Blog
Entries by William M. Ferriter
A Book Review: PLC+ Better Decisions and Greater Impact by Design
I became a champion of the PLC process fifteen years ago, when I started working in a school that opened as a professional learning community. What left me so jazzed about the PLC process was . . . Read more
Leaning on Parents is NOT an 'Intervention'
The joy of my life is my 10-year-old daughter, Reece. She’s beautiful and funny and smart and curious—and I’d do anything to help her succeed. That’s why her third-grade . . . Read more
Why This, Why Now, Why Bother
One question I am often asked by classroom teachers is, “Why should we care about PLCs, Bill?” We are almost always skeptical when our bosses bring something new back to our building and try to convince us that it is worth investing in. But when they are done right, PLCs answer my three why questions better than anything I’ve seen in over 25 years of full-time teaching. Read more
The Most Important Interview Question I Bet You’ve Never Asked
Let me start with a simple truth: There is no single decision made by the principal of a professional learning community more important than who to hire to fill vacancies on individual learning teams. After all, the teachers that you hire today are likely to be a part of your faculty—working with students, influencing colleagues, shaping decisions, impacting public relations—for years to come. Read more
Leadership Lessons Learned From a Corporate Barista
Walk into the Evernote headquarters in Redwood City, California, and you are bound to be impressed by the full-scale espresso bar in the lobby. Whether you are in the mood for a vegan raspberry . . . Read more
Electronic Teaming for Singletons in a PLC
One of the questions that I’m asked all the time as an advocate for both professional learning communities and teaching with technology is, “How can digital tools be used to support the learning of singletons in our schools?”... Read more
Twitter for Singletons in a PLC
Bill Ferriter has been working to introduce learning teams and singletons to a range of free products and services that can make collaboration more efficient. This is an excerpt from his blog . . . Read more
Tracking Team-Based Interventions
Preparing for our upcoming conversation with Rick and Becky DuFouron the steps that highly functioning professional learning communities take to provide enrichment and remediation opportunities for . . . Read more
Book Review: Raising the Bar and Closing the Gap
In preparation for our upcoming conversation with Rick and Becky DuFour on the steps that schools can take to develop effective systems of intervention that reach beyond the classroom, I just finished reading their newest book, Raising the Bar and Closing the Gap. Here’s my review... Read more
Another Digital Conversation With the DuFours Starts May 19
Having worked in a professional learning community for almost six years now, I can tell you that nothing is more challenging for traditional schools than crafting a schoolwide system of . . . Read more
DuFour Conversation Starts Today!
Here it is, Radical Nation: The first day in our four-day conversation on the nuts-and-bolts of restructuring schools as professional learning communities with Solution Tree authors and school change experts… Read more
Voicethread Tips for DuFour Conversation
As regular readers know, we're in the middle of planning for an asynchronous Voicethread conversation with school change experts Rick and Becky DuFour (see here and here) who will be helping us to think through the nuts and bolts of restructuring schools as professional learning communities… Read more
Revisiting Professional Learning Communities at Work
It’s still hard for me to believe that we’ll be spending four days in September (the 8th through the 11th) exploring the nuts and bolts of professional learning communities with Rick . . . Read more
Upcoming Conversation on PLCs with the DuFours
About two years ago, I had one of the singular most exciting moments of my professional career. At a dinner meeting designed to introduce the members of our State's Board of Education to the core principles of… Read more
Tech Tools for Teams: Using Voicethread
I've got an interesting admission to make: I'm a HORRIBLE guy to have on a learning team! Kind of strange, isn't it? I mean, how could a trained Solution Tree associate and author who has written about the beauty of professional learning communities for years possibly be… Read more