The Power of PLC

PLC - "A professional learning community is a team of educators who share ideas to enhance their teaching practice and create a learning environment where all students can reach their fullest potential."
 I love this definition of  what a PLC is all about because I've seen it and experienced it in action. For the past few months, the #PLC4newcomers team has been meeting weekly through Twitter space chat and once a month through Zoom. If you're not familiar with space chats, it is a new feature Twitter provides where a group of users can get together and share about a given topic. What I like about space chats is that you can hear participants share their thoughts and ideas.  Over the past four months, I've been the host of our space chat. Educators from across the country share ideas "...to enhance their teaching practice and create a learning environment where all students can reach their fullest potential."

You cannot be a master teacher until you are a master learner.

Anyway, the actual purpose of this post is to share all the notes I have from our Jan. 20th chat. This chat was by far the most attended and the most engaging of all. Along with teachers sharing in our space chat, teachers were also using the hashtag to share tips, images, ideas, and resources. It was an amazing time encouraging one another.

The topic of conversation was "Starting a new Semester - Get to know you activities" - Listed below are all the activities shared. 

Resources

• "All About Me" mini-posters- I shared this activity I did with students as we started our second semester. Students received several sentences to choose from to share about themselves. Students choose between 5-7 questions and create a personalized poster. I created my poster right in front of students for them can see what was expected. (see Tweet below)​
• Social Contracts - Class norms - I shared a social contract activity I do with students. I provide them with an electronic copy (click HERE) so they can translate but I have them respond on sticky notes and place them on chart paper. Ms. Patty Vitale-Reilly shared an extension to this activity - After the contract is created, take random pictures of students following the contract and post them in the classroom. It will highlight them and will show the accountability of having a class contract. (see her Tweet below)
• Honoring Name - We discussed how important it is to acknowledge and honor students' names. Marta Garcia shared an amazing activity she does use the mentor text "Alma" (see tweet below) 
• Selfie Kahoots - Read more HERE for all detail on how to create a teacher selfie Kahoot and a class Kahoot. All credit goes to author Carol Salva. We also discussed revisiting our class Kahoots. I know many of us create these at the beginning of the school year BUT revisiting this activity would show so much about students' growth. 
• Identity Maps & I am Poems - Jennifer Frankowiak shared how she uses Jamboard to have students create identity maps by adding pictures as scaffolding. Jennifer uses the book "The Day You Begin" as a mentor text to get her students to share their stories. (see Tweet below)

         Elvira Ledezma shared her amazing "I am Poems" with a Flipgrid activity and an Inside-Outside perspective of who we are. It's an amazing activity you need to check out (see tweet                  below). 

• Timelines - Timeline students' stories...but you can timeline anything! Timeline students' hobbies, places, favorite music, family events, etc. I'm looking forward to exploring this more. 
• Pen-Pals and Google Earth - Kiki Xiraki-Tselios shared how she engages her students by joining pen pals and Google Earth. 

I was trying to balance all the information being shared on Twitter and the information our participants were sharing. I took notes and promised I was going to curate this information and sharing. 
Below you'll see a Wakelet with all the resources shared on Twitter. If you don't have a Twitter account and would like me to share these resources, please let me know.

If you're reading this and can share some ideas with us, please, add them to the comments. I'd be happy to add them to this blog post.
Also, if you can join our Twitter space chats, that would be amazing. We chat on Thursdays evening at 7:00 PM ET, just follow the hashtag #PLC4Newcomers and join. We also meet once a month via Zoom. Hope you join us! 

Thank you for reading!!