CES Resources NEW: View The Cycle of Inquiry and Action: Essential Learning Communities
The inquiry-action cycle for teachers with real-life examples of individual and collaborative inquiry
A review of research on professional learning communities: What do we know?
Like the title says, a research review on PLCs, synthesizing results from 10 articles.
- All research supported the idea that learning communities change teaching practice, although not all articles were specific about what changes took place.
- In one study, teachers in PLCs developed more student-centered classrooms. Some other studies discussed specific teaching strategies used as a result of PLCs.
- All studies showed a change in school culture through "collaboration, focus on student learning, teacher authority, and continuous teacher learning."
- All 6 studies that looked at student achievement found that student learning improved. However, this was only seen when the focus of collaboration was student learning and not just working together.
- Their conclusion: "The focus of a PLC should be developing teachers’ “knowledge of practice” around the issue of student learning"
- "...working collaboratively is the process not the goal of a PLC. The goal is enhanced student achievement."
Communities of practice
Introduction to communities of practice by Etienne Wenger
Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a
passion for something they do and learn how to
do it better as they interact regularly.
<p><font size="2" face="Arial">The perspective of communities of practice affects educational practices
along three dimensions:</font></p>
<ul>
<font size="2" face="Arial"> <i>
</i><li><i>Internally</i>: How to organize educational experiences that ground school
learning in practice through participation in communities around subject
matters?</li>
<i>
</i><li><i>Externally</i>: How to connect the experience of students to actual
practice through peripheral forms of participation in broader communities
beyond the walls of the school?</li>
<i>
</i><li><i>Over the lifetime of students</i>: How to serve the lifelong learning
needs of students by organizing communities of practice focused on topics of
continuing interest to students beyond the initial schooling period?</li>
</font></ul>
<p><font size="2" face="Arial">From this perspective, the school is not the privileged locus of learning. It
is not a self-contained, closed world in which students acquire knowledge to be
applied outside, but a part of a broader learning system.</font></p>
Professional Learning Communities in Schools
Podcast on professional learning communities and how they support student achievement
AllThingsPLC — Articles & Research
Articles and research on professional learning communities. This all seems to be from the more traditional view of PLCs as within schools or districts; I don't see anything about online communities here.
What Is a "Professional Learning Community"? // Richard DuFour
Three "big ideas" about professional learning communities
To create a professional learning community, focus on learning rather than teaching, work collaboratively, and hold yourself accountable for results.
Big Idea #1: Ensuring That Students Learn
The professional learning community model flows from the assumption that the core mission of formal education is not simply to ensure that students are taught but to ensure that they learn. This simple shift—from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning—has profound implications for schools.
<h3>Big Idea #2: A Culture of Collaboration</h3>
<p class="MainText">Educators who are building a professional learning community recognize that they must work together to achieve their collective purpose of learning for all. Therefore, they create structures to promote a collaborative culture.</p>
For meaningful collaboration to occur, a number of things must also <i>stop</i> happening. Schools must stop pretending that merely presenting teachers with state standards or district curriculum guides will guarantee that all students have access to a common curriculum.
Big Idea #3: A Focus on Results
Schools and teachers typically suffer from the DRIP syndrome—Data Rich/Information Poor. The results-oriented professional learning community not only welcomes data but also turns data into useful and relevant information for staff.
CITE Journal - Science: Blogs: Enhancing Links in a Professional Learning Community of Science and Mathematics Teachers
Small study of reflective blogging to build a learning community with teachers. Overall, the results were positive and the teachers felt the experience was beneficial, but there were some technical and other difficulties.
Anyone who can access the Internet can be part of the knowledge-access, knowledge-building,
information-exchanging culture, regardless of location.
Learning communities do not have to be built through face-to-face interactions.
They can be realized using nontraditional electronic communication.
Research suggests that in order for busy teachers to use an asynchronous learning
environment they must feel part of a shared vision, have a sense of ownership
of some part of the site, and benefit from the shared perspectives of others
(Robertson, 2007). Providing the kind of scaffolding that has these features
is challenging. Teachers are not typically given the time or the venue to
share, discuss, or see examples of pedagogical alternatives for their classroom
on any kind of regular basis (Darling-Hammond, 1997).
<p>Although our sample size is rather small, the findings of this study suggest
that most participants (community college faculty members, mentor, and intern
teachers) recognized the value of blogging as a platform for sharing resources
and ideas and reflecting on personal experiences. Several teachers were planning
to use blogging with their own students. </p>
<p>Blogging seemed to at least indirectly benefit most PLC-MAP teachers in terms
of integrating technology into their own teaching practices. </p>