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FROM INSIGHTS, FALL 2008, COPYRIGHT 2008 KASC

GROWING WITH PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES

Administrators at Marion County High School realized the power of their new school-improvement approach last school year when English teachers outlined a plan to tag-team instruction in each other’s classes to maximize all students’ exposure to the units the teachers knew to be their individual strengths.

Principal Taylora Schlosser credits the school’s move to Professional Learning Communities for helping teachers rethink routines and move toward a collaborative approach where the teacher with the knack for explain-ing grammar or parts of speech might   lead classes in a colleague’s room for a few days while her regular class works through another topic.

“The bottom line is that this is zeroing us in on what students need,” Schlosser said.

In recent years, schools are turning to the structure of Professional Learning Communities to identify specific im-provement targets and then doggedly follow what’s happening while contin-ually looking for ways to get better. 

PLCs operate in different forms: they can be as small as a grade-level or subject-level team or encompass an entire school faculty. They can work at the district level or come together as a hybrid team that involves parents, community members, and even students to upgrade a specific topic, like integrating science and technology.

The growing popularity of PLCs as a vehicle for school improvement led KASC to design a new workshop explain-ing the concept and helping schools build effective teams. The workshop debuted this summer and will be offered at KASC’s conference in September.

“It’s a process of real teamwork with a common goal or vision for student achievement,” said Lisa Stone, an education leader at KASC and retired principal and district administrator. “It’s a way of organizing and working that is very intentional about getting results.”

Schools across Kentucky have adopted the PLC approach, which allows for schools to create their own focus and definition of how the groups will work. For school councils, the benefit of effective PLCs is in turning a school’s mission, vision, or improve-ment goals into a real work plan. The proponents of PLCs say the approach leads to:

> Building focused teamwork and leadership in schools. 

> Focusing professional discussions and work around results. 

> Defining concrete steps toward stronger student learning.

BUILDING TEAMWORK & LEADERSHIP

In leading books on developing Professional Learning Communities, authors Richard and Rebecca DuFour emphasize that the approach moves beyond trying to develop a cohesive or congenial faculty to create professional teams that collaborate on a process to analyze and improve classroom practice.

PLCs, they say, are about developing an ongoing cycle of questions to promote deep team learning that affects student achievement. The serious focus of PLCs can lead to a new kind of collaboration and unity in schools while developing greater leadership capacity in all group members.

KASC’s workshop describes five attributes of effective PLCs: collective creativity, shared values and vision, supportive and shared leadership, sup-portive conditions, and shared personal practice. Stone said that effective PLCs have a lot in common with strong councils. While councils manage the big picture of a school’s direction and PLCs tackle specific improvement targets, Stone said that both groups can share strategies for building teamwork and leadership focused on increased achievement.

At Marion County High School, Principal Taylora Schlosser said the school council has, in large part, become an overseer of PLCs. There, the PLC teams meet for an hour every other week, with all faculty members participating. Each team has a coach. They develop definitions about how they will operate. The teams then focus on what needs to happen for the school to fulfill its vision and mis-sion and improve-ment goals through curriculum, instruc-tion, and assessment.

Among the MCHS English department, the PLC has changed how the teachers get professional develop-ment. Teachers spread PD exposure and expertise by go-ing to training in pairs and returning to share what they learned with each other. The teachers have also started monitoring how well students are engaged by lessons, increased the use of formative assessments to gauge learning, and looked at the way teachers are deployed in classrooms.

“We’ve turned issues over to them, and the PLCs have come up with things  we  never  would  have  thought  of  — better than we would have thought of,” said Tammy Newcome, an assistant principal.

“The mentality of ‘I’m going to close my door and work in my room’ has come to a screeching halt in our building,” Schlosser said

Councils should look at PLCs or the PLC model to think about building teamwork and leadership within a school. 

FOCUSING ON RESULTS

PLCs invent themselves in different ways, even across Kentucky. At Green-wood High School in Warren County, some PLCs, like those organized by academic department, look at basic ways students learn. Others, like the Smaller Learning Communities PLC or the Alternative Grading PLC, are examining innovative new approaches. 

Still, all PLCs should focus on results and boosting achievement.

National articles and experts em-phasize that PLCs identify current achievement, establish goals to work toward, develop ways to gather evidence of progress, look for the attributes of successful practice, and stay focused on finding ways to reach achievement goals.

“It really is a process, not a program,” Stone of KASC said.

At Dixie Elementary School in Fayette County, the focus on results has caused teacher-led PLC teams to develop teaching units together, write common assessment items, and analyze student work and test data. School leaders see the teams as a driving force behind double-digit gains on Ken-tucky’s CATS tests.

Within PLCs, the data focus is often on individual results and progress by students rather than simply gauging class averages. Formative assessment — regular checks of classroom learning designed to guide instruction — is another common step in reaching achievement goals.

PLCs can bolster a council’s work by going where councils can’t — examining and addressing individ-ual student results. In that way, PLCs can inform and rein-force council action.

DEFINING CONCRETE STEPS

While successful PLCs are built on a foundation of com-mon knowledge, shared leadership, and a schoolwide focus, their work is ultimately about the steps that make sure students are learning.

PLCs are built through a series of basic questions: What is each student expected to learn? How do faculty members know when students have met the learning goals? How does the school deal with students who struggle or fall behind? 

The goal of ensuring student learning often leads to discussions that define achievement levels. At the same time, PLCs look at interventions and pro-cesses for removing obstacles to learn-ing. These decisions set the school’s course for what it wants and how it will monitor student learning to get there.

“The questions of ‘Learn what?’ and ‘How will we know?’ are two of the most significant questions a PLC will consider, the very basis of the collective inquiry that drives the work of collaborative teams,” according to the 2006 book Learning by Doing, by Richard and Rebecca DuFour, Robert Eaker, and Thomas Many. 

At Rockcastle County Middle School, PLCs have been a key force in examining what the school sees, in hindsight, as low-level expectations and results. De-partment goals, specific learning targets, and common assessments are now in place throughout the school. The school collects data on instruction and student learning to consider future changes. In addition to higher CATS scores, the school’s leaders also report a stronger sense of purpose among faculty and more engaging classrooms.

At Marion County High, being an active participant in a PLC is now part of every teacher’s professional growth plan. Principal Schlosser expects the second full-year with PLCs to define the school’s plan further, tapping new ways to utilize classroom assessment. Already, she said, teachers are much clearer about where students need help, where they are doing well, and whether the challenges that remain require money, professional development, schedule changes, or something else.

“Our council meetings start with good news, but then we get right into student achievement and talking about what the PLCs are doing,” Schlosser said. “We are more focused than ever on making sure kids are learning and that we’re making progress every step of the way.”

> Find out more about KASC’s “Increasing Student Achievement Through Professional Learning Communities” PD by phoning (859) 238-2188.