Agenda Montreal, Quebec October 17 19

Wednesday, October 17 6:30 8:00 a.m. 8:00 9:45 a.m. 9:45 10:00 a.m. Break Agenda Montreal, Quebec October 17 19 Registration 10:00 11:30 a.m. Breakouts Continental breakfast 11:30 a.m. 1:00 p.m. Lunch (on your own) 1:00 2:30 p.m. Breakouts 2:30 2:45 p.m. Break 2:45 3:45 p.m. Keynote Rebecca DuFour The Power of Professional Learning Communities at Work: Bringing the Big Ideas to Life Panel discussion A Q&A time with presenters. Receive practical answers to your most pressing questions. Foyer Foyer Titles & locations: pp. 3 & 5 Session descriptions: pp. 9 17 Titles & locations: pp. 3 & 5 Session descriptions: pp. 9 17 Agenda Thursday, October 18 7:00 8:00 a.m. 8:00 9:30 a.m. 9:30 9:45 a.m. Break 9:45 11:15 a.m. Breakouts Registration Continental breakfast 11:15 a.m. 12:45 p.m. Lunch (on your own) 12:45 2:15 p.m. Breakouts 2:15 2:30 p.m. Break 2:30 3:45 p.m. Keynote Richard DuFour Implementing the PLC Process: Will You Soar or Settle? Team time A collaboration time for your team. Presenters are available for help in team discussions. Foyer Titles & locations: pp. 3 & 5 Session descriptions: pp. 9 17 Titles & locations: pp. 3 & 5 Session descriptions: pp. 9 17 Friday, October 19 7:00 8:00 a.m. Continental breakfast Foyer 8:00 9:30 a.m. Breakouts 9:30 9:45 a.m. Break 9:45 11:45 a.m. Keynote Anthony Muhammad No More Drama: Getting Everyone on the Bus and Becoming a Real PLC Titles & locations: pp. 3 & 5 Session descriptions: pp. 9 17 Agenda is subject to change without prior notice. 1

Breakouts at a Glance Presenter and Title Wednesday, October 17 Thursday, October 18 Friday, October 19 10:00 11:30 a.m. 1:00 2:30 p.m. 9:45 11:15 a.m. 12:45 2:15 p.m. 8:00 9:30 a.m. Karen Branscombe Getting the Right Answers Means Asking the Right Questions Leading by Example: Yes, You Do Make a Difference Speaking With One Voice: One District s Journey Through the PLC Process Charlie Coleman A B C Hémon Hémon Jarry Joyce Breakouts at a Glance Pyramid of Behaviour Interventions: Seven Keys to a Positive Learning Environment Jarry Joyce B Reading Interventions at the Elementary School Level Jarry Joyce Rebecca & Richard DuFour Building the Collaborative Culture of a Professional Learning Community at Work (Part 1) Building the Collaborative Culture of a Professional Learning Community at Work (Part 2) Rebecca DuFour Raising the Bar and Closing the Gap: Whatever It Takes in Elementary Schools Centre East Lights, Camera, Action! Setting the Stage for PLC Success in Elementary Schools Centre East One Is the Loneliest Number: Developing Leadership Capacity in Your School Centre East Richard DuFour Raising the Bar and Closing the Gap: Whatever It Takes in Secondary Schools Getting Started: Building Consensus and Responding to Resisters How to Ensure That This Too Won t Pass: Sustaining the PLC Journey West 3

Breakouts at a Glance Presenter and Title Wednesday, October 17 Thursday, October 18 Friday, October 19 10:00 11:30 a.m. 1:00 2:30 p.m. 9:45 11:15 a.m. 12:45 2:15 p.m. 8:00 9:30 a.m. Greg Kushnir Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement The First Two Years: A Practitioner s Guide to Building a PLC Using Google to Enhance Your PLC Anthony Muhammad Elephants in the Room: Confronting Barriers to Collaboration Laurie Robinson Feedback: The Breakfast of Champions Assessing Students Responsively: Differentiating With a Laser Focus Sylvie Rochon B C West A West A West A West A Le travail des équipes de collaboration Jarry Joyce B Les conversations cruciales : une compétence essentielle dans le changement et le travail des équipes de collaboration Leadership et supervision pour un changement durable et de qualité Ainsley B. Rose Leading Professional Learning Communities: How Do You Know If You Have Made an Impact? Data: The Heart of PLC Teams Common Formative Assessments: The Essence of Professional Learning Communities Centre East Jarry Joyce Centre East C B C C Agenda is subject to change without prior notice. 5

Le Centre Sheraton Hôtel Montréal Maps 7

8 Le Centre Sheraton Hôtel Montréal

Karen Branscombe Getting the Right Answers Means Asking the Right Questions Jane is a great teacher. She often stays late and helps with filing in the office and she sometimes goes to home and school meetings. If this is the kind of answer you get when you ask about a teacher, it is time to look at the question being asked. The questions central office educators ask reflect the focus and vision of the district. What does great teaching look like in your district? What are the team discussions at a school? What does a principal know about instruction and learning? What are the look-fors when central office educators visit schools? In this session Karen Branscombe explores the vital role of the central office. Participants in this session: Learn about the link between the focus of the central office and student learning. Explore the evidence of what makes a central office great in the eyes of a school. Discuss the coaching school administrators need and how this role is critical for the central office. Leading by Example: Yes, You Do Make a Difference Hello, I am from the central office and I am here to help! or Here come the suits! Have you heard this before? If you have moved to an administrative and/or central office position, you know what this is about. In this session, participants explore the role of the central office in student learning and how to face the very real challenge of staying connected to the classroom. Karen Branscombe leads a discussion on how this leadership journey adds value to schools. Working as a professional learning community, the central office can model a focus on collaboration, learning, and results. In this session, participants: Learn of one district team s leadership style and how central office educators stay connected to classrooms. Discuss the role of central office educators in student success. Explore best practices for building credibility and trust between the central office and schools. Session Descriptions Speaking With One Voice: One District s Journey Through the PLC Process For the past six years, School District 2 has been on a PLC journey. By engaging 1,200 teachers in determining the essential learnings in their curriculum, district administrators have successfully moved the team towards common formative assessments. School District 2 continues to improve student learning by applying current best practice research in assessment and instruction. In this session, participants learn of the journey and leave with a roadmap to apply to their own districts. This session calls on participants to: Learn of the successful development of common formative assessments and nonnegotiables. Engage in a discussion of how non-negotiables are determined for a district of 1,200 teachers. Share best practices for the challenges and opportunities in a district when you focus on collaboration, learning, and results. 9

Charlie Coleman Pyramid of Behaviour Interventions: Seven Keys to a Positive Learning Environment In his recently published book (with co-authors Tom Hierck and Chris Weber), Charlie Coleman describes seven keys that create the conditions for learning in any school. Charlie shares examples of real schools making a real difference with real kids, and supports these examples with current research on effective schools, PLCs, and positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS). The seven keys help to pull these powerful, proven school improvement strategies together in a very realistic and doable way. Participants in this session: Gain familiarity with the seven keys to a positive learning environment. Develop an understanding of the critical connection between PLCs and PBIS. Recognize the power of personal connections and the impact this has on students and staff. Reading Interventions at the Elementary School Level Reading interventions within a PLC enhance the success of any structure or strategy that a school may put into place. This session explores a series of reading intervention strategies an award-winning, inner city elementary school successfully implemented. Charlie Coleman shares examples from that school s PLC journey that saw reading scores move from 67 percent to almost 90 percent, with considerable improvement in the achievement of the large aboriginal student population. While the focus of this session is on elementary schools, there are practical applications for grades K 8. In this session, Charlie helps attendees: Examine practical reading intervention strategies used within a PLC. Share hands-on examples of how to differentiate reading instruction. Take away strategies and steps that any school can use to improve reading scores. Rebecca & Richard DuFour Building the Collaborative Culture of a Professional Learning Community at Work (Parts 1 & 2) Powerful collaborative teams are the fundamental building block of a professional learning community and a critical component in building a collaborative culture. Learn how educators transform their congenial groups into high-performing collaborative teams, and get a sense of the specific work undertaken by those teams. Discover ways to provide time and support for collaborative teams during the school day. More importantly, identify structures and strategies to help teams stay focused on doing the work that has a positive impact on student achievement. This two-part continuing session is designed for educators at all levels and is highly recommended for all participants who are new to PLC concepts. 10

Rebecca DuFour The Power of Professional Learning Communities at Work: Bringing the Big Ideas to Life The professional learning community concept is supported by research and endorsed by educational organizations at all levels as our best hope for sustained, substantive improvement. But what are the big ideas that drive the professional learning community concept, and what do they look like in the real world of education? Rebecca DuFour offers practical strategies for bringing the big ideas to life. Participants engage in the actual work of collaborative teams in a PLC and travel on virtual field trips to schools and districts that use these ideas to profoundly impact student and adult learning. Raising the Bar and Closing the Gap: Whatever It Takes in Elementary Schools Schools that function as PLCs must ultimately do two things: 1) build a collaborative culture to promote continuous adult learning, and 2) create structures and systems that provide students with additional time and support for learning. Participants in this session examine strategies to collectively: Respond to the learning needs of each student in a timely, directive, and systematic way. Create and sustain strong parent partnerships to enhance student learning. Make celebrations a part of the school culture. After examining different models of systematic intervention and enrichment, participants receive criteria to assess their own school s response and an action-planning template for next steps in raising the bar and closing the gap. This session is recommended for elementary school educators. Lights, Camera, Action! Setting the Stage for PLC Success in Elementary Schools Elementary school educators beginning the PLC journey face the immediate challenge of how to provide the time and structure essential to the PLC process. This interactive workshop is designed to help elementary educators address that challenge. Becky DuFour provides effective templates and proven strategies for reallocating existing resources to support learning for all. Participants are invited to bring their creative ideas to this session. This session is recommended for elementary-level educators who have an interest in and/or a responsibility for creating schoolwide and team schedules. One Is the Loneliest Number: Developing Leadership Capacity in Your School Both educational researchers and organizational theorists have concluded that widespread leadership is essential to the success of a learning organization. To initiate and sustain the PLC process in your school or district, lots of leaders are necessary. In this highly interactive session, participants examine a case study, identify specific strategies to develop and support leaders, and create the structures for widely dispersed leadership that is characteristic of PLCs. = Keynote 11

Richard DuFour Implementing the PLC Process: Will You Soar or Settle? The journey to becoming a professional learning community is fraught with dangerous detours and seductive shortcuts at every turn. Inevitably, these detours and shortcuts can circumvent actually doing what PLCs are meant to do. Recent studies have found that partial implementation of the PLC process produces no gains in student achievement while deep implementation results in dramatic gains. In this session, Richard DuFour alerts educators to inevitable challenges in implementing a PLC and provides research, rationale, strategies, and tools for overcoming these challenges. Raising the Bar and Closing the Gap: Whatever It Takes in Secondary Schools The mission statement of most schools asserts all students can and should learn. The nagging question that confronts those schools, however, is What happens when they don t learn? This session uses the powerful video Through New Eyes: Examining the Culture of Your School to help you see school from a new perspective the perspective of a student. Participants then contrast the traditional school response when students experience initial difficulty in their learning with the systematic response of a professional learning community. This session calls on participants to: Assess the current manner in which their schools respond when students do not learn. Examine different schedules and models that provide students who are not learning with a timely, directive, and systematic response that ensures they receive the additional time and support essential to their learning. This session is recommended for middle and high school educators. Getting Started: Building Consensus and Responding to Resisters The most significant barrier to building a school culture focused on continuous improvement is the tradition of privatization of practice, isolation, and individual autonomy that has characterized teaching. How can a faculty build consensus for significant change? What are the most effective ways of addressing the concerns of those who resist even when the staff has decided to move forward? As a result of this session, participants can: Define consensus. Apply the most effective strategies for building consensus. Utilize seven research-based strategies for addressing resistance. 12 = Keynote

Richard DuFour How to Ensure That This Too Won t Pass: Sustaining the PLC Journey Most education leaders have ample experience launching school-improvement initiatives but few have experience in sustaining those initiatives until actual improvement occurs. A central challenge for any school engaged in the PLC process whether its journey is just beginning or it has been on the journey for several years is sustaining the focus, collective effort, and commitment necessary to drive the process deep into the culture. In this session, participants explore current research on how to sustain an improvement effort then translate that research into specific, practical strategies they can implement in their own schools or districts. Greg Kushnir Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement Continuous improvement culminates in change, and change is not easy. However, change is possible and can happen much more quickly and painlessly than you may think. This session examines ten steps that must be in place to ensure that school staff can develop and live in a culture of continuous improvement. In this session, participants examine: The role of culture in school improvement The ten steps necessary to create a culture of continuous improvement Their schools current cultures in order to determine next steps The First Two Years: A Practitioner s Guide to Building a PLC Creating a professional learning community doesn t occur by accident. Often, the journey challenges long-held beliefs and existing practices, which can seriously impede the process. The bottom line is the school needs a plan. Greg Kushnir shares the practical steps he used to build a PLC and dramatically improve achievement in each school he has led. This session focuses on the actions necessary to take in the first two years to ensure that your PLC is successful. Participants in this session: Examine a proven plan of action for developing a PLC culture. Learn how to create educational equity for all children in a school while overcoming the roadblocks to success. Explore next steps for your school or district. 13

Greg Kushnir Using Google to Enhance Your PLC When a school commits to creating a culture of collaboration, teachers begin by creating products of their work. Essential learning outcomes, year-long plans, common assessments, intervention and instructional strategies, team meeting summaries, and at-risk student tracking sheets are just some examples of the documents your teachers need to access daily. This session examines how your school can use the free web-based Google suite of tools to increase the efficiency of your collaborative teams and how these tools can be used to easily gather and deliver common assessment data. Greg Kushnir helps attendees: Create a Google share site to organize and store the products of collaborative teams. See how Google Docs can be used to facilitate collaboration for singletons and digital teams. Use Google forms to create common assessments and generate data. Discover how Google forms can be used to monitor and share the progress of each collaborative team in your school. Anthony Muhammad No More Drama: Getting Everyone on the Bus and Becoming a Real PLC This presentation deals head on with the issue of conflicting agendas within schools. A PLC has a very clear vision of its purpose: learning for all students. Anthony Muhammad examines the barriers to aligning the adults agendas with the school agenda and what leaders and teachers must do to develop the synergy necessary to guarantee learning. Dr. Muhammad discusses the importance of: Understanding the root cause of social division and how to heal old wounds Clarifying everyone s role in developing a healthy learning environment Embracing the moral imperative of teaching over personal agendas Elephants in the Room: Confronting Barriers to Collaboration Many educators are placed into teams, but many never make progress because of personal and professional drama that prevents them from focusing on the needs of students. A house divided cannot stand! Anthony Muhammad helps participants examine psychological and sociological barriers that can arise and interfere with a school s or a team s ability to move forward. As a result of this session, participants leave with a clear understanding of what it takes to create a highly collaborative culture. Participants in this session: Recognize the barriers to effective collaboration. Strategize on how to prevent and overcome barriers to effective collaboration. Leave with practical tools to immediately address disturbing issues that prevent progress. 14 = Keynote

Laurie Robinson Feedback: The Breakfast of Champions The research is clear: teachers make a difference! In a paper he delivered at the annual Australian Council of Educational Research conference, John Hattie identified five major dimensions expert teachers exhibit. Laurie Robinson focuses on one of the most powerful of the five: feedback. When feedback is frequent, consistent, and descriptive, it helps monitor and provide multiple opportunities for continued learning. Participants in this session: Learn the five dimensions of expert teaching. Understand the difference between descriptive and evaluative feedback. Leave with numerous feedback tools and strategies for immediate use with staff and students. Assessing Students Responsively: Differentiating With a Laser Focus Without first creating a clear roadmap for quality instruction, differentiation is a daunting task. Establishing a tight curriculum is a necessary first step, followed by instructional strategies to understand how each student learns. Participants in this session: Identify ways to assess learning through content, process, and product, according to readiness, interest, and learner profiles. Examine Robert Sternberg s model of three major intelligences: creative, analytical, and practical, interwoven with Howard Gardner s list of eight basic intelligence types. Learn multiple examples of differentiating through tic-tac-toe, choice boards, compacting, and learning contracts. Sylvie Rochon Le travail des équipes de collaboration Nous cherchons tous à être efficaces et à optimiser notre travail. Le travail en équipe de collaboration a permis à plusieurs écoles d améliorer les pratiques professionnelles et par le fait même assurer la réussite d un plus grand nombre d élèves. L atelier présente un encadrement pour le travail des équipes de collaboration. L atelier vise un échange concret sur des pratiques et des outils de travail qui ont été mis en œuvre dans des écoles élémentaires et secondaires. À la fin de cet atelier, les participants et les participantes pourront : Comprendre le travail des équipes de collaboration Examiner différents outils pour encadrer le travail des professionnels Examiner des exemples concrets d horaire et autres outils de travail des équipes de collaboration 15

Sylvie Rochon Les conversations cruciales : une compétence essentielle dans le changement et le travail des équipes de collaboration Il semble parfois plus facile de travailler avec des élèves qu entre adultes. Le travail des équipes de collaboration provoque souvent des malaises, des problèmes qui doivent être discutés entre professionnels. Comment peut-on appuyer les professionnels à se sentir à l aise de discuter d enjeux importants avec leurs collègues? L atelier présente un modèle théorique et des techniques concrètes de conversations cruciales qui ont porté fruit dans les écoles. À la fin de cet atelier, les participants et les participantes pourront: Comprendre la valeur ajoutée d avoir des conversations cruciales Examiner les techniques gagnantes des conversations cruciales Examiner les conditions gagnantes pour avoir des conversations cruciales Leadership et supervision pour un changement durable et de qualité Le travail en CAP signifie toute une transformation culturelle dans nos écoles. Amener un changement durable dans une école ou une organisation présente parfois tout un défi pour les leaders. Le leader se demande : Comment puis-je mobiliser les membres de mon école dans le changement? Quels sont les premiers pas à faire? Comment réagir aux personnes réticentes? Comment puis-je m assurer de la qualité des changements? Quels sont les incontournables dans le changement? L atelier présentera des pistes de réponses à ces questions à partir d exemples concrets et de modèles théoriques. À la fin de cet atelier, les participants et les participantes pourront : Réfléchir à différents moyens pour un leader d amener un changement dans son école Porter un regard critique sur des incontournables de supervision : le plan d amélioration, l analyse des données, le leadership partagé. Examiner différentes stratégies de supervision à grand impact : visites des équipes de collaboration, visites en salle de classe, analyse des données Ainsley B. Rose Leading Professional Learning Communities: How Do You Know If You Have Made an Impact? Dr. John Hattie, in his landmark book Visible Learning, challenges readers to know their impact. This session examines this intriguing question and shares some of the startling evidence found in this book to create some cognitive dissonance with our current thinking about leadership and the implications it might have for our work in PLCs. 16

Ainsley B. Rose Data: The Heart of PLC Teams A professional learning community is the essence of a highly functioning school and the successes of both are intertwined. Gathering, analyzing, and using data to inform instruction is what makes the difference in achieving gains in student learning. However, the process of making this work happen effectively requires a scholarly, organized approach to avoid what is often referred to as the DRIP syndrome. In this interactive session, Ainsley B. Rose leads participants through a simulation of a PLC team in operation. Thus, participants experience an approach that is helpful in creating and applying a collaborative culture to analyze student achievement data to make instructional decisions that result in increased student learning. Common Formative Assessments: The Essence of Professional Learning Communities If they are not already, common formative assessments should be the foundation of your work. Common formative assessments drive the conversations of a PLC, bring about a powerful impact on student learning, and raise student achievement. The challenge facing many of us is how to create, administer, and use the results of these assessments to inform our work. This session is designed to help participants understand a process for building common formative assessments. This session affords participants the opportunity to: Increase assessment literacy. Learn how to build a draft CFA. Share successes with CFAs or ask questions to clarify formative assessment practices. 17