The big ideas driving professional learning communities (PLCs)

There are big ideas driving PLCs
PLCs wouldn’t be where they are today without Richard DuFour, who was a huge advocate for collaborative teaching environments. He believed PLCs were the most sustainable way to continually improve education and student outcomes.
In an article DuFour wrote for ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development), he outlines the big ideas behind PLCs, which are:
- Making sure students learn: As DuFour notes, PLCs are not just a group, but a continual process where “educators work collaboratively in recursive cycles of collective inquiry and action research in order to achieve better results for the students they serve.”
- A culture of collaboration: Education isn’t just to ensure pupils are taught, but that they actually learn the material. Creating structures like PLCs that promote a collaborative culture enable educators to work together to achieve that collective purpose of making sure students learn.
- Emphasis on results: PLCs run on results-driven strategies. Current student levels are first assessed, then goals are established to improve those levels. Teachers work together to reach those goals, providing ongoing evidence of progress and regularly offering each other support and advice.
Of course, for PLCs to have success, DuFour explains that hard work and commitment is required. The PLC model is great, but requires proper execution. That mean answering the four critical questions of the PLC model:
- What do we want students to learn? This requires that teachers plan and pace instruction.
- How do we know if they learned it? This requires that teachers collect data.
- What do we do if they don’t learn the material? This requires that teachers intervene before students fall behind.
- What do we do if they do learn the material? This requires that teachers enrich the lesson plan.
The PLC model advocates a continuous cycle of improvement, one that can be used in any setting. This is precisely why it’s catching on at many schools, like Freeport Intermediate School. Located south of Houston, teachers at Freeport Intermediate School spend 90 minutes every day focusing on the results of their students, clarifying outcomes for their grade level and course, and aligning goals with state standards. Teachers constantly share results from assessments and work together to improve their teaching abilities. Since implementation of the PLC model, Freeport has gone from having poor performance to being a national model for academic achievement.
Clearly, if there is a commitment, the PLC model is the way to build a winning educational strategy for students. This model can also stand the test of time, ensuring long-term sustainable success for generations of students.
