Assess The Role Of A Professional Learning Community In Education

For the Professional Learning Community (PLC) experience, I chose to observe a PLC. For this assignment, I observed an eighth grade English PLC. This PLC was comprised of three English teachers and one student teacher. There was not a written agenda for their PLC, but they seemed to have an order to how their meeting was held. The began by discussing the unit that they were completing which was using Greek Mythology to review and analyze student’s reading comprehension and summary writing abilities. They stated that their students seemed to be really interested in the unit and did well with the reading comprehension. However, they had noticed that some students were forgetting to state the title and author of the text within the summary and most summaries lacked elaboration, but most students were knowledgeable about the basic structure of a summary. As most students understood the basic structure, they decided that they were going to transition onto the next unit which focused on informative essay writing, but modify the unit in order to teach students the importance of including the title and author within a summary and

Learning Partnership measures the degree to which teachers, parents, and students work together for the common good of the student. (Gruenert & Valentines, 1998)

PLCs are an ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many, 2006). The PLCs should be crafted around the idea of cultivating a sense of shared responsibility between all stakeholders.

Roberts, S. & Pruitt, E. (2003). Schools as Professional Learning Communities: Collaborative Activities and Strategies for Professional Development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Following my professional enquiry, I have felt that it was important to make further improvements in my teaching pedagogy in order to move forward. Therefore, I have put the next steps into place. Through the professional enquiry, I have gained a further understanding into which areas of my practice need further development.

Successful PLCs involve having student data. The data does not need to come from tests, but it can come from student work or from observations. Through PLCs, the teachers should grow as an educator, and the students should benefit from it.

Unfortunately, thorough research on the impact of professional development on student achievement is limited because it is challenging, complex and expensive to study. Nonetheless, Hoaglund, Birkenfeld, and Box, (2015), conducted a study that illustrated that learning communities are viable tools for providing professional development to both pre-service teachers and current teachers. Their study showed how a group of pre-service teachers and their supervisors participated in a professional experience learning community for two terms prior to the pre-service teacher’s junior year at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Questionnaires and interviews were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. The results of the study indicated that all participants valued the experience and consequently were able to gain and identify some benefits of a professional learning community (PLC). Participants specifically reported a greater appreciation of collaboration with more experienced educators as a practical way of solving issues and implementing processes and procedures for increasing student achievement. The activities incorporated within the

During our second Bear Creek visit, I observed the English Language Arts Professional Learning Community also known as ELA. When I first heard about the PLC, I was surprised because it is a brilliant concept. I never knew this existed. The English Language Arts PLC ran smoothly because the teacher that was presenting knew the standard she was going to focus on and how she was going to present the content to the students. All of the ELA teachers also had a schedule about how the meeting was going to flow so that no one was confused. They also used technology to present the standards and the content so that all of the teachers could see and make suggestions and ask questions. One teacher was questioned about why she chose a particular book

This time is used for various types of professional development. We meet every Friday from 8:05 until about 9:20, unless we have a planning week for conferences or other special projects. The district also does four whole day professional development sessions throughout the school year. These sessions usually happen on a Friday, so the children do not miss out on a full day of school. All district staff a required to be in a professional learning community (PLC). In our PLCs we work on a topic or areas of our teaching or classroom that we feel is a weak area. The group members work to plan ways to improve the lacking

Dr. Fremstad has been instrumental in the implementation of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) at West Fargo High School. She understands the power of teacher collaboration and has led the charge to train and monitor the program with fidelity. Jennifer has inspired educators to share student evidence of learning and extend intervention or enrichment learning opportunities based on the data. In addition, she advocates on the importance of frequent classroom visitations with her leadership team and establishes annual visitation goals to support teachers and

PLC's where instructors work cooperatively to ponder their practice, inspect proof about the relationship in the among practice and student results, and roll out improvements that enhance showing and learning for the specific students in their classes (Kagle, 2014).

Though the idea of working collaboratively is not a new one, the concept of professional learning communities (PLCs) has recently become very popular in education. During the summer of 2012, the Pasco County School District introduced the concept of PLCs into its schools in an effort to improve student learning in this era of increased educational scrutiny and accountability. Department heads suddenly found themselves relabeled PLC facilitators and called to attend two days of summer training meant to prepare them to lead PLCs once the school year began. The other PLC participants, the

enrollment forecast) and policies (e.g. grading, curriculum). This frame is often described by Bolman and Deal (2013) as the “factory” or “machine” the element of organizations need to exist for effectiveness. Because this frame is more or less one-sided, and emphasizes rules and policies dictated from COCE leadership to its adjuncts. It is not the most appropriate framework for a collaborative efforts, such as a professional learning community (PLC).

Traditionally, teacher development typically occurs through trial and error in the isolated confinements of each teacher’s classroom with some periodic whole-group professional development (Goddard & Goddard, 2007). Within the past few decades, many schools and districts, including ours, have considered and experimented with Professional Learning Communities (PLC) as an alternative framework in guiding a more efficient development program for their teachers. PLCs are focused on enhancing student learning through developing teacher practices. The concept of PLC relies on using structured collaborative sessions amongst teachers within the school to build internal capacity. Through PLCs, teachers critically reflect on current

A professional learning community is an environment that focuses on collaboration and results. Students are expected to work together and so are the teachers. The classrooms I have observed are keen to implement collaborative activities. I have not witnessed