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.
