Whole Faculty Study Groups-PLCs

Dr. Kelvin Adams says: "Do something brave for kids!"

The implementation of “Whole Faculty Study Groups”. This particular session focused on how a high school principal, now Superintendent of St. Louis Public Schools, Kelvin Adams, implemented Whole Faculty Study Groups for the direct benefit of the students. He gave a powerful web resource that could be of reference when implementing a professional learning community http://www.murphyswfsg.org/ . Most importantly though, he shared that there must be support from the building leadership as well as support for building capacity of teachers to provide effective teaching and learning. I found this session to be particularly engaging as I am going through doing “Critical Friends Group” in my role as a School Literacy Coach. I am thinking about how to implement this aspect of professional development as I plan for the next school year.

Additional web resources on Whole Faculty Study Groups:
http://www.middleweb.com/MWLresources/WFSgroups.html
http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/technlgy/te10lk44.htm
http://www.nde.state.ne.us/wfsg/index.htm
http://www.nsrfharmony.org/faq.html

Literacy Coaching

One common theme during the conference was the implementation of having coached teachers. Coaching is a current trend that shows merit in the school improvement process. Factors for implication on student achievement in a coached situation depend greatly on whether school-leaders value the importance of what a coach can do for professional development of educators, how effectively a coach is able to spend time with teachers, and whether the intended professional development by a coach becomes a sustainable habit. Presenters shared studies where coaches were change agents in professional development as well as student achievement (Sharon Ramey and Patricia Mathes).

Another presenter on the topic of coaching was Jan Hasbrouck. She shared information about various models of coaching and her book, The Reading Coach, A How to Manual for Success. She discusses how her model of coaching is “student focused coaching” which is defined as “a cooperative and ideally collaborative relationship with parties mutually engaged in efforts to provide better services for students. She sites great importance in partnership training where building level coaches receive training with the building principal in attendance at the same training. This is key in coaching implementation. During the presentation, she shared evidence-based research on the topic of coaching and found common themes during the research phase for her book. More about her book and sample training manual can be accessed at:

http://store.cambiumlearning.com/ProductPage.aspx?parentId=019005248&functionID=009000008&site=sw