Taking Action. Austin Buffum
is as much a way of thinking as it is a process of doing.
RTI is as much a way of thinking as it is a process of doing. Our fear in writing an implementation book is that readers will interpret it as a checklist of tasks. There are both important guiding principles that drive the work and essential actions to do for RTI to work. But within these parameters, each school must be flexible regarding how to implement these practices to best meet the unique needs of the students they serve with the resources available. Additionally, schools must work within the laws and regulations of their district, state or province, and country. Understanding the right thinking empowers educators to be true to the process but flexible in implementation. To this end, this book is designed to develop two types of outcomes.
1. Guiding principles that serve as a framework for the right thinking
2. Essential actions that transform this thinking into specific steps
Both are critical and will help educators do the right work right. Research and theory alone won’t help a single student unless we transform them into action. Educators rarely embrace and effectively implement new practices when they don’t understand why they are doing them.
Because being a professional learning community is the foundation of our approach to RTI, understanding the PLC at Work process is necessary to apply our recommendations and practices. At its core, three big ideas and four critical questions guide the PLC at Work process.
The Three Big Ideas That Drive the Work of PLCs
We call our approach RTI at Work because we firmly believe that the best way to ensure high levels of learning for both students and educators is for schools or districts to function as a professional learning community. The essential characteristics of our approach to RTI perfectly align with the fundamental elements of the overarching PLC at Work process. RTI at Work is built on a proven research base of best practices and is a tool to assist PLC schools in achieving their mission to ensure high levels of student learning.
Research and theory alone won’t help a single student unless we transform them into action.
The PLC at Work process requires educators to work collaboratively to:
► Learn together about the practices, policies, procedures, and beliefs that best ensure student learning
► Apply what they are learning
► Use evidence of student learning to evaluate, revise, and celebrate their collective efforts to improve student achievement
These outcomes are captured in the three big ideas of the PLC at Work process: (1) a focus on learning, (2) a collaborative culture, and (3) a results orientation.
A Focus on Learning
A PLC school’s core mission is not simply to ensure that all students are taught but also that they actually learn. As Richard DuFour, Rebecca DuFour, Robert Eaker, Thomas W. Many, and Mike Mattos (2016) state in the PLC handbook Learning by Doing:
The first (and the biggest) of the big ideas is based on the premise that the fundamental purpose of the school is to ensure that all students learn at high levels (grade level or higher). This focus on and commitment to the learning of each student is the very essence of a learning community. (p. 11)
In previous books, we refer to this concept as collective responsibility—a shared belief that the primary responsibility of each member of the organization is to ensure high levels of learning for every child.
This seismic shift from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning requires far more than rewriting a school’s mission statement or creating a catchy “learning for all” motto to put on the school’s letterhead. This commitment to ensure student learning unites and focuses the collaborative efforts of the staff and serves as the organization’s “north star” when making decisions. The school’s policies, practices, and procedures are guided by the question, Will this help more students learn at higher levels?
As stated in Learning by Doing:
The members of a PLC create and are guided by a clear and compelling vision of what the organization must become in order to help all students learn. They make collective commitments clarifying what each member will do to create such an organization, and they use results-oriented goals to mark their progress. Members work together to clarify exactly what each student must learn, monitor each student’s learning on a timely basis, provide systematic interventions that ensure students receive additional time and support for learning when they struggle, and extend their learning when students have already mastered the intended outcomes. (DuFour et al., 2016, p. 11)
Creating consensus and commitment to becoming a learning-focused school or district is an essential prerequisite to successful RTI implementation. Likewise, any school already committed to the PLC process would heartily embrace RTI as an essential tool in achieving their commitment to guarantee every student’s success.
A Collaborative Culture
The second big idea is a commitment to creating a collaborative culture. Because no teacher can possibly possess all the knowledge, skills, time, and resources needed to ensure high levels of learning for all his or her students, educators at a PLC school work collaboratively and take collective responsibility for student success. Instead of allowing individual teachers to work in isolation, teacher teams become the fundamental structure of the school. Collaboration does not happen by invitation or chance; instead, frequent team time is embedded into the contractual day.
Creating collaborative teacher teams will not improve student learning unless their efforts focus on the right work. To this end, teacher collaboration in the PLC at Work process is guided by four critical questions:
1. What knowledge, skills, and dispositions should every student acquire as a result of this unit, this course, or this grade level?
2. How will we know when each student has acquired the essential knowledge and skills?
3. How will we respond when some students do not learn?
4. How will we extend the learning for students who are already proficient? (DuFour et al., 2016, p. 36)
Question 1 requires teachers of the same course or grade level to collectively determine what they expect all their students to know and be able to do. After all, a school cannot possibly create a systematic, collective response when students do not learn if individual teachers focus on different essential learning standards. By identifying essential standards, teacher teams can analyze, prioritize, and otherwise unpack standards of what is most essential for students to know. We refer to this process as concentrated instruction—a systematic process of identifying essential knowledge, skills, and behaviors that all students must master to learn at high levels and determining the specific learning needs for each child to get there.
Because the school is committed to all students learning these essential standards, teams must be prepared to identify students who require additional time and support. This process is captured in the third big idea.
A Results Orientation
The third big idea focuses on evidence of student learning. In order to assess their effectiveness in ensuring all students learn, educators must use “evidence of learning to inform and improve their professional practice and respond to individual students who need intervention and enrichment” (DuFour et al., 2016, p. 12).
After identifying the knowledge and skills that all students must learn, collaborative teams focus on the second critical question: How will we know when each student has acquired the essential knowledge and skills? Educators functioning as a PLC must assess their efforts to achieve high levels of learning for all students based on concrete results rather than good intentions.
Student assessment information constitutes the “life blood” of an effective system of interventions; teachers use it to identify students in need of additional time and support and to confirm which core instructional strategies are most effective in meeting students’ needs. We refer to this