Teachers and Community Members Practice TLC with PLCs
Create a culture of collaboration and constant improvement with professional learning communities.
by Ellen Ullman
Credit: Getty Images
In movies like Dead Poets Society and Dangerous Minds, one heroic teacher single-handedly transforms an entire school system's dysfunctions. It's a nice storyline perpetuated by Hollywood, but far from reality in most schools.
"We need to let go of the idea that heroic individuals will change schools," says Richard DuFour, an education consultant who specializes in creating professional learning communities in schools. "Instead of looking for superheroes, we need to work collectively to help everyone be successful."
PLCs -- groups of educators and community members who work together toward common goals -- are becoming more commonplace in schools as savvy teachers strive for constant improvement in everything from creating lesson plans to changing school culture. They can focus on any subject of interest: technology, improving reading scores, or project learning, for example. A group can be organized by subject, grade level, specialty, or any combination of topics that administrators believe need attention.
It's hard to measure improvements in school culture, but some districts credit PLCs for making important strides toward that goal. The Sanger Unified School District, in Sanger, California, for example, went from being designated as "Needs Improvement" in 2004 to recently celebrating its first-ever Blue Ribbon status after PLCs were put into place. Now, there's close to zero teacher turnover, and student attendance is at 97 percent.
Since PLCs were organized at the district's Jefferson Elementary School, where 60 percent of the students are English-language learners, those students have hit 53 percent proficiency in English language arts, an enormous jump from 3 percent in 2002. In math, only 2 percent of the entire student body now falls below basic proficiency level, down from 68 percent.
For teachers like Nancy Krakowka, a sixth-grade language arts and social studies teacher at Cutchogue East Elementary School, on New York's Long Island, a PLC makes all the difference. "When I started, I was very protective of my curriculum," she says. "But some of my colleagues have better ideas than I do. When you put all these minds together, the end product comes out much better."
Ellen Ullman is a freelance writer and editor in Fairfield, Connecticut, who specializes in education and technology.
Go to "How to Create a Professional Learning Community," "How to Break Down Barriers to Starting PLCs and "How to Use Twitter to Grow Your PLN."
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This article was also published in the Feb 2010: Social & Emotional Learning issue of Edutopia magazine as "The A Team".
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Comments
I am puzzled how "working collectively to help everyone be succesful" squares with pay based on who gets the best test scores, as proposed by a recent AFT position, and looming on the horizon in districts nationwide. Can we have our working collectivly cake and eat our competition based pay cake?
How do PLCs interact with evaluation frameworks like Framework for Teaching from Charlotte Danielson? A little different perspective to the same question as marc.
RE: PLCs and Framework for Teaching
I believe PLCs fit into Danielson's Framework for Teaching quite well. In the second edition of her book, you will notice Domain 4: Professional Responsibilities, Component 4d: Participating in a Professional Community. The elements under this component are: relationships with colleagues, involvement in a culture of professional inquiry, service to the school, and participation in school and district projects.
PLCs Are Just the Beginning
Restructuring one's school to function as a professional learning community, as described by the DuFours, makes a difference in student learning. The focus on meeting the needs of every student, and creating systemic approaches to developing curriculum, instruction, assessment, and interventions develops collaborative skills among staff.
I believe these skills extend beyond the school to ultimately influence all actions related to teacher professional growth. Once teachers develop the skills to truly work collaboratively in their schools, they transfer these behaviors to working with teachers in other schools and other districts as well. PLCs are a framework that help guide teacher professional growth, and if supported correctly will impact everyone's learning significantly.
Cheers!
Re: Performance-based pay systems
Marc, this post is in response to your comment "...how "working collectively to help everyone be succesful" squares with pay based on who gets the best test scores..."
If test scores are the only measure, then I agree it does not square at all. If it the measure of student achievement is a reflection of the growth that occurs, on average, at a school over the course of the year, then I think it squares quite nicely. I believe that when a staff unequivocably pulls together to work collaboratively, support each other, and meet the needs of all students that great things can be done!
But, if it comes down to how my kids do on this year's test, what incentive is there for my peers to help me? We need to truly all be in this together to make the most impact!
Cheers
Wow! Smart creation. It's make student confident
PLC's must be all-inclusive to be effective
It is imperative that ALL staff be a part of this process. It is a practice in some buildings to use specialists as "student supervisors" in order to provide meeting time for classroom/department teachers to gather.Please do not ignore the valuable input your building librarians, music, art, PE , etc. teachers can provide.
Interesting question: are the two things mutually exclusive? Or is one a reaction to the other? Here's what I mean. No one will be nervous about a proposal to add value based on test scores, if we all know what everyone else is doing. I'm not afraid of being fired if I know my lessons, pacing, expectations and student performance match yours. So if we function as a PLC or SLC or Critical Friends or whatever, we all win, students included. And wouldn't it be nice to ALL go to Jamaica with our bonus?
overall goal
But isn't the OVERALL goal the students? Shouldn't we be working to help the kids and not be so concerned about ourselves? I want more pay, too, but not at the cost of the children next door. I don't think merit pay will be based on "who does best." I believe it will be based on "student growth." So, all of us working together to help students grow and understand, in turn helps us reach the goals of merit pay. Merit pay can't be about pinning teachers against teachers...but should be about (and I believe it will be) ensuring academic success for ALL students.
PLC's have made a difference not only with the success of our students through collaboration but with moral among the teachers. PLC's help us to really feel like we are a team working together to positively impact our student's learning. This year all schools in the district have gotten out one hour early every Wednesday so teachers in every school throughout the school district could collaborate in our PLC's. This has been fabulous!! Unfortunately, there are a few very vocal parents whose schedule was disturbed with this and they ridiculed our school system and called our PLC time "Wacky Wednesday". These few parents organized and helped to get some people elected to the school board who will listen to them and do what these few parents want rather than what is best for the majority of our students. At least that is the impression many of us who could not vote in those deciding districts have. The first item of business on this new school board's agenda was doing away with our county wide common PLC collaboration time. They didn't even take the time to look at the research or hear the teachers. So sad.