An ongoing process of reflecting on practice, undertaking professional learning, implementing professional learning, and assessing impact in order to focus collaboration and actions around student learning.

We offer support with different cycles of inquiry and continuous improvement models to meet your goals, strengths and needs.

TRU PLC

A TRU PLC takes the very best of a PLC and adds the TRU framework, equitable practices, formative assessment data, and an equity monitoring process.

The TRU PLC reflects the following actions and behaviors:

  • Ensuring that students learn: shift from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning.
  • Embracing a culture of collaboration and learning: work together to achieve the collective goal of learning for ALL and to remove barriers for success.
  • Focusing on results: judge efficacy on the basis of timely result.
  • Focusing dialogue around the dimensions of the TRU Framework (TRU).
  • Ensuring equitable practices by analyzing decisions through the student perspective (TRU).
  • Collecting authentic data that comes from formative assessment and respond (TRU).

Key Components of TRU PLC

  • Reflective and structured dialogue around the dimensions of TRU Framework.
  • Formative assessment should be used to provide data which informs teacher and student’s next steps.
  • PLC dialogue prioritizes equitable teaching practices and equitable learning outcomes.
  • Operates as a learning cycle of inquiry: Study, Plan, Do/Test, Reflect, Revise.

Lesson Study

Lesson Study is an inquiry cycle of teacher-led research, experimentation, observation, and reflection. Teachers participating in lesson study bring their own questions to the table and seek to learn from one another, outside specialists, and research. The community of practice also seeks to design lessons collaboratively, and hold each other accountable to the process. Teachers dedicate time to do a careful study of focal students and research content and pedagogy to design a lesson targeted to the focal students (UDL). Using a dual focus on equity and mathematics (practices and content), teachers work together to improve student learning outcomes or experiences by targeting a specific area for improvement.

 Study  Plan  Test  Reflect
  • Study students by identifying focal students, their strengths, and areas for growth.
  • Identify goals for developing student mathematical identity and agency.
  • Identify mathematics learning objectives.
  • Study cluster headings, instructional research, and curricula.
Use insights from the study phase to design a lesson that addresses the research purpose. Think about:
  • Standards for mathematical practice.
  • Access.
  • Task.
  • Cognitive demand.
  • Discourse.
  • Questioning strategies.
  • Collaborative structures.
  • Formative assessment.
  • Success criteria/evidence.
  • Teach lesson.
  • Observe focal students.
  • Collect evidence.
  • Professional noticing and wondering.
  • Commentary.
  • Propose next steps.
 Learning of the team progress towards research purpose.

Learning Walks

Instructional walks help educators look closely at what is happening in the classrooms or schools in a systematic, purposeful, and focused inquiry cycle. The team identifies a research purpose or problem of practice, calibrates around the research purpose, identifies success criteria, and collects evidence around it through classroom observations. Pre-work to instructional rounds may include focus groups, empathy interviews, and research on best practices. The rounds conclude by having teams reflect on the progress towards the research purpose, team learnings, and consensus of next steps.

School-Wide Assessment Teams

Student success is related to the culture of learning in an entire school, assessments that address schoolwide culture can be powerful. Schoolwide assessment teams consists of trained educators, parents, and community members who visit schools, observing can address schoolwide learning culture. The training consists of calibration around a problem of practice the school members want to address. Assessment team members, observe classrooms, follow students, and interview stakeholders to collect authentic data around the current reality. The data is used to support collaboration around innovative next steps that site educators can begin to address collectively.