Elizabeth Meza
RSA 2: Laying the Foundation for a PLC
EDT 6030 Using Technology to Build Learning Communities
In this week’s reading the focus was on establish the foundation for creating a Professional Learning Community. It included some downfalls a PLC can go through when that learning community is not well developed. One of such downfalls is the idea of collaboration among teachers. In Learning By Doing p.117, Principal McDonald shows his frustration when he notices that although time and training was given to collaborate among teachers there was little improvement of student achievement. He made every effort to find out how the staff felt regarding these meetings. After several observations in these team meetings he noted that many meeting were not focused on the students learning or data. Mainly team meetings focused on topics that had little to do with student learning. Team meetings were supposed to be focused on curriculum, assessment, and instruction, but how do you express this to a faculty without objection?
In contrast, the video posted on YouTube, Professional Learning Teams: The School Connection, (December 2008), shows how Professional Learning Teams can work collaboratively to improve student learning. The principal noted that his school has shown remarkable improvements in student achievement. One fact that helped accomplish this is the sense of direction for each of the meetings. The teachers are given time to collaborate after school. This allows the teachers to work amongst themselves with little distractions. The teachers meet within their grade levels and discuss student data. They also dialogue over instruction and how they could improve it through the feedback given to them from other teachers. This helps assure the teachers that all students understand the concepts being presented to them. It continues by mentioning that if students are not learning, what are the actions a teacher must take to make each child succeed before it’s too late.
In Working Smarter by Working Together (2008), it tells of Stevenson High School and their journey through the development and successful implementation of a professional learning community. It states that teachers meet each week in course specific and sometimes interdisciplinary teams. They are called to analyze data, discuss strategies for improvement of instruction, and to develop assessments and lesson plans. Everything they are doing is targeted to the groups, including professional development and hiring of new staff. Mirroring what our text states, it mentions the challenges of a school might go through in implementation of a PLC. It states that, to create a PLC you must change the whole culture of the school. I think what is important to mention is that it requires a lot of sensitivity and dialogue before the culture change can happen. That said, a principal cannot just say one day, “We are going to create a PLC in our school” and expect the change to happen automatically.
The article gives four essential points that will help enhance the effectiveness of teacher teams. These are;
1. Build time for collaboration into the school day and year.
2. Clarify the purpose and products of collaboration. This might include developing common assessments or objectives.
3. Ask team to clarify their operating procedures and protocols that will guide their working together. Asking questions like what are our expectations for how our team will operate? How will the team resolve conflict?
4. As a team identify specific, measureable performance goals that will eventually show that more students are learning at high levels.
One of the most important steps mentioned here is asking others, “What do we do when students don’t learn?” (Honawar, 2008)
References
Dufour, R.,Dufour, R., Eaker R., Many T. (2010). Learning by Doing. Bloomington. IN:Solution Tree Press.
Honawar, Vaishali (2008). Working Smarter By Working Together. Lincolnshire, IL: Education Week.
Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/ew/index.html
Wake County Schools (2009, December 7) Professional Learning Teams: The School Connection [Video]. YouTube.
Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJDhPXQY318
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