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__**Introduction: Why do we need this?**__ The Department of Modern and Classical Languages (Language Department) at Westminster serves the Elementary, Junior High, and High School students in the second language (L2) acquisition from the introductory level through the AP program and beyond. Individually, each teacher is a master of their field and and effective instructor of their age group. Collectively, however, the Language Department has struggled to provide consistent, sequentially appropriate L2 instruction in its Intro, Experienced, Honors, and AP programs. **The amount of job-embedded time for teachers to collaborate on scope, sequence, instruction, and assessment is insufficient to fulfill the department's Philosophy Statement**. In order to provide job-embedded professional development opportunities, and in order to capture what Richard DuFour calls "the power of collective intelligence," we have proposed that a PLC be created for Junior High Foreign Language faculty. Faculty will receive a 1-course transition, which for most faculty will mean a full-time course load of 4 sections, plus the PLC The PLC will meet four days per week for 50 minutes. Attendance is mandatory.

Subsequent to submitting the proposal, I met with a number of stakeholders to determine interest and feasibility of altering course loads, teaching assignments, and scheduling conflicts. Between December and May, I met with a number of people in varying combinations on a number of occasions. Among them are:
 * Kristen Orsini, French teacher and co-facilitator of the proposed PLC
 * Bo Adams, Junior High Principal
 * Jill Gough, co-leader of Westminster's PLC Facilitator Cohort
 * Marta Miller, Department of Modern and Classical Languages Chair
 * Anna Boller, French Curriculum coordinator
 * The Junior High Foreign Language faculty, composed of Chinese, French, Latin and Spanish teachers

After five months, countless meetings and multiple schedule revisions, it was determined that the budget would not allow for the necessary hiring needs to accommodate the formation of a Junior High Foreign Language PLC. **However, the Junior High can and will go forward for the 2010-2011 school year with a Junior High Spanish PLT. Kristen Orsini and I will co-facilitate this PLT.**

The PLC has seen dozens of permutations as schools around the country experiment with job-embedded collaborative experience. DuFour and Eaker have a somewhat rigid definition of the **characteristics** of a PLC, but just **who the participants are** is never addressed. The assumption, therefore, is that any collection of contributors constitutes a PLC. My school, in an effort to scaffold degrees of collaboration, prefers to address the **who** as well as the **what**. In brief, The Westminster Schools has made the following distinctions for professional learning structures:


 * PLC – A professional learning community consists of groups of educators from varying departments, divisions, or grade-level teams.
 * PLT – A professional learning team consists of educators from a single department, division, or grade level. When different PLT’s work together, it would then be considered a PLC.

The following is a preliminary outline of the mission, vision, and goals of the Spanish PLT.

__**Mission: What purpose will the PLT serve?**__ Before I discuss mission, I suggest a reading of Rick DuFour's article from the May 2004 issue of Educational Leadership, "[|What is a PLC?]" In it he discusses the "Three Big Ideas" which may help to guide a Mission Statement. They are:
 * Orientation toward learning, rather than teaching
 * Collaboration as the norm, rather than the exception
 * Orientation toward results, rather than intentions

Using the DuFour model, the Spanish PLT will examine best practices in second language acquisition using the guidelines laid out in DuFour's article:
 * We will focus on student learning, rather than teaching.
 * We will work collaboratively.
 * We will hold ourselves accountable through the compilation and analysis of action research.

__**Vision: What do we want the PLT to become?**__

According to Richard DuFour and Robert Eaker, a school's vision "presents a realistic, credible, attractive future for the organization." (62) The vision established by the PLT will determine what we wish to become. Initially the PLT facilitators will lead the efforts in collaborative, results-based conversations and activities focused on improving student learning. However, the PLT participants will gradually take ownership of the PLT and will guide discussions, manage and coordinate projects, build curricular components, and evaluate student assessment practices. They will plan and implement opportunities for action research, analyze outcomes, and determine next steps based on the data observed.


 * Ultimately, the vision of the our PLT, and all PLC's on campus, is __to create an environment in which a PLC is not a thing, rather a way of doing things__. Currently, PLC's are organizations within an Organization. __Our vision is that the Organization becomes a PLC__. **

__**Goals: What do we hope to accomplish along the way?**__

The PLC Facilitators Committee has already established a set of common goals to be accomplished within the first two months of the school year. They are as follows:
 * __**Essential Learnings**__ - Bo Adams, Principal of the Westminster Junior High and leader of the PLC Facilitators committee insists that establishing essential learnings is necessary for "appropriate differentiation and intervention for deep learning. Grades on unit tests are inadequate; however, essential learnings allow students and teachers to dig past the surface and strategically pinpoint what has been learned and what has yet to be learned." In accordance with this mandate, the Spanish PLT
 * __**SMART Goals**__ - Each PLC will develop SMART Goals. Each part of the SMART acronym is needed to ensure that goals are realized. These goals are to be:
 * **Strategic and specific**--Vaguely worded goals are often realized because their ethereal nature. "To become a better teacher" is an easy goal that can be accomplished through the writing of a better-worded lesson plan. Strategic and specific goals require a greater level of commitment from the issuer.
 * **Measurable**--Goals must be Measurable so that one knows if the goal has been achieved. "To be healthier" is a goal that cannot be measure by empirical means, and therefore does not elicit dedicated effort. "To reduce BMI by five points" is a goal that can be measured, and therefore, verified.
 * **Attainable**--Lofty goals may be inspiring, but only to those who don't plan on achieving it. In order for a goal to be achieved, it must be attainable.
 * **Results-based**--Goals that don't bear fruit are rarely worth the exercise. A results-based goal prevents the issuer from merely expressing an intention. He or she must produce a product or service. In our case, the result is improved student learning.
 * **Time-bound**--Finally, in order for goals to work, they must have a completion date. Time-bound goals motivate all parties and provide a framework within which participants can set up benchmarks and pace progress.
 * __**Common Assessment**__ - Each teacher needs the autonomy in class to teach according to his or her own talent and personality. However, as different as our own teaching styles may be, some elements of classroom protocol must be consistent. When teachers assess student work according to wildy different criteria it creates ambiguity. Part of Westminster PLC protocol is the regular practice of collaborating on assessment standards. Peer review of formative and summative assessments will be an integral component of the collaborative teaching culture in our PLT.
 * __**Lesson Study**__ - The practice of Lesson Study combines collaborative planning, teacher observation, and reflection/evaluation of the observed teacher and the lesson implemented. At its most effective, "teachers select an overarching goal and related research question that they want to explore. This research question then serves to guide their work on all study lessons." (from the Lesson Study Research Group's website at Columbia's Teaching College). By grounding the process in specific questions the practice of Lesson Study "lays out a model for teacher learning and a clear set of principles or hypotheses about how teachers learn." (Stigler & Hiebert, 150)

__**Getting from There To Here**__


 * **Bring in all parties**--I made the mistake of submitting this proposal to my principal without mentioning it to my department head. Since I currently run the Language Lab, starting a PLC would in effect take me out of the lab (which, by the way, it did). This is a change I should have addressed with my department head. Although there was no backlash from my exuberance, it could have easily scuttled the process.
 * **Seek help...from anybody**--Completely by accident, I began eliciting advice from whoever I could find to talk about PLCs. The plain fact is that I was excited about PLCs, and I have a tendency to not shut up. As a result, I made a very wise move...I got others invested in my process. I started by talking to my principal, obviously. I spoke with members and facilitators of other PLCs at school. They gave me an inside look at what is going on in PLCs.
 * **Describe it before you preach it**--In my conversations with other members and facilitators of current PLCs, They spoke to me about PLCs in in layman's terms. This gave me a lexicon beyond what is written in the books and articles written by the so-called experts. This helped tremendously when talking to my fellow language teachers. Rather than giving them a sales pitch for something that I liked but didn't truly understand, I was able to describe it in terms that make sense and did not make it sound like yet another fad in education.
 * **Make expectations clear**--At first blush, the PLC looks like a great deal--you get a one-course reduction to plan with teachers? Where do I sign up? And although such a flattering sales pitch would bolster interest and involvement, progress would eventually grind to a halt when faculty begin to feel like they were sold a "bill of goods." Instead, it was made clear from the beginning that the PLC will be doing rigorous, time consuming and time-bound work with an expectation of results. Rather than eroding, enthusiasm exploded.
 * **Invite compromise**--Once the administration recognized the impressive faculty buy-in, getting support was easy. However, throughout the five months of conversations and data crunching, there were several occasions where stakeholders suggested that the PLC would not be possible this year. Rather than concede, we immediately and enthusiastically asked, "What other options are available?" Our willingness to alter our vision sent a message to the skeptics that we were committed to the PLC culture.

__Works cited__ DuFour and Eaker, //Professional Communities at Work: Best Practices for Enhancing Student Achievement//. Solution Tree, 1998. DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, and Karhanek, //Whatever It Takes: How Professional Learning Communities Respond When Kids Don't Learn//. Solution Tree, 2004. Stigler and Hiebert, //The Teaching Gap//. Simon & Schuster, 1999. Wagner, Tony, "The Global Achievement Gap." Basic Books, 2008.

__Works consulted__ DuFour, Richard, [|Questions New Teams Should Consider Early On]. //All Things PLC// blog. September 4, 2008. Eaker and Keating, "Deeply Embedded, Fully Committed." //Journal of Staff Development//. Vol. 30, No. 5. December, 2009. Pink, Daniel, //A Whole New Mind//. Riverhead Books, 2006. Sparks and Louks-Horsley, Five Models for Staff Development. //Journal of Staff Development.// Vol. 10, No. 4, Fall 1989. Walser, Nancy, Teaching 21st Century Skills. Harvard Education Letter. Vol. 24, No. 5. September/October 2008.