Professional+Learning+Communities

=** Purpose: Professional Learning Communities are the new model for educational growth and reform in our country. PLC's seek to replace the outdated factory model used to organize public schools in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The antiquated, top-down approach to learning no longer successfully prepares students to function and compete in a skilled, global economy (DuFour & Eaker). Rather, educators need to consistently respond to student work and data to better inform and enhance instruction. **=

===="If schools want to enhance their organizational capacity to boost student learning, they should work on building a professional community that is characterized by shared purpose, collaborative activity, and collective responsibility among staff." (Newman & Wehlage, 1995, p.37)====

====A PLC is a regularly scheduled, focused time for teachers to research, study, reflect, and plan together as they look at student work to improve learning. A successful Professional Learning Community will exhibit the following characteristics:====
 * 1) ====**Shared mission, vision, and values**====
 * 2) ====**Collective inquiry in which people perpetually pursue better methods of doing things in which those methods are tested and results are reflected upon**====
 * 3) ====**Collaborative teams**====
 * 4) ====**Action oriented and experimentation**====
 * 5) ====**Continuous improvement**====
 * 6) ====**Results oriented**====

=**Structure**= ====In Albemarle County Public Schools, PLC discussion often begins at the building level. Each administration designs their building schedule and uses this framework to determine whether teachers will meet as a whole school, vertical team, content team, or grade level team. The first step towards building a healthy collaboration is developing norms for PLC interaction that include: meeting dates, meeting formats, gathering/ordering materials, record keeping, and a system for tracking how much impact the PLC has had on student achievement.====

====PLC discussions often shift according to student and teacher needs. Typical PLC topics usually include: data analysis, review of student work, review of teacher lessons & assignments, curriculum alignment and pacing, instructional resources and strategies, and balanced assessments. Effective PLC's allocate consistent, regular time to review evidence of student learning and respond to the data by changing instructional practices to achieve quality learning for all.====

====Building a supportive PLC structure is a complicated task that takes a lot of time and effort. Some teachers are used to working in isolation and may feel that collaboration slows them down. When a PLC is challenged with moving from a culture of isolation and independence to a culture of collaboration, Becky DuFour suggests the following four steps:====
 * 1) ====**Establish team norms.**====
 * 2) ====**Identify and pursue a common SMART (Strategic and Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results-oriented, Time-bound) goal.**====
 * 3) ====**Become skillful in having //crucial conversations. *From:// //Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes are High.//**====
 * 4) ====**Become skillful in Howard Gardner’s seven strategies for changing someone’s mind (including your own).**====

====Another issue that novice PLC members may struggle with is how they manage their time. When a complicated topic such as data analysis arises, discussion can sometimes digress into a blame game. When a PLC starts to look at data, it is helpful to reference the following guidelines from the **[|Maryland Public Schools: School Improvement Site]**. These guidelines assist leaders in having productive dialogues.====
 * 1) ====**Determine your outcome for the discussion.**====
 * 2) ====**Keep the focus on improvement, not on blame.** If you ever want staff to feel safe in sharing and using their classroom data, you need to be very careful about using the information for improvement and not for blame.====
 * 3) ====**Model constructivist learning and/or collaborative problem solving.**====
 * 4) ====**Provide adequate time for dialogue.**====
 * 5) ====**Keep the focus on what the data show, not what staff think should be done to improve the results.** Educators have an inclination to solve problems, but moving to solutions should not occur until staff have both analyzed their assessment data and clarified their problem. Otherwise, solutions — even if they are effective strategies — may not address the high impact problem for the low performance.====
 * 6) ====**Guard against early conclusions of why the data look like they do.**====

=**Expert Advice on PLCs**=