Click on the Inquiry Question links below to see the full survey response and learn what each PLC group is exploring.
2015-2016
- How can we better support diverse, struggling students in early literacy?
- What is the effect on the (students and) school community when self regulation skills are taught?
- To discover how using a writing continuum will help our students engage in writing, build awareness of their own development and take ownership of their assessment.
- Will coaching specific students on socially savvy behavior help them regulate themselves within school groups?
- Exploring various methods in helping students to self-regulate.
- What makes a quality project-based inquiry that engages students in active learning. How can we design meaningful inquiry and integrate effective teaching practices that generate deeper levels of engagement among students?
2014-2015
- How can we improve the creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication of our students?
- How can we co-create an outdoor learning and play space for the students of Brooklyn Elementary? What resources and materials can we create to support and encourage student learning in the great outdoors?
- If we develop and nurture compassion, will connectedness in our school community strengthen?
- How can we get students to recognize and develop an awareness of their own learning?
School and Staff Culture
At Brooklyn we have spent much of our time doing important foundational work to allow us to develop and maintain an effective and successful PLC. We started by self assessing and
determining where we honestly were on the continuum. We discussed what we valued and our vision of our school. We then did work on building trust with each other and learning how to deal with conflict or disagreements so that we could have meaningful and productive
conversations. We did work around the Norms of Collaboration, assessed ourselves and where we needed to make changes personally, and to commit to that. We then developed protocols around how to be more effective during our meeting times and then Leah worked with us to review PLC philosophy and process. We spent a lot of time on the vision and planning process. For each of our vision statements we brainstormed all of the questions that we had around that statement to make it a reality for us – what did we want to know/find out, what we were curious about, what bugged us…. Then, based on what we really wanted to find out, we formed our PLC groups. The topics we are looking at are: 1. Creativity and play, 2. Nature based learning/outside environment, 3. Self regulation, social thinking, self awareness, and 4. Student engagement/Resiliency. We are in the early discussion stages about these topics and much of that is tying back to student engagement.