Description
Description
50 Strategies for Activating the Full Potential of Your PLC+ Team
Are you maximizing the impact of your professional learning communities? 50 Strategies for Activating Your PLC+ equips educators with the tools and actions needed to foster highly effective PLC+ teams.
Successful PLCs are built on a foundation of strong collaboration, unified purpose, trust, and effective communication. The 50+ strategies in this essential guide address the challenges and possibilities within teacher teams by focusing on the role of activators, group members who work to ensure that all members of the PLC+ contribute to meaningful, solution-driven progress.
Grounded in experience and practical guidance, this resource is designed to make every step of your PLC+ experience impactful. With strategies organized into eight comprehensive sections, the authors provide the frameworks necessary to create an engaged, productive learning culture with:
- Eight categories of strategies aligned with the five guiding PLC+ questions to support targeted and actionable leadership
- A practical cross-reference table connecting the strategies to content with additional context and insights to deepen understanding
- Tools for developing activator skills that enhance facilitation, decision-making, and solution-oriented collaboration within your PLC+ teams
- Concrete protocols and frameworks for addressing team dynamics, meeting structures, and continuous improvement
From establishing goals to reviewing results, you’ll find purposeful actions that drive positive outcomes for educators and students alike. Take the next step in your PLC+ leadership to shape the future of learning in your school.
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Development of Professional Learning Communities
Stepping Into the Activator Role
Activators Make Things Happen
An Overview of This Guide
Your Activation Goal
Your Introduction to PLC+ Content Cross-Reference Table
50 Strategies for Activating Your PLC+
Activating Questions 1–5
1. Activating Question 1: Where are we going?
2. Activating Question 2: Where are we now?
3. Activating Question 3: How do we move learning forward?
4. Activating Question 4: What did we learn today?
5. Activating Question 5: Who benefited and who did not benefit?
Activator Skills and Abilities
6. Activator Skills and Abilities: Activating to Achieve a True Impact on Learning
7. Activator Skills and Abilities: Assessing Your Activator Fitness Level
8. Activator Skills and Abilities: Defining Your Activator Role
9. Activator Skills and Abilities: Developing Successful PLC+ Activators
10. Activator Skills and Abilities: Facilitation Self-Assessment
11. Activator Skills and Abilities: Facilitating With Grace
12. Activator Skills and Abilities: Finding the Key Activator
Continuous Improvement
13. Continuous Improvement: Discussions and Actions
14. Continuous Improvement: Making Course Corrections
15. Continuous Improvement: Taking Priority Practices to Scale
16. Continuous Improvement: Strong Team Structures to Achieve High Function
Function and Impact
17. Function and Impact: Activating Others by Sharing Your PLC+ Success
18. Function and Impact: Applying Evaluative Thinking
19. Function and Impact: Assessing PLC+ Readiness
20. Function and Impact: Assessing Your Current PLC+ Performance
21. Function and Impact: Building Momentum With Early Wins
22. Function and Impact: Evaluating Your PLC+ Progress and Impact
23. Function and Impact: Increasing Impact in PLC+ Teams
24. Function and Impact: Realizing the Optimal Combination of Function and Impact
Meeting Moves
25. Meeting Moves: Coming to Agreement About Professional Learning
26. Meeting Moves: Documentation and Note-Taking
27. Meeting Moves: Effectively Activating When Meetings Become Challenging
28. Meeting Moves: Establishing Norms
29. Meeting Moves: Establishing PLC+ Roles
30. Meeting Moves: Finding Solid Ground in Assessments and Data
31. Meeting Moves: Social Emotional Check-Ins
32. Meeting Moves: Utilizing Authentic Instructional Protocols
Norms of Collaborative Work
33. Norms of Collaborative Work 1: Pausing
34. Norms of Collaborative Work 2: Paraphrasing
35. Norms of Collaborative Work 3: Posing Questions
36. Norms of Collaborative Work 4: Providing Data
37. Norms of Collaborative Work 5: Putting Ideas on the Table
38. Norms of Collaborative Work 6: Paying Attention to Self and Others
39. Norms of Collaborative Work 7: Presuming Positive Intentions
Team Dynamics
40. Team Dynamics: Achieving Team Psychological Safety
41. Team Dynamics: Activating Dialogue When Topics Become Sensitive
42. Team Dynamics: Activating When Team Members Do Not Want to Change
43. Team Dynamics: Analyzing and Describing Team Strengths
44. Team Dynamics: Breaking Barriers, Bringing Team Members Together
45. Team Dynamics: Countering Resistance With Will, Skill, Knowledge, Capacity, and Emotional Support
Team Dynamics: From Independent to an Interdependent PLC+
Time Matters
47. Time Matters: Developing an Assessment Calendar
48. Time Matters: Scheduling PLC+ Meetings
49. Time Matters: Setting Aside Time for the PLC+
Reflecting on Your Activation of the PLC+ Journey
50. Metareflection and Intention Setting With the 5Ds
References
Index
Douglas Fisher
Douglas Fisher is professor and chair of educational leadership at San Diego State University and a teacher leader at Health Sciences High and Middle College. Previously, Doug was an early intervention teacher and elementary school educator. He is a credentialed English teacher and administrator in California. In 2022, he was inducted into the Reading Hall of Fame by the Literacy Research Association. He has published numerous articles on reading and literacy, differentiated instruction, and curriculum design, as well as books such as The Teacher Clarity Playbook 2/e, Your Introduction to PLC+, The Illustrated Guide to Teacher Credibility, Instructional Strategies that Move Learning Forward: 30 Tools that Support Gradual Release of Responsibility, and Welcome to Teaching!
Nancy Frey
Nancy Frey is a Professor in Educational Leadership at San Diego State and a teacher leader at Health Sciences High and Middle College. She is a credentialed special educator, reading specialist, and administrator in California. She is a member of the International Literacy Association’s Literacy Research Panel. Her published titles include 50 Strategies for Activating Your PLC+, The Illustrated Guide to Visible Learning, Welcome to Teaching Multilingual Learners, Teaching Foundational Skills to Adolescent Readers, and RIGOR Unveiled:A Video-Enhanced Flipbook to Promote Teacher Expertise in Relationship Building, Instruction, Goals, Organization, and Relevance.
James Marshall
James Marshall is a professor of educational leadership at San Diego State University where he also leads the Doctorate in Educational Leadership program. A credentialed teacher, he began his career as an informal science educator at the San Diego Zoo. Jim’s passion centers on the design of learning programs that yield predictable results. He has written broadly on needs assessment, learning initiative design, implementation, and program evaluation. His published books include Right From the Start: The Essential Guide to Implementing School Initiatives, Fixing Education Initiatives in Crisis: 24 Go-To Strategies, and RIGOR Unveiled: A Video-Enhanced Flipbook to Promote Teacher Expertise in Relationship Building, Instruction, Goals, Organization, and Relevance.
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