work from the same document. Too often, however, the mere distribution of documents has little impact on what actually happens in the classroom. We cannot assume that individual teachers will read the documents, interpret them consistently, apply the same priorities to each curricular standard, devote similar amounts of time to the various standards, and have the ability to teach each standard well. Furthermore, simply distributing documents to teachers does not result in either the teacher clarity or the teacher commitment essential to provide students with a guaranteed and viable curriculum.
As we state in Leaders of Learning (DuFour & Marzano, 2011):
The only way the curriculum in a school can truly be guaranteed is if the teachers themselves, those who are called upon to deliver the curriculum, have worked collaboratively to do the following:
• Study the intended curriculum.
• Agree on priorities within the curriculum.
• Clarify how the curriculum translates into student knowledge and skills.
• Establish general pacing guidelines for delivering the curriculum.
• Commit to one another that they will, in fact, teach the agreed-upon curriculum. (p. 91)
States and districts can prescribe an intended curriculum, but the implemented curriculum—what gets taught when the teacher closes the classroom door—has a bigger impact on the attained curriculum—what students actually learn. High reliability schools require the PLC process to establish a rigorous, guaranteed, and viable curriculum that reflects a commitment to both excellence and equity.
How Will We Know If Students Are Learning?
Once again, it stands to reason that a school committed to ensuring high levels of learning for all students would have a process in place to continually monitor and support each student’s learning. That process would include strategies that check for student understanding during classroom instruction each day. Team members could work together to enhance each other’s strategies for making these ongoing checks. For example, teachers could ask students directed questions focused on content that is critical to students’ academic success, have students write short responses or solve problems during observation, and gather signals from students as to their level of understanding using whiteboards, clickers, or exit slips. This daily formative assessment is intended to help teachers assess student understanding and make instructional adjustments. It also alerts students to areas of confusion or misunderstanding so they can seek the appropriate help.
But the cornerstone of the PLC assessment process is team-developed common formative assessments administered at least once during a unit. A team assesses students who are expected to acquire the same knowledge and skills, using the same method and instrument, according to the team’s agreed-on criteria for judging the quality of student work.
Extensive research supports the effectiveness of common assessments (Ainsworth, 2014; Battelle for Kids, 2015; Chenoweth, 2009; Christman et al., 2009; Odden & Archibald, 2009; Reeves, 2004). But the research in support of formative assessments is even more compelling. As Dylan Wiliam and Marnie Thompson (2007) conclude, effective use of formative assessments, developed through teacher learning communities, promises not only the largest potential gains in student achievement but also a process for affordable teacher professional development. Marzano (2006) describes formative assessment as “one of the most powerful weapons in a teacher’s arsenal. An effective standards-based, formative assessment program can help to dramatically enhance student achievement throughout the K–12 system” (back cover). Also, W. James Popham (2013) writes, “Ample research evidence is now at hand to indicate emphatically that when the formative-assessment process is used, students learn better—lots better” (p. 29).
Unquestionably, team-developed common formative assessments serve the interest of equity because a teacher team, rather than an isolated teacher, establishes questions of assessment types, rigor, and criteria for success. It is important to emphasize, however, that these assessments also serve the purpose of excellence. When teachers have clarity on what they want their students to accomplish and they know how they will ask students to demonstrate their proficiency, they more effectively help students learn.
Furthermore, when teachers use the information from these common formative assessments to examine the impact of their individual and collective practice, they experience a powerful catalyst for instructional improvement. In a PLC, educators use a protocol for examining evidence of student learning. First, team members identify struggling students who need additional time and support for learning. Second, they identify students who demonstrate high proficiency and will benefit from an extended learning opportunity. Providing this intervention and extension is part of a schoolwide plan to better meet the needs of individual students.
The team then turns its attention to the performance of students taught by specific teachers. If a teacher’s students have performed particularly well, the team asks the teacher to share strategies, ideas, and materials that contributed to that success. If a teacher’s students have struggled, the team offers advice, assistance, and materials to help the teacher improve his or her instruction. The team uses evidence of student learning to promote its members’ learning.
As Kerry Patterson and his colleagues find in their study of what influences people to change, “Nothing changes the mind like the hard cold world hitting it in the face with actual real-life data” (Patterson, Grenny, Maxfield, McMillan, & Switzler, 2008, p. 51). Richard Elmore (2006) comes to a similar conclusion, writing, “Teachers have to feel that there is some compelling reason for them to practice differently, with the best direct evidence being that students learn better” (p. 38).
When a collaborative teacher team analyzes the transparent results of a common formative assessment, evidence of student learning speaks for itself. A teacher who genuinely believes his or her students lack the ability to produce quality work can be persuaded to re-examine that assumption when students taught by other team members consistently demonstrate quality. As Elmore (2010) writes, “Adult beliefs about what children can learn are changed by watching students do things that the adults didn’t believe that they—the students—could do” (p. 8). Concrete evidence of irrefutably better results acts as a powerful persuader.
Common formative assessments can also bring about change in instructional practice through the power of positive peer pressure. I have never known a teacher who feels indifferent to how peers perceive him or her when it comes to instructional competence. A teacher whose students consistently cannot demonstrate proficiency on common formative assessments will either look for ways to improve instruction or look for a school where a lack of transparency about student learning allows him or her to hide. Unfortunately, many such schools exist.
When a team administers a common formative assessment, another possible outcome may occur. What if no one on the team has the ability to help students demonstrate the intended knowledge or skill? If the team agrees that the skill or concept is indeed essential to student success, and it agrees that its common formative assessment reliably ascertains whether students have become proficient, it becomes incumbent on the team to look to its professional development for teaching the skill or concept more effectively. The team can look to other educators in the school or district, specialists from the central office, coaches, networks of educators, or workshops on the topic. In other words, student learning needs drive professional development.
How Will We Respond When Students Don’t Learn?
In even the greatest schools, some students will likely not meet an instructional unit’s intended outcomes by the time the unit ends, despite teachers’ best efforts and intentions. In a traditional school, in which a single isolated classroom teacher takes sole responsibility
