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North Penn High School
Lansdale, PA
• Large suburban Philadelphia high school
• Enrollment: Over 3,000 students
• Grades 10-12
• Economically Disadvantaged: 26%
• Special Education: 18%
• ESL: 3%
• Focused on the use of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) to promote
• teacher collaboration
• consistency of instructional practice
• student mastery of the Keystone Biology eligible content
• For teachers to develop course-wide common practices, including
• activities
• strategies
• assessments
• To require higher level thinking skills
• To emphasize analysis and application of concepts
• Professional Development focus on PLC (2004 – 2007)
• Established model and norms
• Merck Institute for Science Education (MISE)– partnership between Merck Co. and Science Educators (2009 – 2014)
• Established norms for group
• Focus on reflective Practice/Collaborative Reflection
• School Improvement Team (SIT) –recommendations from Distinguished Educator assigned by state; Corrective Action (2010)
• Restructured to include all department chairs
• Focus on collaborative data analysis and decision making
• State announces Science Keystones are coming…
• Time – the most valuable resource
• Bell Schedule changed (2010) School
• 9th period added on Wednesdays and Thursdays
• See Handout #1 Bell Schedule
Look at your current bell schedule.
Is there time embedded within the school day for teacher collaboration?
How could you find additional time to maximize teacher collaboration opportunities within the contractual day?
• “Let’s do it first and do it well so nobody tells us what to do.”
• Change is led by science teachers, the experts in content and science instruction
• Engagement and ownership by teachers
• Decided as a department how to meet administration goals and expectations in a way that is meaningful and not to simply comply.
• Loose/tight leadership by administration
• Shift away from assigning tasks
• Shift to teacher-driven agendas and priorities
• Give teachers permission to make decisions that drive the work
• Click below for video…
• Teacher Time: Loose-Tight Management
• Revise curriculum so that scope and sequence was the Keystone Eligible Content
• Alter assessments to reflect eligible content
• Analyze each question of the midterm and final for eligible content and rigor level
• Modify exams to ensure eligible content is balanced and recall questions are replaced with application questions
• Modify Instruction to reflect emphasis on application and analysis
• Develop instructional materials that reflect rigor and expectations of Keystone exam
• See Handouts #2, 3 and 4 – Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment documents
Click on link below:
Alignment/Analysis/Assessment: Application of Concepts
Review Handouts #2, 3 and 4.
What is the evidence that your Biology curriculum is tightly aligned with Keystone eligible content and paced so that the skills and concepts are mastered prior to the Keystone exam?
Handout #2
What is the evidence that your Biology assessments are aligned with Keystone exam expectations with respect to rigor and concept/skills assessed? Handout #3 and #4
• Use PLC time to share best practices for instruction modification
• Emphasize collaboration/reflective teaching (teacher/teacher, administrator/teacher)
• Generate Inquiry Tuesday Demonstrations– Science teachers sharing best practice instruction by having teachers complete lessons as the students
• See last slide for video of full session Inquiry Tuesday
How could you use PLCs in your school to improve student achievement?
What changes might be required to expand or improve the use of PLCs in your school?
What professional development might be required?
How can you create a culture of collaboration and support that promotes continuous learning for students and staff?
• Click below for the video of a full session of an Inquiry Tuesday…
• Inquiry Tuesday: Full Workshop
• When watching this video reflect on the roles of the participants and their collaborative interactions.
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