Achievement Teams: How a Better Approach to PLCs Can Improve Student Outcomes and Teacher Efficacy

What if you had a collaborative process of looking at student data that could pinpoint student gaps in learning and suggest effective strategies to close those gaps? What if you knew not only what you should start doing to enhance student learning, but also what you should stop doing because it hasn't given you the hoped-for results?

Enter Achievement Teams. This is not another program that's here today and gone tomorrow; it's a timeless approach that any school or district can replicate that focuses on the most significant variable in student achievement: teaching. In Achievement Teams, Steve Ventura and Michelle Ventura offer a framework based on John Hattie's Visible Learning research that makes teacher collaboration more efficient, rigorous, satisfying, and effective. Think of it as a systematic treasure hunt for best practices using real data on your students.

The authors walk you through the Achievement Teams four-step meeting protocol:

* In Step 1, teams focus on the evidence from a pre-assessment to provide specific feedback to students and teachers about concepts and skills that students did and did not learn.
* In Step 2, teams use that evidence to establish SMART goals for both teachers and students.
* In Step 3, teams summarize the collected data and make inferences around students' mastery levels.
* In Step 4, teachers select high-impact strategies directly targeted to student needs. A post-assessment reveals what did and didn't work.

The authors provide a plethora of resources along the way, including reflection activities to extend your thinking and a variety of helpful downloadable templates designed to facilitate the work. If you're a teacher or leader who is interested in maximizing student achievement, this book is for you.