Teacher Quality and Professional Learning Communities
In this blog entry, we thought we would respond to Bob Herbert’s opinion-editorial titled “Our School’s Must Do Better” published in the New York Times on October 2, 2007. Herbert suggests two areas for consideration: teacher quality and alternative school models. Our response...
School reform! Two simple words – many complex issues fueled by the rate at which the world, technology, communication and the workplace is changing. The question becomes what are the priority targets for education reform. Bob Herbert’s column, “Our School’s Must Do Better” suggests two areas: teacher quality and alternative school models.
What is happening in the area of teacher quality? One answer: Professional Learning Communities. Increasingly, the one-size–fits-all teacher in-service training is being replaced by Professional Learning Community strategies as developed by Richard DuFour, Rebecca DuFour and Robert Eaker. Professional Learning Communities (PLC) is built on three principles:
a focus on learning, a collaborative culture, and thirdly, action and results with a commitment to continuous improvement. The impetus of improvement for teachers and students results from collective inquiry focused on four critical questions:
- What is it we want our student to learn?
- How will we know if students have learned it?
- What will we do if students have not learned?
- How will we deepen the learning for students who have already mastered the essential knowledge?
Critical to the PLC culture is the commitment to continuous improvement, “Inherent to a PLC are a persistent disquiet with the status quo and a constant search for a better way to achieve goals…”Rick DuFour.
Perhaps as Professional Learning Communities continue to bring about significant change in student achievement and teacher quality they walk hand-in hand with alternate school models. We like this quote regarding the PLC path to
quality in education by Thomas J. Sergiovanni, Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas.
“Rick DuFour and his colleagues push us to new levels of understanding of
how professional learning communities work. They then invite us to join
them in developing unique frameworks that can be used in our own
schools to create cultures of time, feeling, focus, and persistence aimed
at ensuring that every child will succeed. Critical to their approach is
aggregating what we know and using this knowledge together, thus
compounding its effect."
We welcome your comments or response.
Becky & Paul
Professional Learning Community Resources:
Professional Learning Communites at Work by Richard Dufour and Robert Eaker
Whatever It Takes How Professional Learning Communities Respond When Kids Don't Learn by Richard DuFour, Rebecca DuFour, Robert Eaker & Gayle Karhanek
Learning by Doing by Richard DuFour, Rebecca DuFour, Robert Eaker & Thomas Many
Comments
Its great to see more National attention coming to the continuous improvement cause. Professional learning communities refocus educators on what is important, students learning!
At our grade-level team today we discussed instructional strategies to help students be more successful in class. Another teacher suggested we make a goal for graduation success this year that we can track our progress! The amazing thing was it was someone who has not been trained in the process, but has changed their paradigm in data-driven decision making!
The world of change is here. The article is correct. Quality teachers will improve education, and quality teachers come from continuous improvement.
Posted by: Scott McGhee | October 10, 2007 12:12 PM
Thank you Scott for your comments and example. You are right. We need to take advantage opportunities to bring attention to the changes in education that clearly have a positive impact on our young people.
And the positive results of Continuous Improvement on teacher quality!
Becky
Posted by: Becky Martin | October 10, 2007 03:29 PM
I was taken aback simply by “Our School’s Must Do Better” due to the incorrect use of the apostrophe. This was not the error of Mr. Herbert in the published article. Perhaps this was due to over-reliance on the grammar checker in a computer word processing package, but it should have been corrected through proofreading in this venue.
Professional Learning Communities are important to to the success of students and to our professional growth in the education industry. However, children must also be physically prepared and supported in order to learn whatever curriculum is presented to them. Foundational motor skills and physical stamina are lacking in many school children, which makes anything that is presented more difficult to learn and to act upon. Further, many children do not have the parental or extended family support outside of school that makes such a huge impact upon learning to read, write, and communicate civilly with others. The role models of today are primarily those from the television, music, and movie industries, rather than the great thinkers and doers of history.
Yes, education professionals need continual training and updating of best practices, but to neglect the “raw materials” that are sent into schools day by day is to miss 50% of the equation. Children must be physically and emotionally prepared to learn. They need healthy, positive role models to emulate. This is not just an educational problem, but rather a cultural problem.
Posted by: Deborah E. Kratz, OTD, OTR/L | March 20, 2008 11:24 AM