Does your PLC have trouble staying focused? Do you find the conversation drifts into topics that are unrelated to the purposes of PLC time? If so this episode may contain some very helpful strategies for you! Credit to http://schoolreforminitiative.org for hosting dozens of helpful PLC protocols!

Let's talk about some keys to the success of a PLC. Common Curriculum. Focus on Student Achievement. Impact on Educator Effectiveness. What's keeping your PLC from truly achieving the purpose of being a Professional Learning Community?

The first in a mini-series on PLCs, this episode will explore the true definition of a PLC - a Professional Learning Community. Without an understanding and application of what "Professional Learning Community" means, its difficult, if not impossible to run an effective PLC.

Some states, like Florida, have formalized ways to measure student learning gains. But it's limited to only two subjects and a few grade levels, at least in Florida. What if there was a way to measure student learning gains for any subject and any grade level? In this episode we will talk about ways to track and measure student learning gains and why this is important.

This is our final episode in our mini-series on creating quality assessment items. This episode focuses on how to create quality rubrics. Rubrics can be used to assess non-traditional assessment items like written responses, performances, and creations. But, not all rubrics are created equal. Tune in for some tips on creating high quality rubrics. Better assessments = better data.

Continuing our mini-series on creating quality assessment items, this episode delves into fill-in-the blank and written response items. There are good guidelines to ensuring that your items can yield the best reflection of your students' understanding and also some things you should not do when creating assessment items. Better assessments = better data.

Getting quality assessments data requires quality assessments. This is the third episode in a series about writing good assessment items. We talk about the what-to-do and the what-not-to-do for writing True/False and Matching items. Better assessments = better data.

Multiple choice items are probably the most popular assessment item type for classroom teachers. To craft a quality multiple choice item, teachers must be aware of some common mistakes and best practices. We cover those in this episode in the hopes that assessments everywhere will benefit! Better assessments = better data.

Not all test questions are created equal. But it's important to have good assessment items if we want to have quality data. So, what are the rules and best practices to ensuring that your teacher assessments have the best possible items? In this episode we'll cover the "3 Cs" of good item writing. Be sure to tune in to this mini-series for tips and tricks on writing all types of assessment items!

Not all data is created equal. One of the first things you need to understand before using data is the difference between and the purpose of qualitative data and quantitative data. In this episode we'll talk about the difference and provide several examples of these data types. Once you know the difference, its important to use them correctly and use them together .

We naturally want to know the cause of things, we want to know why things happen and what makes things work or not work. But determining causation is not the same as discovering correlation. In this episode we'll talk through the differences in these two concepts and why it's important for educators to distinguish between correlation and causation.

Why is data important to educators? Why should we consider using data to make decisions? In this introductory episode I'll present three reasons I think using data is important and lay a foundation for why learning how to use data in the classroom is important for all educators.