Professional learning communities are not instructional frameworks, meeting times, or simply groups of people who care about students. Form PLC teams around interest areas, grade levels, or across subjects. 8:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. Whether it be in a single school or online, in study groups, action research teams, communities of practice, or conversation circles, educators working together with ⦠Differentiated instruction is a vehicle for delivering engaging and demanding curriculum that recognizes and responds to student variance in interests, learning profile, and readiness. Typically, a professional learning community consists of a team of teachers that meets regularly to learn new topics, share ideas, and problem solve. Use these resources to inspire, organize, plan, measure, and celebrate your PLC journey. A smaller group within an existing group may decide they have a mutual interest in investigating differentiated instruction. Questioning is the hallmark of an inquiry approach. If you are reading this workbook, you may already have committed to becoming a member of a PLC investigating differentiated instruction. Everyone in a school environment benefits from a Professional Learning Community. Lack of Trust. In order to achieve success for students, we do need some common practices. Members can rate videos and engage in discussions in the community forum. Welcome! A professional learning community (PLC) involves much more than a staff meeting or group of teachers getting together to discuss a book theyâve read. Focus on learning 2. Address
This is where the PLC should be only loosely aligned. A successful PLC requires teachers to take the time to meet for discussion and to work between meetings to read informational pieces and reflect on them and to try things in the classroom and collect evidence about the results. PLCs are a continuous, collaborative process in which educators conduct "recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research" to improve outcomes for students. Communicate your excitement and interest. It would be wise to have an explicit expectation that all members commit to attending all sessions except, of course, for emergencies. There is no learning without wondering. Your group should specifically decide on a facilitator (or two) and should, at each meeting, assign any other cooperative role (for example, recorder) for the meeting in progress and any âhomeworkâ roles and responsibilities for the following meeting. 1. Alexandria, VA 22311-1714. Professional learning that increases educator effectiveness and results for all students occurs within learning communities committed to continuous improvement, collective responsibility, and goal alignment. Have a discussion at the beginning of the first meeting about ground rules for group meetings. Everyone (including you) will benefit. They have been found to be characteristics of successful professional learning communities (Easton, 2008; McLaughlin & Talbert, 2006): Most meetings will have an agenda something like the following. TeacherTube - TeacherTube is an online community for educators and other people who want to share instructional videos. If you can manage to have an even number of participants, colleagues can work in pairs between sessions, which has added benefits: it decreases the number of projects to be discussed at any one time and it increases the options available for working on the projects. Sam Kaner coined the term Groan Zone to describe the space between a problem being posed and a solution being reached, and he described the divergent and convergent thinking that occurs there. Peer observation will give you a âsecond pair of eyesâ to look at what you are doing. Create learning environments that promote high levels of learning and achievement for all students. Teachers identify what is hard to teach and what is hard to learn in the standards so that they can anticipate interventions and extensions. Select the strategy (or strategies) that are most appropriate for your situation. 4. PLCsâwhich harness âan ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serveââare a common and proven practice to promote teacher collaboration that increases student achievement. Learn more about our permissions policy and submit your request online. Each group needs at least one logistical facilitator or coordinator who reminds members before each meeting, sets agendas, reserves space and sees to other logistics as needed, and collects any materials needed (for example, copies of readings). When structured well, they can be teams that constantly learn together and work to discover what is best for students. Meeting without anything substantial to discuss is pointless. You're probably already a member of one, especially considering that 83.5 percent of respondents to Schoology's 2018 Global State of Digital Learning Report agree that PLCs are effective tools for professional development.. That's not entirely surprising, given that PLCs have arisen at time when traditional professional ⦠That strikes me as going too far. Teachers and administrators develop a shared language and shared standards for practice and student outcomes. For example, if a group is considering replacing suspension with community service, the community can provide ideas. It takes both. protocols to ensure that all voices are heard. How often will you meet, and where and when? No part of this publication—including the drawings, graphs, illustrations, or chapters, except for brief quotations in
Some examples include: a 2-hour introduction to using protocols to promote teacher collaboration for a school staff; a one-day session for building-level administrators on how to support professional learning community efforts in their schools; a follow-up retreat for trained coaches from one school or district to provide PLC ⦠You will be developing a classroom and school climate in which learning is more about increasing student understanding of a topic than about the good grades that result. Develop an ethic of commitment, as well, sharing your time, energy and resources for the good of the group. PLCs can make this happen with clear norms as well as protocols to ensure that all voices are heard and that it is safe to engage in this conflict. Itâs also helpful to make sure the projected outcome of a meeting is clear: Are we âgenerating ideasâ or âmaking a decisionâ? Reading and classroom undertakings without taking the time to reflect, share, and learn from them is likewise pointless. In once a month meetings, your group will not exhaust all there is to talk about under each topic and all the teacher reflections and student work there is to process. Teams determine the topics they want to learn and the methods they want to use to gain the knowledge. 1703 North Beauregard St.
Select the strategy (or strategies) that are most appropriate for your situation. The PLC model is grounded in the assumption that building teachersâ competencies will lead to improved academic, behavioral, or social outcomes for students. MISSION: ASCD empowers educators to achieve excellence in learning, teaching, and leading so that every child is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. A professional learning community (PLC), is a group of educators that meets regularly, shares expertise, and works collaboratively to improve teaching skills and the academic performance of students https://bit.ly/2wJKpiv. A smaller group within an exist⦠PLCs need strong facilitators in order to engage in conversations that promote learning, risk taking, and innovation. The Big 3: 1. including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from ASCD. She would be responsible for bringing to the group the questions she wanted to discuss. ⦠This process allows teachers to try new teaching practices and discover whatâs working and what isnât. When initiating a new PLC cycle, encourage teachers to begin by asking, âWhatâs going on ⦠We will meet regularly, and work between meetings, with these goals: When and Where: Our first meeting is ___________________________. The answer may be found in the collaboration achieved in professional learning communities (PLCs). Although this is grounded in wanting to ensure student success through consistency, it can stifle innovation, and one of the purposes of a PLC is to try out new strategies. Try for general expectations that will help build an open and inquiry-oriented community, not narrow ârules.â Your group will decide on its own ground rules, but we urge you to consider these as possibilities. The Professional Learning Strategies Self-Assessment Tool is meant to be used by the same cross-stakeholder district team responsible for professional learning and/or continuous improvement planning that began work with the Future Ready Schools: Empowering Educators Through Professional Learning toolkit. The PLC is designed for teacher learning, and thus the team must balance risk taking and teacher autonomy with shared expectations for student learning. A team might read and discuss articles or books. ASCD respects intellectual property rights and adheres to the laws governing them. PLCs are working groups. Professional learning community (PLC) schools start from a simple idea: students learn more when their teachers work together. Many teachers work to guide students to take academic risks that will help them learn. Here are three strategies. According to Lencioni (2007), a lack of trust "occurs when team ⦠In PLCs, the fundamental questions teachers explore are: âWhat do we want students to learn?â and âHow will we know if they have learned it?â These questions are foundational to any PLC, as they require teachers to come to a common understanding of the learning as well as common assessments that check for understanding. Phone
Teachers can never know what teaching works best for their students unless they are given the freedom to try out new strategies. It is a matter of inquiry to what extent students do understand learning targets and feedback, and to what extent such practices can be improved or more tailored to specific student needs. I recommend clear decision-making process like the Gradients of Agreement structure, which allows for decision making that honors the Groan Zone and divergent thinking while still moving toward convergent thinking and consensus decision-making. A professional learning community (PLC) is a group of practitioners working together using a structured process of enquiry to focus on a specific area of their teaching to improve learner outcomes and so raise school standards. Professional Learning Communities Defined. The schoolâs curriculum, instructional design, and assessment practices are monitored through ⦠Such a handout can be distributed in school mailboxes to those who were not present at the meeting. If you are a teacher interested in not only developing your classroom repertoire but also increasing your students' achievement and motivation, you are in for a treat. Itâs important that teachers in a team have that clear understanding of purpose so that everyone feels safe to take risks. In some cases, "teacher communities are not as robust as cross-role communities," says Giselle Martin-Kniep, founder of Communities for Learning: Leading Lasting Change. PLCsâwhich harness âan ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serveââare a common and proven ⦠This is a bigger deal than you might think, as you will find when you and your colleagues begin to discuss what things mean in the course of your PLC work. Your school or district may already have groups that meet regularly. Work with administrators, as well, on PLC logistics. Alexandria, VA 22311-1714. Before we launch into the logistics, the how-tos, andâto be honestâthe work involved in professional learning communities, it's important to focus on this promise of adventure. To: Join a Professional Learning Community Investigating Differentiated Instruction. PLCs are the lifeblood of innovation and risk taking in school. This is why you are here. In the current literature, there is exten-sive discussion of the learning community as an effective model for foster- A professional learning community, or PLC, is an organizational structure by design that meets regularly, shares expertise, and works collaboratively to improve teaching skills and the academic performance of students. When PLCs function well, they accomplish more than just the specific teaching and learning goals the PLC set out to investigate. Site-based Collaborative Learning Teams meet weekly to implement a Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum to Plan student learning experiences, Assess student competency of Minnesota state standards, ⦠PLCs can make this happen by having teachers collect evidence from common assessments and using data protocols to determine which strategies were most effective. However, it is possible to fall into collaborative work that stifles innovation. Here youâll find samples of tools you can copy and distribute freely within your team, school, and district to guide your work. Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) seem to be everywhere these days. A professional learning community, or PLC, is a group of educators that meets regularly, shares expertise, and works collaboratively to improve teaching skills and the academic performance of students. They examine evidence about the relationship between teacher practices and student outcomes. Collaborate and communicate with students, parents, other educators, administrators and the community to support student learning Why is it important to meet regularly and to work between meetings? Connect regularly with other educators and continue personal career development through professional learning communities (PLCs) in Microsoft Teams. Tri-City United Public Schools is a Professional Learning Community dedicated to high levels of learning for all students. Can schools apply that idea to teacher learning as well? Organizing your meeting should include attention to scheduling, attendance, roles, and ground rules. That would allow you plenty of time in between to read, reflect, try things in your classroom, and collect student evidence. The idea of using a learning management system (LMS) to deliver professional learning and development to K-12 educators is not newâbut itâs not quite mainstream, either. The number could be flexible, of course, but it needs to be large enough to bring a diversity of perspectives and experiences to the table and small enough to allow specific discussions of each member's work. If managed well, these teams can help teachers innovate in the classroom and improve student outcomes. Professional Learning Community An Overview PreVieW oF the chaPter Today, a great deal is known about what leads to school improvement and about the change process in schools. 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