RSA #1 Professional Learning Communities: What Are They And Why Are They Important?: Introduction

Online Source: Professional Learning Communities: What Are They and Why Are They Important?

Professional Learning Communities  (PLCs) are evolving to enhance collaboration and problem solving within schools.    Martin-Kniep creates a breakdown of each person's role in the learning community as "participants".  These participants are one of five roles: learner, reflective practitioner, researcher, designer-author, and presenter-facilitator that encompass all staff titles and community members.  Isn’t a quality teacher, already a combination of these 5 roles?  Now schools have to prove that they have these quality teachers or interventions in place for the best results and practices.  A student’s learning is not resting on one person’s shoulder; it’s resting on the whole school districts. School district’s need a plan to follow and by creating professional learning communities the school, staff, and students will all benefit. 

Author Shirley M. Hold’s  research about PLCs was found through The Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL).  Her stance, still  the ideal over 10 years later, argues the need to change to current teaching practices.  In her research, direct teaching in isolation of subjects is not the best way for students to learn.  They compared teachers around the globe and found in the countries where “teachers teach fewer classes and use a greater portion of their time to plan, confer with colleagues, work with students individually, visit other classrooms, and engage in other professional development activities” the students’ outcomes increased ( Hord 1997),.   These communities have to evolve over time as society and educational practices change. We have started to progress with learning based centers K-8, and collaboration among staff during weekly and monthly meetings and institutes.  To further evolve, why not create professional learning communities using technology?  Instead of a typical meeting in a principal’s office, lounge, or classroom, PLC’s can use online technologies to share and collaborate ideas even when teachers don’t have common plan time. 

Besides both being a great resource for facilitating and creating a lasting Professional Learning Community, they have different focuses in mind.  One of the main differences is that assessment and feedback are given greater depth in Martin-Kniep.  Constructive criticism is an important factor for creating a PLC that works.  SEDLs focus is on structure and teaching practices should evolve with the learning community.  If the professional learning community uses feedback to develop their best practices, it would be a perfect, all encompassing, PLC. 

References

Hord,  Shirley M. (1997) Professional Learning Communities: What Are They and Why Are They Important?: Issues About Change, Volume 6, Number 1 Retrieved from: http://www.sedl.org/pubs/catalog/items/cha35.html

Martin-Kniep, Giselle O. (2008). Communities that learn, lead, and last. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc

The Southwest Educational Developmental Laboratory (2011) SEDL:Advancing Research Improving Education;  Retrieved from: http://www.sedl.org/