Professional Learning Communities Essay

Living Learning Communities facilitate learning, growth, and friendship. LLCs seek students who are dedicated and motivated. Personally, I am both; throughout high school, I have worked hard and studied hard. I maintained a high GPA while participating in theatre almost every day after school. Indeed, I was able to take rigorous Advanced Placement courses along with dual enrollment engineering course while helping to run my school’s theatre company, Lymlight Production. I plan to continue both this hard work while at USF. Thus, living in an LLC will help me meet my goals.

Professional Development measures the degree to which teachers value continuous personal development and school-wide improvement.

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.

Teachers sometimes attend these, but do not apply those skills. PLCs involve talking with a team of teachers and analyzing data or student work to come up with action plans to move the students forward academically or behaviorally. PLCs involve more communication between teachers, and action steps that can be apply right away in the classroom. In my opinion, it is very effective when both professional development and PLCs are used at the same time. For example, a teacher attends a professional development, and through a PLC, they share what they learned and how it can help the other teachers in the team. The team would then apply that skill or strategy and report back to the team so see what results came from each one of them trying those skills. The team would modify the strategy based on

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

The first action-plan process we must monitor is the formation of the committee that will develop the action-plan. The principal will make certain all of the members of the committee have a strong desire to be on the committee because their interest in being an integral part of school improvement is imperative. The group development will be monitored through conversations with the committee members throughout the action-plan development and implementation. The principal will also provide a survey administered to the committee to gauge their perceived effectiveness while also maintaining an open door policy with all committee members so they may voice concerns to the principal

With the shift in professional learning from collecting PLUs to one focused on improving teaching and learning, it is important that teacher leaders play a role in implementing professional learning communities and helping to make sure accountability in professional learning. I am excited about the opportunity to share these changes and new expectations with fellow teachers. A fellow teacher and I have been trained on the upcoming changes and will be redelivering it to other teachers at our school in the near

Professional development is a requirement in order to guarantee that current teachers are able to provide students with the tools necessary to succeed in school. For years, professional development has been limited to mandating that all teachers receive the same, exclusive training methods. Research has

3. Assess effectiveness of all students learning at high levels based on results. “PLCs judge their effectiveness on outcomes related to the holistic development of their students.”

Lastly,it will help with money for the school. Teachers will get more money because thea get

Despite research supporting the need for educators to move from isolation to collaboration to build capacity and improve the learning of multigenerational students (Hiatt-Michael, 2001). The COCE leadership did not fully plan or execute Fullan’s (2016) three phases required to sustain change. Nor did the COCE leadership demonstrate the four essential elements of successful PLCs: “servant leader (guide and nurturer); shared moral purpose; sense of trust and respect among all members; and an open environment for conducive to collaborative decision making” (Hiatt-Michael, 2001, p.

A professional learning community (PLC) is a group collaborating together to improve teacher instruction, teacher learning, and student achievement. This improves the quality of living within the community that the members of the PLC work and live in. A PLC has 5 components:

teaching experience at Sagebrush Elementary School in Sheridan, Wyoming I learned how a PLC community works. I understand how a PLC community collaborates to benefit the students, school, and district. I will be highly motivated and work to benefit the students, the school, and the district. Overall, I am willing to work hard for the school, district, and the students making sure all of our students walk away succeeding. The classroom is a place where students learn how to socially interact and the teacher needs to create an environement where students can safely interact, learn, and succeed. As a teacher, I want to accomplish creating a classroom that is safe, comfortable, engaging, and promotes learning. I would to become an active member

Richard Dufour explains the essence of a PLC in three “big ideas”: 1. Ensuring that students learn- with this concept it requires teachers to look at what we want students to learn, how we will know when they have learned it, and how will respond when a student struggles. 2. A culture of collaboration- “The powerful collaboration that characterizes professional learning communities is a systematic process in which teachers work together to analyze and improve their classroom practice. Teachers work in teams, engaging in an ongoing cycle of questions that promote deep team learning. This process, in turn, leads to higher levels of student achievement.” (Dufour, 2004) 3. A focus on results- teachers must begin to ask, “Have we made progress on the goals that are most important to us?” (Dufour, 2004)