Reflection #3

The term PLC stands for professional learning community.  It is a group of educators that regularly meet for a common issue that focuses on a common practice towards school improvement. Some examples of topics that PLC's could discuss are established learning outcomes, collaboratively forming or improving SMART goals, building-wide criteria to assess student work, etc. (DuFour, 2007).  It is important to note what a PLC is not- a whole- school community, a general grade level or department team meeting, or a new program adopted by a district or building that teachers are working on.  While all of these things are important, the term professional learning community can often be used to broadly to apply to topics that would already happen in school buildings. 

Professional Learning Communities have a lot of positive similarities to the learning communities mentioned in Chapter Four of Zepeda.  Learning communities, like PLC's, have the purpose of developing teachers, enhancing student learning, and empowering teachers to model lifelong learning to students (Zepeda, 2008).  There are many models of collaborative learning that also encompass these things, such as teacher study groups, book studies, critical friends groups, lesson studies, learning circles, and action research. 

I've seen components of many of these in my building.  Last year the primary teachers in our building began a book study on Jan Richardson's Next Steps in Guided Reading, which stemmed from a noticeable lack in uniformity between teachers and primary grade levels when teaching reading.  We enjoyed the book study so much that some intermediate teachers and also our administration joined in.  There is now a second wave of teachers participating in the same book study this year.  We also have some teams already set up in our building that allow for collaboration and learning, such as our PBSES team, our technology team, our cultural diversity and awareness team, and our instructional leadership team.  Finally, we have begun a building wide professional learning project called inquiry groups, where we choose our professional learning path (with the theme of reading) and work collaboratively with teachers that have chosen the same subject.  We will meet with this group monthly and record our learning.  At the end of the school year, we will get to learn from each group. 

When considering how PLC's would work in my school building, I think it would be a tricky thing to implement right now.  We already have so many great components of professional learning communities in the various professional development options that we currently have, that starting something else with the name of PLC right now would likely not go over well.  A good next step for our building, however, might to be to take a look at the aspects of a good PLC, and have staff members self-identify PLC's they are already a part of without that title.  This self-reflection would allow staff members to consider which groups are just a part of their regular position, and which groups they meet regularly with towards professional and building development. I think that next step would be important to begin to show the importance of continuous improvement of staff and student performance (Provini, 2010).  Without that urgency in our building, a PLC will feel like "just one more thing" rather than a useful tool. 

DuFour. “16. Professional Learning Communities: A Bandwagon, an Idea Worth Considering or Our Best Hope for High Levels of Learning?” Teacher Leadership, 2007, doi:10.3726/978-1-4539-1799-2/38.

Provini, Celine. “Best Practices for Professional Learning Communities.” Best Practices for Professional Learning Communities | Education World, 2012, www.educationworld.com/a_admin/best-practices-for-professional-learning-communities.shtml.

Zepeda, S. J. (2008). Professional development: What works. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.