PERTS recommends teachers implement Elevate together in a Community of Practice (CoP), led by a facilitator. CoP facilitators play a crucial role in Elevate's success because they are responsible for supporting a group of teachers to review and respond to their Elevate data after each survey. We’ve compiled a list of best practices from some of our strongest facilitators to support you as you embark on your journey!
Note: You can share your own best practices with PERTS. Reach out to support@perts.net.
Create a Calendar
Once the survey schedule is established, you should schedule regular CoP meetings with participating teachers. There are a few factors to consider when scheduling these meetings:
What are the best meeting conditions for teachers?
Do they have a preference for in-person or virtual meetings?
Can you compensate teachers if you meet outside of contract hours?
Are there certain weeks that are more or less ideal for teachers? (consider stress levels and other competing priorities at your school)
Would teachers like to have a role in determining the calendar?
Schedule your meetings after the Elevate Facilitator Network (EFN) Meetings. The EFN Calendar can help you determine your schedule. We highly recommend having your CoP meetings after the EFN meetings since they will help you prepare.
Determine Your Information System
Teachers thrive when they have a centralized place to review resources and reminders of expectations as they engage in this process. Create a system and container to help maintain the flow of information between you and teachers in the CoP.
Consider using resources such as Google Classroom, Google Forms, and Google Groups to organize, collect, and disseminate information.
In addition to sharing resources and details via email, you could store your shared calendar, documents you share with teachers, and resources that support improvement within those platforms.
Clarify Expectations
Prepare teachers to fully engage in the Elevate process by letting them know all of the ways Elevate is more than just a survey. When teachers introduce the survey to students, they should be prepared to speak about their objectives for using Elevate, what they will do with the data, and be prepared to answer any questions students may have about the items on the survey. Teachers should also be prepared to review, interpret, and act on their data after each survey, individually and in their CoP. Naming these expectations at the beginning of implementation prepares teachers to fully engage in the Elevate process.
Communicate Regularly
Establish a communication cadence so teachers hear from you before, during, and after every survey window. This email series provides customizable email templates to promote participation. With teachers juggling so many priorities, it can be helpful to remind them of the survey, how to locate their class codes, and the goals.
Build Trust
Remind teachers that their class data will remain confidential. Teachers often express concern about Elevate data being used for evaluation purposes or against them in some way. These concerns can affect their willingness to volunteer insights or questions about their data or to participate altogether.
Promote Participation
Acknowledge teachers who meet and exceed the participation expectations rather than focusing only on those who do not. As humans, we instinctively recognize problems. While you should follow up with teachers who haven’t met the participation expectations, another best practice is to recognize those who do.
Establish CoP Norms
When teachers gather to review Elevate data, they should be prepared to be vulnerable, reflective, solutions-oriented, and equity-minded. Much of that depends on the norms and culture of the group. To establish a productive mindset around reviewing data, establish data norms using this resource from NEP.
At each CoP meeting, facilitate activities and conversations that:
Prioritize collaboration over competition.
Celebrate growth over perfection.
Validate students’ experiences and trust the data.
Spark curiosity.
Meet Teachers Where They Are
Prepare to support teachers’ emotional responses to their reports. Elevate offers educators a different type of feedback than they are used to receiving. Throughout the Elevate process, we want teachers to feel motivated by the data and ready to enhance their student’s experiences, but that won’t always be the case. Elevate reports can leave teachers feeling surprised, skeptical, confused, overwhelmed, disappointed, or discouraged because getting feedback from our students can feel very personal and emotional. This article provides some examples of feelings that may surface for teachers upon reading their data and ways you can support them and redirect their reactions.
Throughout the Year
The Community of Practice experience is so valuable because teachers are able to connect with their peers, share insights, and plan for improvement together. Learning from one another about practice changes that yield improvement will elevate the experience. In your pre-CoP email, invite teachers to share their successes or bright spots, in the upcoming meeting. Bright spots can include improvements in learning conditions, high participation, and debriefing activities, among other things. When teachers go above and beyond the goals you set, and they set, create space for them to share with their peers.
End of Year Showcase
Plan early for an end-of-year showcase where teachers can share their Elevate experiences and student impact. This showcase will help with future recruitment, demonstrate leadership, showcase bright spots, and help document learnings.
Introduce the showcase early so that teachers have a culminating event to look forward to, which can motivate them throughout the year.
Create SMART goals at the beginning of the year to help guide your CoP and measure progress.
This planning document will help you think through your showcase, and we also have a reflection template to capture your experience!