Action Overview: Strengthen Professional Learning Communities (PLC)

This set of resources is designed to help educators design professional learning communities within their professional learning system.

Introduction

Professional learning communities can be one of the most powerful ways to deliver professional learning because they provide “an ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve” (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, Many, & Mattos, 2016). Learning within the professional learning system occurs in a variety of ways through both group and one-on-one opportunities such as training, coaching, mentoring, modeling, and observing. The group form of professional learning communities are critical for how the ongoing process “can transform classroom practice, and, ultimately, enhance student learning” (Leiberman and Miller, 2011). In order to design professional learning communities that will help the professional learning system leadership teams need to

How can PLCs develop and sustain a collaborative culture?

According to The Glossary of Education Reform (2014), each learning team within a PLC serves two broad yet intentional purposes: “(1) improving the skills and knowledge of educators through collaborative study, expertise exchange, and professional dialogue and (2) improving the educational aspirations, achievement, and attainment of students through stronger leadership and teaching.”

Leadership teams need to set up and communicate the process, product and learning expectations to all educators and hold teams accountable to them. They also need to ensure the teams are able to create a trusting and collaborative environment. One way leadership teams can help teams create trust and collaborate effectively is to have them set norms. Norms are the essential agreements of the group that serve to guide the group’s behavior, cultivate trust and safety, and help the group fulfill their purpose. The best group norms are able to capture the commitments, actions and behaviors of the group. Several considerations should be weighed when creating group norms.

Why should PLCs focus on learning and results?

Another way leadership teams can help learning teams work together effectively is to ensure that their process, product and learning expectations regularly support equitable outcomes for all students by starting from within to measure what matters, improve conditions for learning, and monitor equitable implementation of standards. Each learning team should repeat a cycle of inquiry that is designed to support every learner and ensure instruction that is set up to respond to learners requiring further intervention or enrichments and extended learning.

Cycles of inquiry allow learning teams to engage in practices such as: examining student work, analyzing student achievement data, developing standards-based lessons, developing common standards-based scales, and creating common assessments that when implemented in high functioning teams have been positively correlated with a high level of teacher morale (Basileo, 2016) and effectiveness. A cycle is complete when the practice is embedded, a habit of instructional practice has been acquired, and positive student results are observed.

Suggested Activities

How do educators use Portal resources to design Professional Learning Communities?

Related Content

Equity Commitments

Continuous Improvement

Leadership Teams

MTSS

Sources

Basileo, L.D. (2016). Did you know? Your school’s PLCs have a major impact. (Publication) West Palm Beach, FL: Learning Sciences International. Retrieved from https://www.region10.org/r10website/assets/File/PLC-Report.pdf

DuFour, R., DuFour, R., Eaker, R., Many, T.W., & Mattos, M. (2016). Learning by doing: A handbook for Professional Learning Communities at work. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

Hirsh, S. (2018, April 05). Whatever name you give it, the PLC plays an important role. Retrieved from https://learningforward.org/2018/04/05/whatever-name-you-give-it-the-plc-plays-an-important-role/

Hirsh, S., Crow, T. (2018). Becoming a learning team: A guide to a teacher-led cycle of continuous improvement. Oxford, OH: Learning Forward.

Lieberman, A., Miller, L. (2011). Learning communities: The starting point for professional learning is in schools and classrooms. JSD, 32(4), Retrieved from www.learningforward.org

Seashore Louis K., Kruse S., & Marks H.M. (1996). Schoolwide professional community. In Newmann, F.M. (Eds.), Authentic achievement: Restructuring schools for intellectual quality. (179-204). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publisher.

Learning Forward Standards for Professional Learning https://learningforward.org/standards-for-professional-learning

Back to Strategy Overview: Professional Learning System.