Professional Learning Communities

Typically, workshops and presentations focus on the “what to” of establishing PLCs. Consequently educators know what to do, but not necessarily how to do it. For example, teachers may know that they are supposed to get together and improve instruction in areas of student need. So they make the necessary preparations and find themselves sitting across the table from one another. Now what? How do they begin? How do they have a productive meeting that accomplishes something? How do they keep the meeting on focus and on track? How do they determine if they are making an impact? How do they keep the momentum going? The goal of A Facilitator’s Guide is to provide some tools and tips to fill in the “how to” gap.

Q:  Realistically, do you think there’s a future for PLCs, in a time when teachers feel a lot of pressure to “teach to the test” and follow a strict curriculum guide? Do teachers have enough flexibility and decision-making responsibility to make PLCs worthwhile?

A:  I think, realistically, that PLCs are the best hope for the future of education, precisely for the reasons you mentioned. . . to counteract those pressures to “teach to the test” and adopt formulaic approaches to teaching. Today we have an entire generation of teachers whose primary experience with teaching has been to focus on aligning their teaching with standardized test objectives. These teachers need opportunities to focus on what they devoted their lives to do—teach students meaningful material in meaningful ways. The professional teams in which teachers work are designed to build leadership at all levels and promote decision-making where it makes the most sense—at the classroom level. So, yes, teachers have more flexibility and decision-making responsibility in a school that operates as a professional learning community than in a traditional school. Remember—PLCs are designed to develop a strong community of teachers with a solid base of expert knowledge and skills. When such teachers work together to prepare students for productive and useful lives, the test will take care of itself.

Think about this: our education system is the most important institution in our nation. It’s the glue that holds our citizens together. It builds and transmits our heritage, common culture, and values across racial, ethnic, and socio-economic lines. An institution that valuable is worth the effort of working together to continually improve, and I believe that PLCs are the single best opportunity for improving teaching and learning.

TLN member Anne Jolly is Director for Professional Learning Teams at SERVE, the Southeastern Education Research and Development Laboratory. A former middle grades science teacher and Alabama Teacher of the Year, Jolly is the author of A Facilitator's Guide to Professional Learning Teams.