Professional Learning Communities:

The Surest, Fastest Path to Instructional Improvement

Chapter 8 of Results Now by Mike Schmoker

Mike Schmoker advocates a new approach to what we do in schools by getting rid of the old individual, isolation model and replace it with a new collective teaching approach he terms Professional Learning Communities (PLCs).

Elements of PLCs:

• Establish common concise curricular standards;
• Everyone teaches on a common schedule;
• Meet regularly – short but often;
• Concrete and precise approach to their teaching practices and the common assessment or results of same;
• Use common assessments continuously to monitor progress;
• Analysis of same leads to improvement of instruction.

The schools need to establish small, instructionally focused teams of educators and then the school and school district reinforce ands support this teacher teamwork.

Gone should be the Board initiated Professional Activity Day where somebody the teachers don’t know and is considered the ‘expert’ is brought into a large venue location where all teachers are collected. He or she then gives a half-day or full day presentation on some topic that the teachers are expected to take back to their schools and implement.

The whole emphasis is placed upon ‘structured, team-based effort’ as ‘…the most effective way to improve performance’.

• It ‘taps into teachers’ existing capabilities and potential’;
• Allows them to share their collective teaching knowledge;
• Collectively decides what it is they want the students to learn and then teaching, incorporating formative assessment, and refining the strategies used to meet those objectives.
• Needs to incorporate good teaching practices along with ‘exemplars’ and ‘be very clear about our grading and evaluative criteria’; and
• Needs to recognize that teachers can be ‘inventive, adaptive professionals’.
• Evidence of success will create a more open philosophy by other staff.