Keeping professional learning communities focused on goals: High functioning professional learning communities don’t happen by chance. They require deliberate efforts and structures to ensure efficiency and focus, and to ignite action. The first books in the PLC+ series challenged PLC teams to engage in difficult discussions about equity of access, high expectations for all students, and a commitment to building individual and team efficacy. All of this requires activation and skilled facilitation to move from discussion to action. The PLC+ Activator′s Guide offers a practical approach, real-life scenarios, and examples that show activators what to expect and how to navigate their PLC+ on a successful and collective journey. Readers will find: Templates to help activators prepare for PLC+ meetings Approaches for fostering and nurturing collaboration Vignettes from real schools that are implementing PLC+ Reflection questions with spaces for activators to record notes Solutions for addressing barriers that often arise in PLC+ teams Activators will find this an essential guide to keeping PLC+ team discussions goal-focused and the work centered on building the collective efficacy of the team.

What makes a powerful and results-driven Professional Learning Community (PLC)? The answer is collaborative work that expands the emphasis on student learning and leverages individual teacher efficacy into collective teacher efficacy. PLC+: Better Decisions and Greater Impact by Design calls for strong and effective PLCs plus—and that plus is YOU. Until now, the PLC movement has been focused almost exclusively on students and what they were or were not learning. But keeping student learning at the forefront requires that we also recognize the vital role that you play in the equation of teaching and learning. This means that PLCs must take on two additional challenges: maximizing your individual expertise, while harnessing the power of the collaborative expertise you can develop with your peers. PLC+ is grounded in four cross-cutting themes—a focus on equity of access and opportunity, high expectations for all students, a commitment to building individual self-efficacy and the collective efficacy of the professional learning community and effective team activation and facilitation to move from discussion to action. The PLC+ framework supports educators in considering five essential questions as they work together to improve student learning: Where are we going? Where are we now? How do we move learning forward? What did we learn today? Who benefited and who did not benefit? The PLC+ framework leads educators to question practices as well as outcomes. It broadens the focus on student learning to encompass educational equity and teaching efficacy, and, in doing so, it leads educators to plan and implement learning communities that maximize individual expertise while harnessing the power of collaborative efficacy.

Keeping professional learning communities focused on goals: High functioning professional learning communities don’t happen by chance. They require deliberate efforts and structures to ensure efficiency and focus, and to ignite action. The first books in the PLC+ series challenged PLC teams to engage in difficult discussions about equity of access, high expectations for all students, and a commitment to building individual and team efficacy. All of this requires activation and skilled facilitation to move from discussion to action. The PLC+ Activator′s Guide offers a practical approach, real-life scenarios, and examples that show activators what to expect and how to navigate their PLC+ on a successful and collective journey. Readers will find: Templates to help activators prepare for PLC+ meetings Approaches for fostering and nurturing collaboration Vignettes from real schools that are implementing PLC+ Reflection questions with spaces for activators to record notes Solutions for addressing barriers that often arise in PLC+ teams Activators will find this an essential guide to keeping PLC+ team discussions goal-focused and the work centered on building the collective efficacy of the team.

Help your PLC+ group to work wiser, not harder. This practical guide to planning and implementing PLC+ groups in a collaborative setting is designed to equip professional learning community teams with the tools they need to work effectively toward improving student learning. Designed as an accompanying resource to PLC+: Better Decisions and Greater Impact by Design, the Playbook helps educators bring the PLC+ framework to life by supporting teams as they answer the five guiding questions that comprise a PLC+: Where are we going? Where are we now? How do we move learning forward? What did we learn today? Who benefited and who did not benefit? Twenty-three modules support PLC+ groups as they work through one entire cycle of learning, addressing the five questions and four cross-cutting themes—equity, high expectations, individual and collective efficacy, and effective team activation and facilitation. Tools to support implementation of the PLC+ framework are embedded throughout the Playbook: Blank templates allow team members to record their work for every module Step-by-step instructions guide PLC+ groups to facilitate productive discussion, engage in professional learning, and gather and analyze evidence of student learning Crosscutting themes provide cohesion and focus throughout the work PLC+ groups can utilize each activity in the Playbook or find an appropriate entry point and continue the work of building PLC+. Engage in deeper learning around the ideas and concepts central to PLC+ and make greater equity and efficacy a reality in your school or district.

Effective teaching is effective teaching, no matter where it occurs The pandemic teaching of mid-2020 was not really distance learning, but rather crisis teaching. But starting now, teachers have the opportunity to prepare for distance learning with purpose and intent—using what works best to accelerate students’ learning all the while maintaining an indelible focus on equity. Harnessing the insights and experience of renowned educators Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and John Hattie, The Distance Learning Playbook applies the wisdom and evidence of VISIBLE LEARNING® research to understand what works best with distance learning. Spanning topics from teacher-student relationships, teacher credibility and clarity, instructional design, assessments, and grading, this comprehensive playbook details the research- and evidence-based strategies teachers can mobilize to deliver high- impact learning in an online, virtual, and distributed environment. This powerful guide includes: Learning Intentions and Success Criteria for each module to track your own learning and model evidence-based teacher practices for meaningful learning A diversity of instructional approaches, including direct instruction, peer learning, and independent work that foster student self-regulation and move learning to deep and transfer levels Discussion of equity challenges associated with distance learning, along with examples of how teachers can work to ensure that equity gains that have been realized are not lost. Special guidance for teachers of young children who are learning from a distance Videos of the authors and teachers discussing a wide variety of distance learning topics Space to write and reflect on current practices and plan future instruction The Distance Learning Playbook is the essential hands-on guide to preparing and delivering distance learning experiences that are truly effective and impactful. To purchase from an Authorized Corwin Distributor click here. A Spanish translation of the Distance Learning Playbook, Grades K-12, Aprendizaje a Distancia Guia, Guia de Preescolar a Bachillerator, can be purchased by contacting Irene Yepez from Editorial Trillas at [email protected].

Effective and practical coaching strategies for new educators plus valuable online coaching tools Many teachers are only observed one or two times per year on average—and, even among those who are observed, scarcely any are given feedback as to how they could improve. The bottom line is clear: teachers do not need to be evaluated so much as they need to be developed and coached. In Get Better Faster: A 90-Day Plan for Coaching New Teachers, Paul Bambrick-Santoyo shares instructive tools of how school leaders can effectively guide new teachers to success. Over the course of the book, he breaks down the most critical actions leaders and teachers must take to achieve exemplary results. Designed for coaches as well as beginning teachers, Get Better Faster is an integral coaching tool for any school leader eager to help their teachers succeed. Get Better Faster focuses on what's practical and actionable which makes the book's approach to coaching so effective. By practicing the concrete actions and micro-skills listed in Get Better Faster, teachers will markedly improve their ability to lead a class, producing a steady chain reaction of future teaching success. Though focused heavily on the first 90 days of teacher development, it's possible to implement this work at any time. Junior and experienced teachers alike can benefit from the guidance of Get Better Faster while at the same time closing existing instructional gaps. Featuring valuable and practical online training tools available at http://www.wiley.com/go/getbetterfaster, Get Better Faster provides agendas, presentation slides, a coach's guide, handouts, planning templates, and 35 video clips of real teachers at work to help other educators apply the lessons learned in their own classrooms. Get Better Faster will teach you: The core principles of coaching: Go Granular; Plan, Practice, Follow Up, Repeat; Make Feedback More Frequent Top action steps to launch a teacher’s development in an easy-to-read scope and sequence guide It also walks you through the four phases of skill building: Phase 1 (Pre-Teaching): Dress Rehearsal Phase 2: Instant Immersion Phase 3: Getting into Gear Phase 4: The Power of Discourse Perfect for new educators and those who supervise them, Get Better Faster will also earn a place in the libraries of veteran teachers and school administrators seeking a one-stop coaching resource.

Design assessments that measure and target student learning in both face-to-face and distance learning environments Assessments are the essential link between teaching and learning, yet the assessments used in face-to-face classrooms are not always practical or impactful in remote learning environments. Now that teachers are teaching from a distance, how will you assess what your students have learned? Tapping the expertise of teachers who are successfully engaged in distance learning, The Assessment Playbook for Distance and Blended Learning answers that question. Rich with a wide range of examples, strategies, and assessments that can be leveraged with rigor and fidelity regardless of learning environment, this practical playbook empowers teachers with the decision-making tools needed to gauge the impact of instructional strategies in today’s rapidly evolving educational landscape. It features • "Assessment cookies," or insights that endure in any distance or hybrid learning environment and can be used to inform assessment decisions, including the understanding that "everything is searchable." • A robust "playlist" of distance learning assessment tools—including universal response, teach-back opportunities, composing, taking action, self-assessment, and peer assessment—that teachers can mix and deploy to match every learning intention. • Information on how to evaluate the impact of your teaching on student learning—and how assessment can guide your teaching moves • Characteristics of formal tools of evaluation, such as tests, longer essays, and performance tasks that teachers can use in distance learning environments to document learning for reporting purposes. Designed properly, assessments implemented through the lens of distance and hybrid learning can yield significant impact for student achievement, both in the pandemic teaching of today, and in the educational contexts of the future.

Passion, vision, relatability—can we ever quantify the facets of successful leadership? Is there sufficient "there-there" behind these feel-good words to transform a school into a culture of learning and bold hope? Yes, and yes! Inspired by John Hattie’s impressive research, Fisher, Frey, Lassiter, and Smith bring their trademark clarity to turn aspiration into energized action. For each of the five components that all effective leaders possess—trustworthiness, competence, dynamism, immediacy, and forward-thinking—leaders learn the first steps and bold leaps to mentor others. Each chapter abounds with professional development tools, including: Self-assessments so you know your baseline Pause and ponder questions to envision change REAL features to lead with alacrity Checklists to stay focused and strategic Relevant research to assimilate and share Now more than ever, schools need to be places where openness and trust are baked into every hallway hello and every meeting, so collective talents can take us farther than we ever imagined. Let Leader Credibility be your guide to steering others to that greatness.

This timely resource for teachers, leaders, and policymakers provides breakthrough insights into how to improve students' well-being in schools. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, students' well-being was an increasingly prominent concern among educators, as issues related to mental health, global crises, and social media became impossible to ignore. But what, exactly, is well-being? What does it look like, why is it so important, and what can school systems do to promote it? How does it relate to student achievement and social and emotional learning? World-renowned education experts Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley answer these questions and more in this in-depth exploration of the underlying ideas and research findings related to well-being, coupled with examples of policies and implementations from around the globe. The authors make the case for putting well-being ahead of other priorities, such as scores on high-stakes assessments, and explain the three powerful forces that educators can leverage to set up effective well-being policy and practice: prosperity for all, ethical technology use, and restorative nature. Inspiring, thoughtful, and provocative, Well-Being in Schools: Three Forces That Will Uplift Your Students in a Volatile World offers hope in a time of unprecedented challenges. Looking within and beyond the classroom, it charts a path toward a lofty but achievable goal: improved well-being not only for students but also for society as a whole.

Build cohesive PLC+ teams to improve learning outcomes Effective teacher collaboration can amplify student learning and well-being outcomes, increase teacher satisfaction rates, and improve the onboarding of new teachers. Yet developing a cohesive PLC+ team isn’t always so simple. Designed as a companion to PLC+: Better Decisions and Greater Impact by Design and The PLC+ Playbook, this easy-to-use playbook for school leaders provides strategies, techniques, and evidence-based approaches to help leaders foster successful collaboration among teachers and positively impact student learning. Four cross-cutting values are infused within each guiding question: high expectations, activation, individual and collective teacher efficacy, and equity. Building on this framework and drawing from Visible Learning research, the guide offers specific instructional leadership actions and behaviors to promote cohesion in PLC+ teams. Leaders will learn: Contextual information to boost knowledge about effectively engaging with adults Essential information on how to lead PLC+ teams to become strong, interdependent, and productive Leadership tools to support and inspire others to work at optimal levels Examples and insights into time management, decision-making, successes, failures, and learning opportunities Discover how to build social, human, and decisional capital within your organization, equipping teachers with the skills they need to drive school improvement.