Professional Learning Communities at Work:
Bringing the Big ideas to Life
By Dr. Rick & Becky DuFour
The research is clear: The most promising strategy for sustained,
substantive school improvement is developing the capacity of school
personnel to function as a professional learning community (PLC).
When schools operate as PLC's, staff members are united by a clear
sense of purpose, a common understanding of the school they are trying
to create in order to achieve that purpose, collective commitments
regarding what they must do to move the school in the desired direction,
and shared goals that provide benchmarks of their progress. Staff
members work together in collaborative teams that engage in recurring
cycles of collective inquiry on the big questions of teaching and
learning, engage in action research, build continuous improvement
cycles into the routine practices of the school, and assess their efforts on
the basis of results rather than activities.
As a result of engaging in this event participants will learn specific,
practical strategies that have been proven in the real world of schools to:
a. shift the focus of a staff from teaching to learning,
b. develop systematic responses that provide students who are
struggling with additional time and support,
c. create the collaborative culture essential to a PLC,
d. focus collaborative teaching teams on the critical questions that
drive PLCs,
e. utilize the leadership strategies most effective in creating PLCs at
Work.
f. establish SMART goals that serve as indicators of the school's
progress,
g. provide each teacher and team with relevant feedback that will
inform teaching practice, and
h. engage in productive crucial conversations
