Leadership Cycle 2

Problem of Practice, Approach, Strategy Template

Step 2: Plan
Description of Problem of Practice/Approach to Professional
Collaboration/Strategy to Address Problem of Practice Template

Directions: Respond to the prompts below. Type your responses within the brackets following each prompt. Do
not delete or alter the prompts.

I. Determine a Problem of Practice Based on Student and Site Data

Directions: Respond to the following prompts.

1. Identify and describe the problem of practice selected by the group, referencing data,
including student demographics, student learning and academic performance and/or well-
being, and other relevant student information that you presented.

Our group’s focus was looking at student behavior and all the issues that arise with that for the
sixth, seventh and eighth graders at our school.

The first problem of practice selected by the group was our SWIS tracking data report for
“referrals by student” during the time period of February 13th through March 13th. The report
includes student referrals or suspension during this time with a minimum of two referrals. We
chose two or more because we wanted to see a repeated problem behavior. Our data table on
the report shows 27 referrals during this time between 11 students with no suspensions. Seven
of the students earned two referrals, three earned three and one student had four referrals.
There were three referrals for sixth grade, five for seventh and three for eighth.

The second problem of practice was a Google document form that gives the results of our
check-in, check-out (CICO) program. The document shows 16 students currently on CICO.
Three of them are sixth graders, nine of them are seventh and four of them are eighth graders.
Each students sections shows their name, daily goal for the day, what the student earn and
comments if needed.

The last data that was discussed is what we all currently know about these students and what is
happening in their lives. This data is in our brains and our hearts. We don’t document these,
but are very aware that many of our students on CICO are dealing with some severe trauma at
home.
2. How does the problem of practice correspond to school and/or district priorities or vision;
reflect California state standards and/or curriculum frameworks or equivalent, or other
applicable standards; and take into account existing student group performance
differences?
[ Our districts vision is for our students to become life-long learners and to be motived to be
contributing members of society. Our problem of practice focuses on having students self-
reflect and improve their own behavior. By having them do this, they can focus more in class to
be a better learner and see more have they can be a better person in society. Our district also
has goals to make sure we have a safe, healthy and engaging environment where learning can

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 Leadership Cycle 2
Problem of Practice, Approach, Strategy Template

take place. The focus of this group is to help specific students monitor their own behavior, but
also makes sure their behavior is being addressed so that other students can learn. Our
problem of practice doesn’t apply to standards or curriculum since it involves behavior, but it
does relate to the California Dashboard. By addressing behaviors and helping students make
improvements, we are working to increase our dashboard results of less suspensions overall.
We are also showing the State of California that we are making an effort to address specific
situations when it comes to behavior on a school-wide level.

II. Approach for Professional Collaboration and Your Role as Facilitator

Directions: Respond to the following prompts to explain the evidence-based approach for collaborative
professional learning that the community of practice chose and describe implications for your role in facilitating the
group’s work.

1. What is the chosen approach to working with the identified community of practice and why
did the group choose this approach to professional collaboration?
Our school has adopted the school-wide PBIS program, which is the Positive Behavior
Intervention System. Within this program, you have two teams. The tier one team that has
administrators and grade level representatives looks at school-wide behavior and issues to
make improvements on. The tier two team looks at specific students who need more intense
intervention and create plans for them to look at their behavior through the check-in, check-out
system. In the previous years, there was only one team, but we decided to change that this
year and split teams so that the tier two team could really focus on specific individuals for the
intense intervention. So our professional collaboration is meeting one or twice a month and
discussing these students so we can help them make improvements to their behavior.
2. Describe your role as facilitator:
a. Describe the rules and parameters established by the group for the work.
Since our group is limited on the number of meetings we can have in a year and the time of the
meeting, we focus on making good use of our time by being very efficient. All team members
know that the pure focus is to talk about the students and what we should do moving forward,
any additional students to identify and to adjust our PBIS structure if needed. We don’t have
definite rules for this group, but the school counselor is currently the one who takes notes on the
meeting to make sure we talk about all the students we identified before. My role as facilitator is
bring current data since our last meeting to review with the team and move forward on.
b. How do you plan to lead group meetings, develop and support collaborative group
processes, maintain group focus and energy, support individual and group learning, and
monitor the group’s progress?
[ My plan to lead the group meetings is to make sure I am prepared with the information for all
the team members and that it is current data we are looking at. I print out check-in, check-out
spreadsheets of all the students, pull data off our SWIS behavior tracking system and bring any
files of students that we need to discuss. The group is a very cohesive group that all wants to
be there for the well-being of the students so we don’t have anyone who isn’t collaborative. If
we did have someone who wasn’t participating in the conversation, I would make sure that I
offered them time to participate in the conversation before moving on with discussion. When it
comes to maintaining group focus, I try to make sure we stay focused on one child at a time and
make a decision with that child so that we have an action plan. I monitor the group by reading
the body language of people and seeing if they feel comfortable talking about the students and
asking them what they think. ]
Copyright © 2017 by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing
1900 Capitol Avenue, Sacramento, CA 95811 Page 2 of 3
All rights reserved. FT_17-18
 Leadership Cycle 2
Problem of Practice, Approach, Strategy Template

III. Strategy to Address the Problem of Practice

Directions: Respond to the following prompts to explain the strategy in order to address the problem of practice
(student learning and/or well-being) selected by the group.

1. Explain how the evidence-based strategy selected by the group addresses the problem of
practice, potentially leading to improved student learning and/or well-being.
Our group has two focuses for our meetings. Number one is to look at our SWIS data since the
last meeting and identify based on the evidence of the number of referrals or suspensions, who
would benefit from being added to our PBIS check-in, check-out program. The number two
focus is to review the current students who are on check-in, check-out and see what is working,
what interventions they are one and where we should go from here. By looking at the specific
data since our last meeting we can see if our current students behaviors are improving and we
can also see which students need this behavior intervention. We find that most students are
leading themselves to improved student learning & behavior because they are in charge of their
own well-being. We are just providing them a tool and a reward for following through. ]
2. Describe the group’s rationale for selecting this strategy.
Our SWIS program is the most current behavior strategy tracking system that we have and it is
very specific in identifying who, what, where, when and why when it comes to the behavior.
This is the most evidenced based system that we have other than our student information
system, but that program doesn’t give us the specifics that we need to track the behavior.
3. What improvements for student learning related to the problem of practice does the group
expect the selected strategy will yield?
[ The group expects the students to be able to see where their behavior problems are
happening and for them to self-reflect and make adjustments so they can improve the next day.
The students are given a goal for what they need to earn in a day and if they meet that goal,
they are offered rewards. These are for our tier two students who struggle in the class with
being on task and not interrupting. By them being able to self-reflect, we expect that they learn
to monitor their own decisions and make more positive ones in the future. ]

Copyright © 2017 by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing

1900 Capitol Avenue, Sacramento, CA 95811 Page 3 of 3
All rights reserved. FT_17-18