General+Info+on+PLCs


 * __PLC = Professional Learning Community__**

The Westminster Schools has begun to launch PLC initiatives as a mechanism for ongoing professional development with its faculty. The Junior High School has piloted a number o f PLCs that have focused on the use and incorporation of Texas Instruments' Nspire graphing calculator in math, science, and economics curricula. These collaborative, ongoing professional communities of JHS faculty work together on a regular basis to discuss their classroom projects, learn how to more effectively use the calculator as a tool, and design and implement curricular ideas. One faculty member, Jill Gough, has facilitated both PLCs, 2007-2008 and 2008-2009. Each faculty member receives a course reduction to participate in the PLC for the entire year, meeting four times a week for an hour each meeting (acts like their fifth class). Some faculty members have participated for two years.

In addition, the Center for Teaching at The Westminster Schools has also launched PLCs in its faculty cohort program. The CFT’s faculty cohort program is an innovative model for faculty growth and the exploration of key educational issues. The faculty cohort is a professional learning community of ten teachers, five from Westminster and five from Drew Charter, who exchange information, discuss current educational topics, interact with educational experts, collaborate on action research projects, and share experiences with professional development. The relationships among faculty cohort members are designed as a way to exchange professional resources and inform teaching practice at both schools. Cohort members have expressed how transformative this experience has been. Through the program, we are utilizing a model of professional development based on the core principles for 21st century professional development. Pat Bassett, President of NAIS, wrote in 2006 about six principles for professional development in the 21st century school. One of the core principles was creating a culture that “cultivates faculty members working in teams.”(1) In support of Bassett’s views, a study funded by the National Staff Development Council reports on the 2001 work of Saxe, Gearheart, and Nasir which “compared three types of support for teacher learning, and found that student achievement improved most when teachers were engaged in sustained, collaborative professional development that specifically focused on deepening teacher’s content knowledge and instructional practice.” (2)

 The most significant issue facing schools in the next five years will be to redesign faculty professional development to make possible the transformation from mostly content-driven curricula to curricula that are designed to teach 21st century skills. There is research to support the premise that faculty professional development geared towards improving student achievement must: (1) enable collaboration among faculty; (2) be ongoing and embedded into a faculty member’s normal routines; (3) be site specific to best address local issues; (4) deepen and broaden the teacher’s content knowledge; (5) be based on and reflect the best educational research; (6) be intellectually engaging and address the complexity of teaching; and (7) provide time, support, and resources to enable teachers to master new content and pedagogy and to integrate this knowledge and skills into their practice. We know that these core principles of professional development can be found in professional learning communities or teacher networks. Tricia Niesz writes eloquently about how a “teacher network” can build community, identity, effective practice, and meaning.(3) She points out that educators involved in teacher networks enter a “world of ideas and practice-focused discourse.

Finally, the work of the PLC on 21st Century schooling is a collaboration between the JHS at Westminster and the Center for Teaching. This group is committed to working together for a period of time, winter and spring of 2009 and the fall of 2009. We will meet for about 8 times, two hours each meeting, to discuss what it means or what it looks like to teach in the 21st century. Much of what develops on this wiki will be the work of this PLC. --- (1) Independent Perspective: Professional Development for the 21st Century, by Patrick Bassett, Independent School Magazine, Summer 2006. (2) Professional Learning in the Learning Profession: A Status Report on Teacher Development in the U.S. and Abroad, by Ruth Chung Wei, et.al., National Staff Development Council, February 2009. (3) Why Teacher Networks (Can) Work, by Tricia Niesz, Phi Delta Kappan, volume 88, number 8, April 2007

Resources for PLCs


 * Web Resources**
 * All Things PLC http://www.allthingsplc.info/
 * Public Schools of North Carolina and PLC http://www.ncpublicschools.org/profdev/resources/proflearn/


 * Book Resources**
 * //The Collaborative Teacher: Working Together as a Professional Learning Community// (ISBN 978-1-934009-36-9)
 * //The Collaborative Administrator: Working Together as a Professional Learning Community// (ISBN 978-1-934009-37-6)


 * Articles on PLCs**
 * Moving Beyond Talk, by Debra Smith, et.al., Educational Leadership, volume 66, no. 5, February 2009, page 20