The Authors
 Richard DuFour
 Long-time educational administrator, author
 Professional Learning Community (PLC) expert
 Co-authored primary text in EDD 8111 Communities of
Practice (DuFour & Eaker, 1998)
 www.allthingsplc.info
 Robert Marzano
 Long-time educational researcher and author
 www.marzanoresearch.com
Similarities to EDD 9100
 Kouzes and Posner (2007) extensively cited
 Five practices of exemplary leadership (Model the way,
Inspire a shared vision, Challenge the process, Enable
others to act, and Encourage the heart)
 Staying in love; leadership is an affair of the heart
 Northouse (2012): leadership is an influence process
to achieve common goals, and leadership is about
relationships and results
 Clawson (2012): importance of emotion; VABEs
 Vision is essential
Similarities (cont’d)
 Principalship is key to creating culture and building
capacity (self-efficacy)
 Distributed leadership
 Principal’s Actions
Collaborative Teams
Actions
Student Achievement
Teacher
 Professional development is embedded (learn from
work versus taken away from work to learn)
 Importance of communication (clear, inspiring)
 Importance of celebration of milestones
Dissimilarities to EDD 9100
 Focused primarily on leading educational systemic
change and improving student achievement through
PLCs
 Less on interpersonal aspects of leadership
 No discussion of ethics and integrity
Learnings/Reinforcements
 Every great leader is teaching and every great teacher is
leading
 Power of PLC to align resources to measurably improve
student learning
 Three Big Ideas
 All students learn at high levels
 Collaborative effort to meet student needs
 Results orientation (use SMART goals: Strategically aligned,
Measurable, Attainable, Results focused, Time-bound)
 Evidence of impact
 Administrivia
Focus on Student Learning
Learnings (cont’d)
 Collaborative practice, sharing, and observation
 Learning from peers, mutual accountability
 Shift from principals vertically ‘supervising’ teachers to
educators horizontally building collaborative capacity
 Transformation from culture of isolation to culture of
collaboration
 Recurring cycle of collective inquiry
 Curriculum
Learning engagement design
Monitoring student learning
 Individual student differentiation
Job Relevance
 My role as 8Red PLC leader
 Essential to gain shared vision and ownership of
direction
 My role on Middle School Leadership Team
 Help us improve PLC effectiveness
 My role on upcoming Differentiation Task Force
 TBD, student learning enrichment
 My role as Algebra 1 teacher
 Individual student learning needs
Agreements
 Senior leadership must ensure organization has the
capacity to deliver against coherent initiatives
 Avoid initiative fatigue
 Focus on the critical few
 Sustained, patient, continual effort
 Provide time and resources
 Collaborative time (i.e., common planning time)
 Role of effective educator is a calling, a work of love,
because it is fundamentally about serving others
 The people; passion for a moral purpose
 The process; must be a lifelong learner
Agreements (cont’d)
 Beware the Dark Side
 Clawson (2012): “Be aware that when people work on
something they believe in deeply, they can work so
hard that they begin to do damage to themselves and
others” (p.232)
 Be mindful of sphere of influence
 Move to standards-based reporting including
learning behaviors (O’Connor, 2007)
Disagreements
 Including traditional letter or numeric grading
schemes on standards-based report cards
(O’Connor, 2013)
 Discussion on formative assessment omitted
importance of student self-assessment (McMillan &
Hearn, 2008)
Who Should Read and
Why?
 Constituents in education at all levels
 From Board of Directors to teachers
 Alignment of organization on initiatives key to student
learning
 Professional Learning Community model is a paradigm
shift in pedagogy
References
 Clawson, J. G. (2012). Level three leadership: Getting below the surface
(5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
 DuFour, R., & Eaker, R. (1998). Professional learning communities at
work: Best practices for enhancing student achievement. Bloomington,
IN: National Educational Service.
 DuFour, R., & Marzano, R. J. (2011). Leaders of learning: How district,
school, and classroom leaders improve student achievement.
Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.
 Kouzes, J., & Posner, B. (2007). The leadership challenge (4th ed.). San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
References (cont’d)
 McMillan J. H., & Hearn, J. (2008). Student self-assessment: The key to
stronger student motivation and higher achievement. Educational
Horizons (87)1, 40-49. Retrieved from
http://www.eric.ed.gov/ezproxylocal.library.nova.edu/PDFS/EJ815370.
pdf
 Northouse, P. G. (2012). Introduction to leadership (2nd ed.). Thousand
Oaks, CA: SAGE.
 O’Connor, K. (2007). A repair kit for grading: Fifteen fixes for broken
grades. Portland, OR: ETS Assessment Training Institute.
 O’Connor, K. (2013). Essentials for principals: The school leader’s guide
to grading. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.
Image URLs
 Slide 9. SAS logo. Retrieved from http//:www.saschina.org
 Slide 13. Board of Directors. Retrieved from
http://ts4.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.4604759954425579&pid=15.1
 Slide 13. Teacher. Retrieved from
http://ts2.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.4535250221531749&pid=15.1