Unlocking School Improvement: The Power of Professional Learning Communities

1. On Common Ground - 7 No Turning Back: The Ironclad Case for Professional Learning Communities by Mike Schmoker Presented by Linda Muehlberger

2. Dr. Mike Schmoker Results: The Key to Continuous School Improvement (1999) The Results Fieldbook: Practical Strategies for Dramatically Improved Schools (2001) “Creating PLCs is the best, least expensive, most professionally rewarding way to improve schools.”

3. Quality Teachers • School success depends more than anything on the quality of teaching provided. • Actual taught curriculum varies widely from teacher to teacher. • “In just one academic year, the top third of teachers produced as much as six times the learning growth of the bottom third.”

4. PLCs • We have the means to make teaching more effective and consistent than ever before and to create the kinds of schools that students deserve. • The place to start is with a set of simple structures and practices that constitute what is now being called “learning communities.”

5. PLCs • Collaborative groups of teachers drive the school improvement process. • Schools get better results when teams of professionals – Plan for, Monitor, and celebrate gains in student learning.

6. Learning Communities • Continuous improvement teams • Self-managing teams • Quality Circles • Communities of Practice • Collaborative Communities

7. School Reform Schmoker identifies both the • “enemy of school improvement” and “improvement’s best friend” • Isolation • Collaboration

8. Teacher Isolation • List some of the problems associated with teachers working in isolation.

9. Teacher Isolation • Unaware of colleague’s practices • No feedback on their own practices • Indifference to instruction • Outcomes irrelevant • Total autonomy • No supervisory oversight

10. The Effects of Isolation • Apathy • Frustration • Stagnation • Professional uncertainty • Teachers come to regard student outcomes as inevitable, rather than the result of their efforts.

11. Collaboration • Schmoker stresses that it is not just collaboration that improves schools, but the right kind of collaboration. • Name some of the characteristics of the right kind of collaboration.

12. The Right Kind of Collaboration • Frequent, continuous, and precise talk about teaching practice. • Overt acknowledgment that some teaching has a greater impact on learning. • Teachers teach each other the art of teaching. • Goals focused on student improvement.

13. The Link With Industry Tom Peters & Robert Waterman published their blockbuster bestseller, In Search of Excellence in 1992. Peters said that the evidence for disciplined teams is so strong that, “the self-managing team should become the basic organizational building block.”

14. Self-Managing Teams • W. Edwards Deming found that the widely distributed leadership and shared responsibility of self-managing teams generated better results and less supervision.

15. Collective Autonomy • Talent and sustained commitment are apt to flourish in team settings that: • Combine autonomy and responsibility for results and • Provide abundant opportunities for individuals to share their collective and complimentary skills and abilities toward better results.

16. A Turning Point in Education • Rick DuFour made the case for a new kind of leadership that is focused on learning rather than on instruction. • A shift from Instructional Leader to Learning Leader.

17. The Learning Leader • Focuses on assessment results • Provides opportunities for teachers to work together in self-managing teams. • Monitors, discusses, and supports teacher’s progress in achieving higher levels of student learning.

18. The Knowing-Doing Gap • Dennis Sparks, executive director of the National Staff Development Council is convinced that any faculty, with no additional formal training or professional development already has enough practical knowledge and ability to make continuous and significant improvements to instruction.

19. The Knowing-Doing Gap • The problem is not that we do not know enough – it is that we do not do what we already know. • We do not act on or refine or apply those principles and practices that virtually every teacher already knows.

20. The Knowing-Doing Gap • What is your explanation for this admitted failure to apply best practices? • Do you agree that your staff has all the necessary expertise to improve current results if members become more effective in working together?

21. The Schmoker Challenge • Schmoker challenges readers not only to embrace the promise that PLCs offer unprecedented hope for schools, but to also take the necessary steps to put PLC concepts into action in their own settings. • So let’s get on with it!