- Do the school structures and organization promote collaboration? Do teachers have built-in time for teamwork on a regular basis?
- Is the principal totally on board? Is (s)he ready and willing to provide continuing support and give high visibility to the teams’ work? And does the principal know good and effective ways of doing that?
- Does the entire administrative staff know what teams are supposed to accomplish, so that the teams will not get co-opted for other purposes?
- Do teachers know how to work collaboratively? Do they know what to do during a team meeting? Once they’re eyeball to eyeball, what next?
- Do teams have access to resources they need to increase their knowledge, skill, and teaching effectiveness?
- What ongoing incentives and supports are in place to keep the momentum rolling? For example, have any non-teaching responsibilities been lifted from teachers’ plates to make room for this new, important responsibility?
- Do teams know how to assess their progress as both team members and classroom teachers? Do they know how to assess the impact of new instructional strategies on students?
- Are mechanisms in place for sharing the work of the team’s school wide?
In some cases, people become disenchanted with PLCs because they are looking for a quick fix for this year’s test scores. PLCs represent a long-term commitment to quality. They are not a process for quickly ratcheting up test scores—although this collaborative investment in higher quality teaching will result in increased learning on the part of students.
In a nutshell, the school organization, structure, and environment must be supportive and promote collective learning on the part of staff. All staff members need knowledge and skills for working within professional learning communities. Most importantly, school and district leaders must understand the scope of the change with which they are dealing. Becoming a PLC is no easy task. They must commit to this initiative over the long haul, support it, and successfully deal with the inevitable resistance to this new way of doing business.
My primary message to the disenchanted would be: becoming a true Professional Learning Community takes time, patience, and persistence . . . three things that are often in short supply. But take heart! Professional learning communities are well worth the considerable effort that goes into creating and developing them. No other school initiative builds such capacity to engage in ongoing learning and improvement for students and adults.
Q: Your book is titled “A Facilitator’s Guide to Professional Learning Teams.” Do you see a difference between a “team” and a “community”? And what’s the goal of your book?
A: In my mental model (and in Richard DuFour’s words), teams are the building blocks of communities. Small teams of teachers work together on a regular basis to learn and improve instruction. They share their work with other teams and connections and commonalities begin to grow among teams. A sense of school wide community and collaboration develops. Students as well as adults begin operating in a climate of support. The PLC encompasses the entire school.
Since teams are the foundation of PLCs, the goal of A Facilitator’s Guide is to provide some tools for building successful teams.
