PLCs and LEARNING-FOCUSED
Brenda Hill
Dec 06, 2010
successful face-to-face team is more than just collectively intelligent. It makes everyone work harder, think smarter and reach better conclusions than they would have on their own."
from Results Now by Mike Schmoker
Professional Learning Communities Defined:
Learning communities is a wide-ranging educational term that has been used quite frequently over the last decade with many meanings and interpretations. Some have interpreted learning communities to mean extending educational opportunities and classroom practices into the school community; others see learning communities as an opportunity to bring community personnel into the school to enrich and augment the curriculum and learning tasks for students; still others feel that learning communities are a means of engaging administrators, teachers, and students in collaboratively working together to improve learning. "Astuto and colleagues (1993) describe the professional community of learners as a place in which the teachers in a school and its administrators continuously seek and share learning and then act on what they learn. The goal of their actions is to enhance their effectiveness as professionals so that students benefit. This arrangement has also been termed communities of continuous inquiry and improvement." Richard and Rebecca DuFour define professional learning communities (PLCs) as "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. PLCs operate under the assumption that the key to improved learning for students is continuous, job-embedded learning for educators. The fundamental structure of a PLC is collaborative teams of educators who work interdependently to achieve a common goal, for which members are mutually accountable." The connection between the Learning-Focused Strategies Model and PLCs will be further explored using the DeFours' explanation and beliefs about professional learning communities.
Structure and Purpose of Professional Learning Communities:
According to the DeFours "real PLCs are collaborative teams within a single grade, course, or interdisciplinary program with an ongoing focus on four questions:
• What do we want our students to learn? The team identifies the essential, guaranteed, and viable curriculum.
• How will we know they are learning? The team creates or procures common interim assessments to measure all students' learning and uses the results from the assessments to inform and improve team members' individual and collective professional practice.
• How will we respond when students don't learn? The school orchestrates timely, directive, and systematic interventions for students.
• How will we respond when they do learn? The school orchestrates enrichment and extension of learning for students who have reached proficiency."
The purpose of a PLC has been explained as a collaborative team continuously working together on a consistent, pervasive basis using the four guiding questions with the goal of improving student learning and achievement. If that is the explanation and purpose of professional learning communities then there is a strong, direct correlation between PLCs and the goals of the Learning-Focused Strategies Model, which are continuous improvement and consistent and pervasive. So...how and where do PLCs connect and "fit" with the Learning-Focused Strategies Model?
Connections - Professional Learning Communities and the LEARNING-FOCUSED Strategies Model
The explanation, purpose, and desired outcomes of PLCs clearly correlate to the Model. This is evident by the desired results on which we are focused - increasing student performance and achievement by continuously looking at school and classroom data, the implementation of research and evidence-based strategies as instructional practices within each and every classroom, the development and use of ongoing formative and summative assessments to consistently monitor student progress/learning, and the consistent, pervasive use of differentiated assignments to meet the needs of all students. The DeFours' guiding questions for professional learning communities will further establish the connection between PLCs and the Learning-Focused Strategies Model:
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What do we want our students to learn? The team identifies the essential, guaranteed, and viable curriculum.
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Learning-Focused Connections: prioritized curriculum; research-based and evidence-based strategies; Know-Understand-Do organizers, Student Learning Maps, acquisition lessons, extending thinking activities and lessons; quality learning units.
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How will we know they are learning? The team creates or procures common interim assessments to measure all students' learning and uses the results from the assessments to inform and improve team members' individual and collective professional practice.
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Learning-Focused Connections: common assessments - formative and summative; assessment prompts in acquisition lessons; collaborative planning and professional discussion in Teacher Reflection Meetings; distributed guided practice and distributed summarizing throughout teaching; rubrics.
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How will we respond when students don't learn? The school orchestrates timely, directive, and systematic interventions for students.
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Learning-Focused Connections: Catching Kids Up (acceleration and scaffolding); Vocabulary Instruction; benchmark assessments; Differentiated Assignments
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How will we respond when they do learn? The school orchestrates enrichment and extension of learning for students who have reached proficiency.*
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Learning-Focused Connections: Extending Thinking, Differentiated Assignments, learning teams (focused on increased fluency and reading comprehension strategies).
Every component or solution of the Learning-Focused Strategies Model easily "fits" within the structure and purpose for the utilization of professional learning communities. Teacher Reflection Meetings using school and classroom data with a specific instructional focus provide the perfect opportunity to effectively integrate PLCs and the Model. The goals of continuous improvement and consistent and pervasive will allow the "perfect union" between professional learning communities and Teacher Reflection Meetings. The coexistence of the Learning-Focused Strategies Model and PLCs allows collaborative time for administrators and teachers to work together to focus on and improve student learning outcomes. Through the collaborative efforts in PLCs, administrators and teachers work together to discuss and improve classroom instructional practices; to schedule and confer about areas of need (subgroups, test item analysis, etc) within a school or across a grade level; to analyze, interpret, and use relevant data to determine "next steps;” to utilize and monitor student growth and progress through assessments - formative and summative; and to provide professional development opportunities that are purposeful and meaningful. The effective, successful implementation of Teacher Reflection Meetings as professional learning communities will result in enhanced, sustained growth and enriched learning outcomes for ALL - administrators, teachers, and students.
References:
"Clarity Precedes Competence" by Richard DuFour and Rebecca DuFour in Education Week, Oct. 13, 2010 (Vol. 30, #7, p. 18)
Professional Learning Communities: What Are They And Why Are They Important?
Issues... about Change, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1997)
