This fall, I’ve been in a lot of different schools, but I’ve encountered a similar theme: many teachers are struggling to find the value for PLCs or PLTs–whatever acronym you use to describe professional learning communities.
Long before it had a name and a whole literature, teachers I worked with gathered once, or even twice a week if lucky, to plan curriculum, talk about student learning and to analyze student work products–essays, math tests, project summaries. Sometimes we met within a content area (i.e. all fourth grade teachers in a building) or all English teachers, but for me, the best gatherings were across content areas–Math, Social Studies, English, Art, etc. so that we could talk about our students and their learning successes and challenges.
I remember one PLC at Boston Arts Academy (BAA) in which we gathered by grade level. At BAA, in addition to our specific content area, all of us were teachers of writing. Only a few of us had a background in teaching writing; however, we had determined that writing, especially narrative writing, was a skill our graduates needed to master. Our students were all artists: artists often have to write grants to get funded. We wanted our students to master the skill of grant writing in order to describe their ideas, their creative process, and their products. It was a bold undertaking and looking back, a successful one. Senior Grant Project became the backbone of our school. Our seniors wrote a grant and then presented their ideas to a panel of outside judges. Those community members also influenced the way we taught writing. They not only were critiquing our students, but also us as teachers. For example, when they gave many low scores to how students expressed their central theme, we knew we had more work to do. Or if they said that clarity of writing was poor, again, we needed to rethink our teaching.
In addition to learning to be stronger teachers of writing, we also came to an agreement, collectively, about what constituted excellence on an assignment. First, we had to describe the standard we wanted all students to attain and then we articulated what ‘excellent’, ‘good’ and ‘just meeting’ that specific standard meant. Even that was new to many of us: agreeing upon a set of criteria. After establishing the criteria, we then swapped student work. In other words, my students’ writing was read by another 9th grade writing teacher and so forth. I had already graded my students but those grades weren’t disclosed until everyone finished grading another teachers’ sample of students. Then, as a team, we examined the papers that received very divergent scores and discussed where we had disagreements. Finally, we came to a consensus on what constituted excellence, good, and just meeting. In this way, we were all becoming better teachers of writing and our students were benefiting from our collaborative approach. Moreover, we were learning to become vulnerable with one another. That, I think, may be one of the most important dispositions to help a teacher improve and one of the most important features of PLCs.
Even after so many years, I am continuing to learn about how to strengthen PLCs. I am excited to share two new episodes of my podcast, Equity EdTalk: Stories from Education Leaders, where I spoke with inspiring educators who are deeply engaged in PLCs. I hope these episodes offer both a big picture overview of PLCs and more practical insights to strengthen your collaborative practices.
Here’s a brief description of each episode:
In this episode, I talk with Abdi Ali, Executive Director of WriteBoston and founding faculty member at Boston Arts Academy. We explore the importance of creating narrative spaces within PLCs, where teachers can share stories, learn from one another, and build collaborative support systems.
Here, I speak with Jayne, a Math Educator and Coach with over 40 years of experience. We focus on team collaboration within PLCs, using protocols to center conversations on students. By examining student work together, Jayne shares practical steps that help teams identify actionable strategies to meet diverse student needs.
I’ll leave your with these questions:
- Are teachers getting enough time, practice and support in PLCs?
- Are leaders able to carve out that essential time to be in PLCs and learn alongside their faculty?
- How do you do it? What are your strategies and stories?
Let me hear from you!