Professional learning that increases educator effectiveness and results for all students occurs within learning communities committed to continuous improvement, collective responsibility, and goal alignment.
Episodes: Learning Communities
- Be the Change You Seek in our Schools: A Dialogue with Dennis Sparks (Sticky Standards #34)
- Tag…You’re it!! Teacher Leaders! A Dialogue with Bruce Wellman (Sticky Standards #32)
- The Teacher is a Learner! A Conversation with Nancy Bolz (Sticky Standards #29)
- Principals Bring the Standards TO LIFE in a Building! A Conversation with Frederick Brown (Sticky Standards #28)
- How do we Build GROUPS OF THINKERS? Connecting Educator Evaluation Systems and Professional Learning: A Conversation with Toni Prickett (Sticky Standards #25)
- Learning Communities: What Do our Students Want (Need) Us to Learn? A Conversation with Steve Barkley (Sticky Standards #24)
- Leadership Matters: A Conversation with Tamara Konrade (Sticky Standards #21)
- Professional Learning in Action: A Conversation with John Heim (Sticky Standards #20)
- Learning Communities: A Conversation with Cindy Couchman (Sticky Standards #15)
- Learning Communities: A Conversation with Shirley Hord (Sticky Standards #11)
- Learning Communities: Overview (Sticky Standards #3)
How do we create a culture of inquiry in our schools?
THREE BIG IDEAS
Learning Communities
- continuous improvement
- collective responsibility
- goal alignment
DuFour, DuFour and Eaker
Key Ideas
- High Expectations/Clarity of Purpose
- Collaborative Culture
- Focus on Data/Results
Garmston/Wellman
The Elements of Professional Community
- Compelling purpose, shared standards, and academic focus
- Collective efficacy and shared responsibility for student learning
- Collaborative culture
- Communal application of effective teaching practices and deprivatized practice
- Relational trust in one another, in students and parents
- Individual and group learning based on ongoing assessment and feedback
Sommers /Hord
Ask each and every member of a learning community….
- WHAT are you learning?
- WHY are you learning that?
- HOW are you learning?
- How are you SHARING with others in your school?
Roland Barth
In Learning Communities, actions of educators include:
- Talking with one another about our practices
- Sharing our craft knowledge
- Observing one another while we are engaged in our practice
- Rooting for one another’s success
Tony Wagner
Both students and teachers learn more and do more when they feel a part of something important that is larger than themselves and that they helped create. The spirit of a good learning community is one of shared responsibility and collective inquiry for both adults and students.
Michael Fullan
Previous developments have been … little more than attempts to enliven the curriculum by tinkering at the margins…. More time must be spent in collaborative learning….
Richard Elmore
…the knowledge we need to solve problems (in schools) often doesn’t reside close at hand; it has to be found through active inquiry and analysis.
Hord/Roussin
Attributes of Professional Learning
- Supportive and shared leadership
- Intentional collective learning
- Shared values and vision
- Supportive conditions
- Shared personal practice
DuFour and Fullan
…….can play a central role in dramatically improving the overall performance of schools, the engagement of students, and the sense of efficacy and job satisfaction…not just in isolated individual schools, but across entire districts, states, and provinces.
Stronge, others
If members of a school community are distrustful of others’ motives and actions, that community will most certainly fail.
Garmston/Wellman
Promoting a Spirit of Inquiry: Professional communities are born and nurtured in webs of conversation. What we talk about in our schools and how we talk about those things say much about who we are, who we think we are and who we wish to be. The paths of dialogue and discussion are key to our success.
Susan Scott
While no conversation is guaranteed to change the trajectory of a career, a relationship, or a life – ANY single conversation can.
Ryan Estis
Culture is the character of the organization.
Unknown
PLC – A Collective Commitment to the Success of All Students
JOINT WORK!
Together we…..
Helping Students to OVERACHIEVE!
Relationships Rock!! Relevance Makes Rigor Possible!
