Professional Learning Communities

Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) are powerful ways for teachers to work together to help schools and districts improve student achievement. PLCs help re-establish teachers as professionals and provide a safe place for teachers to converse professionally about curriculum, setting achievement goals and “taking action.”  Additionally, in smaller teams they should facilitate the creation of common assessments and sharing instructional best-practices.

Test and Item Banks

Naiku provides a robust item banking solution that allows schools to manage one of their most valuable resources. Too often, assessment items have been stored in paper files, three-ring binders, electronic files, or inadequate shared servers. This inefficiency can no longer be afforded in today’s digital age.

Creating an easy-to-use item bank encourages everyone within the organization to utilize the best items available. Teachers can develop items based on their expertise and easily share them with their colleagues. District personnel can track item usage and analyze their effectiveness. In short, school employees can spend less time creating assessments and more time teaching.

Teacher Q&A: Sharing of Instructional Best Practices

Naiku enables teachers to safely ask questions of each other and share their instructional best practices when it matters most – when you’re reviewing the test results that prompted you to ask “I thought I covered this.”  Perhaps there is a concept gap in the curriculum, but your students are expected to know it.  When you see this type of test result in Naiku, you can quickly ask the question of your peers “did this happen to anyone else?”  It is not uncommon for other teachers to respond in-kind, and answers that point to helpful supplemental materials – and more evidence of teachers helping teachers.