Major concepts of a systemic PLC system
The term “professional learning community” is used to describe every imaginable combination of individuals
with an interest in education.
ENSURING THAT STUDENTS LEARN
A CULTURE OF COLLABORATION
A FOCUS ON RESULTS
HARD WORK AND COMMITMENT
Initiating and sustaining the PLC model concept requires hard work. A school staff must focus on learning
rather than teaching, work collaboratively on matters related to learning, and hold its members accountable for
the kind of results that fuel continual improvement.
The ideal PLC would create structures to promote the powerful, collaborative culture that
characterizes a PLC: a systematic process in which teachers work together in teams to analyze and improve
their classroom practice, engaging in an ongoing cycle of questions that promote deep team learning.
Their collaborative conversations require team members to make goals, strategies, materials, questions,
concerns, and results public. These discussions are explicitly structured to improve the classroom practice of
teachers—individually and collectively.
The description of my current reality of PLC's on my campus is one of mixed results. We don't have total buy in by all the teachers. There are individuals that participate to the fullest and do a majority of the work while some do nothing and coast through our collaboration Mondays.
A critical analysis of my ideal PLC and my current reality is one that again has a few doing most of the work and the majority cruising waiting for the clock to hit 3:00 so they can go home. Good does come out of the PLC's however because those few that do collaborate get a lot of quality work done. The idea of many minds working together on a common goal will create the best situation does work. The misalignment is that not all teachers buy into or make the investment to be a part of the solution but would rather complain and carry on about their own business.
