Module 4: The Practice of PLCs - Tools & Resources
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Responsive Facilitation Support:
- A Rationale for Protocols - MS Word; PDF - Why should we use a process for communication that feels so artificial, awkward and restrictive
- Guide for Bringing Student Work - MS Word; PDF - one page handout that is a useful barometer of what the criteria for bringing student work to a session is and informs the pre-process (like bring enough copies of the work for everyone and white- out all names and grades). Remember though—the biggest impetus to bringing student work is that the presenter has a question that is really challenging him!
- Consideration for Responsive Facilitation - MS Word; PDF - Facilitation is a crucial part of any kind of collaborative work. A responsive facilitator has to keep many things in mind as he/she supports the work of a collaborative group. This list is intended as both a general reminder of important skills, and a checklist of areas one might want to focus on for personal growth. This list is useful as a group check-in around facilitation and can serve as a springboard to identifying facilitation dilemmas or assessing progress.
- Glossary of Protocol Terms - MS Word; PDF - A great cheat-sheet on what each step in LASW facilitation is asking the group to do. Clarifies the meaning of...clarifying questions among others!
- Norms for Looking at Student Work - MS Word; PDF - Good guide for discussing prior to beginning or in recognizing challenges.
- Choosing a Question Protocol - MS Word; PDF - A helpful process for identifying and creating questions for LASW
- Learning from Student Work Overview - MS Word; PDF - The principles. Purposes, protocols. Why, how, results and how LASW supports other teachers who aren’t presenting.
- Looking at Student Work: Building the Habit of Equity - MS Word; PDF - A terrific one-pager about how the practice of LASW is about the critical concept that we, as teachers, are looking at how all of our students (mine and yours) achieve.
- Examples of Debriefing Questions at the End of a LASW Protocol - MS Word; PDF - Handy guide for groups and facilitators for ways to look at process after a LASW session.
- Examples of Questions for Looking at Student Work Sessions - MS Word; PDF - Useful prompts for presenters thinking about honing that critical question.
- Protocol Matching Activity - MS Word; PDF - Each question has a protocol that best matches it; here help in figuring that out.
- Probing Questions Exercise - MS Word; PDF - Probing Questions are part of several protocols for Looking at Student Work. They are tricky questions as people tend to ask more detailed clarifying questions or questions that pertain to what the speaker wishes to say or know, rather than questions clearly for the benefit of the presenter. Use along with...
- Pocket Guide to Probing Questions - MS Word; PDF - Probing Questions are part of several protocols for Looking at Student Work. They are tricky questions as people tend to ask more detailed clarifying questions or questions that pertain to what the speaker wishes to say or know, rather than questions clearly for the benefit of the presenter.
- Reflections on Adapting/Creating Protocols - MS Word; PDF- NOTHING is cut in stone. Protocols need to be designed to meet the needs of the question, the group and the presenter.
- Suggestions for Bringing Student Work - MS Word; PDF - We often think that if we are going to take the risk of sharing our work—we’d better show our best stuff. Looking at Student Work is so not about that. Protocols are only productive if we have a real question or concern that we haven’t been able to figure out.
- Facilitation Scenarios - MS Word; PDF- A very useful problem-solving activity for small groups to work through how they handle facilitation issues by looking at brief case studies The scenarios provided below illustrate some key moments in fictional-but-plausible protocols. We offer them here as an opportunity for readers to reflect on facilitation challenges in a more contextualized way. Of course, just as in actual protocols, none of the scenarios below has a single “right” response. We hope these scenarios will serve as a departure point for considering a range of productive moves that a facilitator might make in a given situation, as well as the possible consequences of those moves.
- Guide for Using Seven Protocols - MS Word; PDF - Nice boxed handout of what each is, when to use it and a brief overview of “what makes it sing”