Professional Learning Community Resources

This quote from the ALL Things PLC website provides a clear and comprehensive definition of a Professional Learning Community (PLC):

A Professional Learning Community is “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. Professional learning communities operate under the assumption that the key to improved learning for students is continuous job-embedded learning for educators.”

In many schools today, teachers are engaged in activities that are being called PLCs that are really something else—perhaps professional working communities (PWCs). Much of my writing, presentations, and facilitations are geared toward getting teachers to ask the question, “Why do students need us to learn?”

Videos:

1. Professional Learning for Student Achievement

    

2. End of the Year Goal Setting as Team Building: A Vertical Elementary School Example

    

3. Teaching as a Team sport in a Public Act: Why are Teams Critical for Student Learning?

    

4. What’s the difference between “sharing” and “teaming”?

    

5. Professional Learning Communities

    

Blogs:

1. School Leadership Team Goal-Setting
2. PLCs: From Data to Action
3. A Vision for PLCs
4. PLC or PWC?</a
5. PLCs and Coaching for Teacher and Student Learning
6. Learning PLC Skills and Practices by Doing PLCs
7. Coaches and PLCs
8. Questions and Discussion in PLCs
9. VIDEO: Changes in Teacher Behavior
10. Peer Coaching and PLCs
11. Instructional Coaches and Professional Learning Communities
12. Facilitating Conversations: Empowering Teams
13. Case Study: The Austin Independent School District
14. Driving Action from Mission and Vision
15. Why Teams?
16. Teaching and Learning Through Analysis
17. A Conversation with Jim Knight
18. PLCs: Playpen or Playground
19. Teacher Goals and Shared Student Achievement Outcomes

Podcast:

1. Supporting or Hijacking Professional Learning Communities
2. Learning Communities: What Do our Students Want (Need) Us to Learn? A Conversation with Steve Barkley (Sticky Standards #24)
3. Building Team Effectiveness
4. Celebrating a School Success
5. Multi-Year Teacher Collaboration
6. Administrators Modeling Vulnerability & Continuous Improvement
7. Some Thoughts on Mentoring: Supporting Beginning Teachers
8. Involving Teachers or Empowering Teachers?
9. Leading With Stories
10. Multi-Age Learning Environments

Other Downloads:

1. Power Point – Douglas County “Effectiveness of PLCs”