• Protocol B:

    This protocol is designed to look at the data from your common formative assessments.  Once the common formative assessment is given, teachers bring the student products back to the PLC and share.   There are several advantages to looking at the data as a team.  Teachers are able to  gauge how their students are doing in comparison to other teachers and other classes.  This also opens the door for discussion around the best instructional practices to meet the needs of students.  This is a very important part of the on the job-embedded learning that is to happen in the PLC process.  These discussions are based on data with evidence that the strategy works and allows for teachers to build their tool kit of instructional practices. 

    Another valuable opportunity that comes from using Protocol B is to determine how students are progressing through the until  The CFA provides checkpoints within the unit to ensure that students are understanding.  If a student is struggling the CFA will provide evidence prior to getting to the end of the unit.  The CFA provides a timely look at the progress of all students. 
     
    Protocol B address Question #2 specifically.
     
    Question # 2:  How will we know when each student has acquired the essential knowledge and skills? 

    When looking Protocol B, the first thing that the team looks at is how the group did a whole.  How did the students perform on the assessment. 

    The next step is to look specifically at subpopulations.  Compared to  the group as a whole, did the subpopulations perform at the level of the whole group?
     
    Following this step, there is an opportunity to have a discussion around how each individual class and/or teacher group performed on the assessments. This is a key discussion point.  This is where teachers are able to truly discuss practices that resulted in scores and are able to determine the most effective ways to approach the topic in the cPlassroom.  During this discussion, the teachers share and find themselves in the role of the learner.  This is also the place to address the next area...teachers make connections between student performance and instructional strategies.  This discussion leads you to the looking at subpopulations again and the effective instructional practices. 
     
    The final step for  Protocol B is to  determine next steps. What does the data tell you about your instruction and more importantly how are we going to ensure that students who are not performing are getting the additional support so that they can be successful. Keep in mind that teams addressed interventions for students in Protocol A.  This is addresses PLC question #3.
     
    PLC Question #3:  How will we respond when some students do not learn?