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Quantitative Analysis

The changes required of teachers and students during the pandemic meant that there were no benchmarks that I felt could be reliably compared with the present reality. Normal ranges for reading and math scores were established before the pandemic, so I wanted to use data harvested from the same time frame and the same student population to compare the smaller PLC group to the larger district group of 4th-grade students.
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I used the Star Unified scores for the fall of 2020 and the winter of 2021. Then I used graphpad.com to run a paired t-test analysis assuming Gaussian distribution. I determined the mean, median, mode, and range for fall and winter data for reading and math. I imported the scores into google sheets, where I created scatter charts and used the fall 2020 data for the x-axis and the winter 2021 data for the y-axis, from which I completed a trendline with an R squared score. I did this for all the data for the 4th grade in the district that Sage Bauer and Peter Abboud provided. Using aggregate data anonymized to protect students and teachers, I used this as my baseline. I then used the Star Unified scores for the fall of 2020 and the winter of 2021, analyzing the data identically to compare the data I collected from the students of the PLC I studied. The PLC teachers had been disappointed when they collected their data because they had wanted to advance their students more. They had not received the district data, causing me to worry about the pressure teachers experience to constantly improve student learning. They are not told when they have been successful, which can lead to burnout.

Qualitative Analysis

During each workshop for the e-Learning Lab, teachers were asked to fill out a survey asking them to rate the workshop experience. They were asked to score from 1-5 how relevant and helpful the workshop was to their work. Of the 2,389 responses from the 1,737 elementary teachers that attended the e-Learning Lab, the breakdown was as follows:

 1 - 18 teachers rated a workshop a score of 1, citing the following reasons:  poor wi-fi connections objectives were not explicit did not establish zoom norms the workshop was too advanced

 2 - 58 teachers rated a workshop a score of 2, citing the following reasons: presenter’s pace was either too fast or too slow  The application did not connect to the  grade level  organization of the workshop was confusing  The workshop was too advanced 

 3 - 278 teachers rated a workshop of 3, citing the following reasons: teachers wanted follow-up classes to learn more the grade-level focus needed to cut down on questions that were not relevant to the attendee The presenter was trying to cover too much the presenter went too fast or was interrupted by too many questions
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 4 - 570 teachers rated a workshop of 4, citing the following reasons: wanting to revisit workshops at a later date, worried about preparation for the first days of school, wanting more time to interact with the tech tool, more time to play, the workshop description did not mesh with the delivery, presenters tried to cover too much in 60 minutes and appeared rushed.

• 5 - 1,460 teachers rated a workshop of 5 citing the following reasons:“ALL of the information - this was the Best Zoom I’ve taken so far this week. So many helpful resources and ideas that we really need to get connected virtually with students! EXCELLENT PRESENTATION!” They wanted more workshops!

I was able to collect survey data from the Communities of Practice meetings. Still, due to the limited number of participants that completed the surveys, I did not glean as much data.
Of the ten responses answering the question “How helpful was this grade-level collaboration time?” after the first meeting, the rating broke down as follows:

• 4 - 4 teachers rated the CoP a four citing - relevance to distance learning and student engagement.
• 3 - 6 teachers rated the CoP a 3, citing - need for more prep time and looking for tips and resources to navigate distance learning.

After the third CoP meeting, I surveyed the teachers in attendance and received eight responses. Of the teachers responding, one teacher had a doctorate, four teachers had Masters degrees, and three teachers had bachelor’s degrees. Teachers wanted to find resources and mentioned needing to network and collaborate.

The Professional Learning Community worked on sharing resources necessary to teach. They worked hard on calendaring and pacing. They took turns on housekeeping. They included the third grade at the beginning of each meeting. They were checking in on the teachers and getting feedback from the third-grade teachers to inform their knowledge of the new crop of 4th-grade students. After the first few minutes, the third-grade teachers went to a breakout room and would periodically return if there were any questions. The one combo teacher teaching third and fourth grade were able to fluidly move back and forth between the two groups of teachers to get the support she needed. Likewise, visitors to the meeting, such as the principal or academic coaches, could address all the participants of the PLC at one time or decide to visit each group via a breakout room. The PLC members demonstrated a master class of how to work smarter and modeled collaboration at its best.

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