as they encourage teachers to think and operate as individuals instead of interdependent team members. Individual teachers going it alone can prevent many question 4 students from feeling challenged. Gayle Gregory, Martha Kaufeldt, and Mike Mattos (2016) remind us that “there is no way an individual teacher has all the time, all the skills, and all the knowledge necessary to meet every student’s individual needs” (p. 16). John Hattie (2009) echoes that assertion, arguing that teachers need to work collaboratively, debating and investigating best practices to help students achieve at their fullest potential.
All educators want to be appreciated for their hard work. Unfortunately, teachers in many districts have learned that for their work to be recognized, they must create flashy projects or experiences for students. Often, as witnessed in my work in schools, projects sold as extensions lack a fundamental grounding in essential standards, do not have focused learning targets, and bring a tremendous workload for the individual teacher who must complete additional tasks such as securing and organizing community volunteers, obtaining materials, securing permission paperwork, and creating props. These types of projects can consume teachers’ already limited time, further reducing their availability to address question 4 in a meaningful way. What’s more, they don’t utilize the collaborative work essential to functioning in a PLC.
Being a collaborative team that is part of a PLC means putting students’ needs first, ahead of any adult ego or need to be the teacher everyone asks for. In a truly collaborative culture, team members work together, each contributing to make these flashy lessons more substantive, establish clearer learning targets, and guarantee student learning. A team of teachers can more readily ensure that students are truly extended and supported as they deepen their learning.
Summary
Throughout this book, I return to the theme that question 4 students, if presented with poorly planned or ineffective extensions, are just as much at risk of not succeeding in school as students who are not yet proficient on a given standard. Teachers must work in effective, interdependent, collaborative teams to plan and execute effective extensions to truly answer critical question 4 of a PLC: “How will we extend the learning for students who have demonstrated proficiency?” (DuFour et al., 2016, p. 59).
Remember as you progress through the book that when I refer to question 4 students or proficient students, I am not talking about identified gifted students. While gifted students often fall into the “already proficient” grouping, they may be below proficiency in some standards. In those standards, they need the same instruction and intervention supports as every other student. Similarly, students not identified as gifted often can demonstrate proficiency at any time, and when they do, they need to be extended. Proficient students refers to students who have demonstrated proficiency on a given standard regardless of any associated label.
Collaborative Team Reflection
Teams may reflect on the following four questions to support their collaborative work around responding to critical question 4.
1. What is critical question 4 of a PLC? How might answering this question in an authentic way change your team’s collaborative meetings?
2. How often do we run out of time to answer critical question 4 effectively? What steps can we take to ensure it is addressed?
3. What practices are currently in place within our team that we need to change or end in order to create effective extensions?
4. Did we include an expectation in our SMART goal for question 4 students to grow their learning? What standards will serve as extension standards to keep these students learning and engaged?
chapter two
Identifying Question 4 Students and Intentionally Planning Extensions
Planning is everything.
—DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
Mrs. Rose sat and looked at Mr. Youngblood who, in turn, looked at Mrs. Sawyer. Until this moment, the collaborative meeting had gone well. This team of teachers reviewed the data the students had produced on the common formative assessment it had created and the instructional practices that led to this data. The team members used that data to identify students who needed serious remediation in prerequisite skills. They then planned interventions to provide additional support on the essential standard to students who needed it. But they still had one group of students left—the students who had demonstrated proficiency. They were unsure what to do with those students. The team knew there were four critical questions a collaborative team needed to answer, but surely, they argued, this fourth question regarding how to respond to proficient students was the least important. After all, these students were already successful with the material. Anything the team came up with would be fine, right? Besides, the time allotted for their meeting was quickly expiring and they all had other things to do.
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