Professional Learning Communities: Creating Cultures of Success
Professional learning communities are tools for developing cultures of success in schools all over the world. As educators, we are faced with growing demands on our time and resources. Because of this, practicality, efficiency, and flexibility are critical dispositions of the tools with which we choose to improve our instructional practices. The focus of this article is to present one such framework to the reader.
Professional learning communities, or PLCs, represent a common commitment to organizational change. They are not a magic reform program but a framework for continuous evaluation and review. To implement PLCs, faculty simply commit to meet on a regular basis to answer the following guiding questions:
- What do we want students to learn?
- How do we measure student learning?
- What do we do when students do not learn?
- What do we do when students are learning?
Committing to Success
The first step to implementing PLCs at your school is to simply agree to meet on a regular basis to evaluate learning goals and outcomes. Teachers can meet by grade level or by content, making the PLC process flexible enough for all K-12 needs. After colleagues commit to meeting regularly, they need to establish common behavior expectations.
For example, Ware County High School has the following common commitments for all faculty, staff, and students: “We commit to being Wise, Accountable, Respectful, and Engaged members of the Ware County High School community.” These commitments are succinctly summarized by the acronym “Be WARE.”
Not only should teacher leaders establish school wide expectations, but these qualities should be developed to provide for conditions that frame weekly PLC meetings. In the context of weekly PLC meetings, these habits define the expected behaviors of colleagues and peers.
Committing to Learning
After educators commit to advancing student success and outline peer and colleague behavior, PLC participants can begin to define learning expectations. This portion of the PLC process addresses the first and second essential questions: “What do we want students to learn?” and “How do we measure student learning?” Fortunately, most states in the United States provide content standards that guide instruction. These standards help to address the “what” portion of the PLC process. In Georgia, where I teach, the state defines learning expectations via the Georgia Standards of Excellence, or GSE Standards.
While states provide the standards of learning, the curriculum still needs some refinement.
For example, the GSE High School Mathematics standards are so broad that it is difficult to effectively teach them in their entirety. To address this issue, PLCs can develop “Power Standards.” Power standards are those that have the most impact on student success by leveraging performance in cross curricular contexts, enduring from one unit of study to the next in the same class, and promoting student readiness as prerequisites for later classes. As an example, feel free to view Ware County High School’s GSE Geometry Power Standards.
After defining what a PLC wants students to learn, participants can address the second essential question of PLCs: “How do we measure student learning?” Creating common assessment calendars facilitates this portion of the PLC process. This is not to say that every teacher participating in the PLC will have to give assessments on the exact same day, rather it ensures similar pacing among classes of common content. Further, assessment calendars and common assessments guide teachers as they endeavor to match the rigor level of state mandated tests, thereby increasing their own understanding of what standards mastery may represent. This transparency is an important characteristic if we are to engage in honest self-reflection.
Committing to Differentiation
Professional learning communities use frequent formative assessments to adjust instruction. PLC teams use data to identify students that struggle with proficiency, and which team members appear to have the most success teaching particular standards. This transparency allows teacher leaders to address two dispositions found in Hattie’s Effect Size List (Killian, 2017), Teacher Estimates of Student Achievement (1.62) and Collective Teacher Efficacy (1.57).
Teacher Estimates of Student Achievement refers to how teachers view the abilities of their students. If teachers set high, yet reasonable expectations, their students can rise to the occasion with effective teaching practices. Formative assessment data communicates whether or not our instruction has been effective. If teachers find that instruction has not been impactful, this should lead PLC members to discuss alternative teaching and differentiation strategies.
Collective Teacher Efficacy is a disposition that refers to how groups of teachers feel about their collective ability to impact student learning. John Hattie found that strong feelings of group efficacy lead to greater impacts on student learning. Constant data analysis provide teachers with a continuous feedback loop that reinforces teacher efficacy. Teachers will be the most impactful when they feel like their efforts are making a difference in the lives of students.
Differentiation is an organic outcome of professional learning communities. George Couros reminds us in The Innovator’s Mindset, the premise behind professional learning communities is the idea
that the abilities, talents, and intelligence of students and teachers can be developed so as to lead to the creation of new and better ideas. (Couros, 2015, p. 33)
The process of continuous reflection of teaching practices develops teachers into lifetime learners.
In reality, professional learning communities are not so much about student learning as they are about the impact of teacher learning on student achievement.
Editor’s Note:
The first activity that we were asked to do in my math Curriculum class was to build a concept map of the junior high Math curriculum, finding the main ideas that are taught at each grade levels, as well as noting the topics that build on previous grades using connector arrows. The exercise was quite useful in getting a holistic view of junior high Math; I see so many more advantages in it now. During a PLC session, teachers can work together on a concept map for their subjects as well as grades. While the subject one would focus on the curriculum connections, it would also incorporate skills that students should be learning. Across grades, we can talk about making sure the skills are taught in as diverse ways as possible. This is just one example of Professional Learning Communities and using the strengths of all educators to helps our students grow.
References:
Couros, G. (2015). The innovator’s mindset: Empower learning, unleash talent, and lead a culture of creativity. Dave Burgess Consulting, Incorporated.
Killian, S. (2017, September 24). Hattie’s 2017 Updated List of Factors Influencing Student Achievement. Retrieved from http://www.evidencebasedteaching.org.au/hatties-2017-updated-list/
