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Teaching Methods

Guiding Principles of PLCs (Professional Learning Communities)

A PLC is a continual process used to set up a school wide culture that develops teacher leadership openly focused on structuring and supporting school improvement efforts. Generally, PLCs are made up of teachers, even though administrators and support staff regularly participate. In some cases, "PLCs are extended to community members and students, as appropriate. Through participation in PLCs, teachers enhance their leadership capacity while they work as members of ongoing, high-performing, collaborative teams that focus on improving student learning" (Professional Learning Communities, 2009).

The three guiding principles of PLCs include:

Ensuring Students Learn - PLCs focus on the individual learning of each student. This transfer of focus underlies the work of a PLC. In a PLC, school leaders and teachers work jointly to increase high levels of professional know-how in order to improve student learning results.

Building a Culture of Collaboration - Arrangements and processes are put in place to make possible the development of a collaborative culture. One vital structure is the learning team, with every teacher being a member of one. Centering on student learning, each learning team meets at a regularly designated time all through the school year. When teachers learn and work in teams, a sense of communal purpose and collegiality is cultivated among the staff. Teachers in PLCs are equally responsible for their students and work interdependently towards their common goal.

Focusing on Student Outcomes - PLCs evaluate their effectiveness on outcomes linked to the overall development of their students. Every learning team is concerned with an enduring process of using significant data to recurrently improve classroom practice and thus, student achievement. "Data can be catalysts for improved teacher practice if (a) there is a basis for comparison and (b) information facilitates the identification of areas hindering or enabling student learning. Armed with meaningful data, teachers can then employ appropriate and timely intervention strategies" (the 3 Big Ideas, 2010).

A PLC is made up of collaborative teams whose members work interdependently to attain common goals linked to the function of learning for all. The team is the catalyst that drives the PLC endeavor and the basic building block of the organization. It is hard to make too much out of the importance of collaborative teams in the improvement process. It is just as important, though, to highlight that collaboration does not lead to better results unless people are paying attention to the right issues. Collaboration is a means to an end, not the end itself. In a lot of schools, staff members are willing to work together on a diversity of themes as long as the focus of the discussion stops at their classroom door. "In a PLC, collaboration represents a systematic process in which teachers work together interdependently in order to impact their classroom practice in ways that will lead to better results for their students, for their team, and for their school" (About PLCs, n.d.).