The Impact on Mathematics Teaching Environments Through Establishing, Developing, and Maintaining Professional Learning Communities
The project engaged four full-time mathematics coaches to work in each of the four school clusters (a high school with its feeder schools), each aided and supported by a CSUF Faculty Partner (mathematics or mathematics education professor). Specific instruction was provided to both teachers and school administrators on what is involved in establishing and maintaining effective PLCs through outside experts at summer and site-based professional development events. Teachers had ample opportunity to begin collaborating during summer activities and to continue regularly throughout the school year.
Each PLC was encouraged to revisit and improve upon common agreements, action plans, and common assessments on a regular basis. The work centered around three specific strategies: using data to get results, improving classroom assessment, and coaching and mentoring. Professional Learning Communities promoted a commitment to a common vision from all members of the department through annual and ongoing collaboration to monitor student progress and develop lesson designs that encouraged student engagement.
To sustain the PLCs beyond the grant period, the project has worked with teacher-leaders, helping them develop the leadership and facilitation skills needed to guide high-functioning PLCs. They are planning and implementing all meetings in the final phase of the TASEL-M grant. This will allow activities, discussion, and analysis done by coaches to be turned over for sustainability of the work begun with the grant.
As part of the evaluation effort, the evaluators are employing a quasi-experimental design to investigate how the introduction of PLCs has affected the mathematics teaching environment of TASEL-M schools. It will look at possible correlations between the strength of the PLC and measures of teachers' classroom performance as well as the performance of students on the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) and California Standards Tests (CST) as part of the STAR system.
Determination of the strength of the PLC is made using multiple methods including: the PLC Checklist that measures teacher and coach perceptions; examination of common agreements, common assessments, action plans, and common lessons; observations of the PLCs in action; and teacher interviews and surveys.
