explaining how we might introduce this concept to students by actually teaching it. Some teachers drew pictures, others cut out triangles and put them together to form a parallelogram, while others mentioned that dividing by 2 is the same as taking half of something.
This practice helped the teachers new to the classroom and even gave the veteran teachers some ideas to take with them. Each teacher received one GLOW and one GROW. We all have a lot to learn from each other! Teacher clarity is one of the greatest factors in students’ understanding, so this was a practice that we came back to.
4. Review Data from Benchmark Assessments
A few times a year, we had data day! Data day is exactly what it sounds like – a comprehensive analysis of student work. Typically, we used our interim assessments and our district-provided software to help us determine:
- The overall mastery for each standard
- Which standards needed reteaching
We would look at a few student assessments to see what the common misconception was for missed problems. While we were together, we would work on a lesson plan for how we were going to reteach and how we were going to spiral in standards that needed to be kept fresh. If a teacher’s students performed particularly well on a certain standard, they would share how they taught the material.
5. Check In on the Calendar for Upcoming (or current) Unit
It is REALLY easy to get behind with your scope and sequence. Accountability to stay on track is crucial, so I recommend a time where everyone can share where they are in the unit. This is also a good time to check in on flex days, when grades are due, what clubs have upcoming field trips, etc. It is hard to keep so many things straight – reminders are always appreciated!
Bonus: Planning Real-World Opportunities for Engagement
While collaboration is key for lesson planning and instruction, I think it is also important for planning opportunities for students to engage in real-world problem solving. This can be anything from projects, performance tasks, or trying new instructional practices.
Here are a few engagement opportunities I recommend:
What do you do in your professional learning communities?
