Puzzle of Practice - Monitoring Meetings

Interactions between teachers, collaborative problem solving.

 Prior to a monitoring meeting – the focus teacher

• Uses data gathered during teacher Inquiry to identify target students
• Identifies a target student who poses a Puzzle of Practice – examine student work and gather a range of work samples which demonstrate the issue or concern.
• Brings copies of student work to a monitoring meeting to share with colleagues.

 Structure of Monitoring Meetings – maximum of 30 minutes per teacher/student

• Facilitator appointed to work through process and monitor time
• Focus Teacher selects a student who poses a puzzle of practice performing below expectation or who is difficult to shift
• Focus Teacher completes a Student Literacy Profile, collects work  samples
• Deconstructing what the evidence tells us and what the difficulty is;

• What is the data telling us?
• What is it saying to me? What do you notice?
• What is the issue/difficulty?

 Professional Learning Conversation: Developing Theory for Improvement

• Explain what strategies and processes you have tried, discuss and share ideas

• Teacher input to identify good practice, co-construction of good practice
• What am I going to have to do?
• What support/Knowledge/Resourcing will I need?
• What are the best ways to address those needs?

 Identifying Deliberate Acts of Teaching [DAT’s]

• What will you see the teacher saying/doing?
• What will you see the student saying/doing?

 Focus teacher considers suggested good practice

• What do they think they could try?
• What might work for them? 
• Identify a focus of Teacher Inquiry
• Teacher Inquiry
• Share evidence of Impact of teaching at next meeting - 5 minutes.

 Focus of Syndicate Puzzle of Practice Monitoring Meetings

• Data – analysing data and evaluating programmes
• Teacher Inquiry – pose specific questions to focus our inquiry
• Focus on a particular curriculum area, usually dictated by school wide professional Development focus of the year i.e. Writing – structure

 Benefits of Monitoring Meetings

• Builds collaborative practices
• Use data to focus the discussion
• Supports identification of good practice
• Encourages reflective thought and action
• Encourages effective teaching practice
• Enhances the relevance of new learning