How One Baltimore City School Supports PLCs with TeachBoost

Interested in facilitating Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) and peer feedback on video observations? Then the work of Commodore John Rodgers School in Baltimore City may be of interest!

TeachBoost has collaborated with CJR since the start of this academic year to find creative solutions to support their PLC work. Here’s what’s happened so far:

The history of CJR + PLCs

PLCs have been running at CJR for a few years. Each PLC comprises staff from a particular content team and grade level, and generally includes 5 or 6 staff members. In the past, they’ve had teacher teams co-plan a lesson, with one teacher delivering and recording it. The team would then reconvene to give that teacher feedback.

How TeachBoost supports CJR’s PLC work

This year, using TeachBoost each team selects a key row of their framework as their focus point; for example, “Checks for understanding.” Each teacher then collects and shares resources, determines what they’ll try out in the classroom, and records the lesson in action. Finally, PLC members use the TeachBoost Library to upload their videos and share them with their team.

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Once the videos are uploaded, it’s on the teachers to watch their colleagues and give feedback. Because teachers keep their videos very short, this allows teachers to peer observe 5 or 6 different classrooms without going anywhere!

The cool bit

As we’ve come to understand CJR’s needs, we’ve added in a couple of nifty features to our Library:

• We allow PLCs to keep their videos private from their team while they’re in the planning stages. When the team finds a resource or a technique that works really well, they can then make this resource available to every staff member at their school with a click!
• TeachBoost empower a school’s leadership team to review Library resources, deliver feedback via our platform, and share best-in-class videos with other educators within a school or district. While PLC cultures are unique from school to school, at CJR administrators are invited to check in on the work that’s happening and provide support as needed. This new feature enables administrators like CJR principal Marc Martin to view the resources and videos uploaded by each PLC.  

Many thanks to CJR for their partnership. If you’re interested in learning more about how the TeachBoost Library can supercharge your PLC work, get in touch!