PLC Definition: 

A Professional Learning Community is a collective of educators who engage both in smaller Collaborative Teams and as a whole staff in an ongoing process in which they work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action to create better learning experiences and achieve better results for each learner they serve. This ongoing process of planning, teaching, monitoring, and adjusting has a profound impact on the culture and structure of the system and the assumptions and practices of the educators within it. Becoming a Professional Learning Community requires a system to embrace and engage in three primary elements: developing a collaborative culture, focusing on learning, and being results oriented.

Collaborative Teams: 

Collaborative Teams are the engines of the schoolwide Professional Learning Community. Collaborative Teams are mutually accountable for shared student learning goals and work interdependently to analyze and improve their classroom practices. Collaborative Teams engage in an ongoing cycle that promotes deep team learning and improved student experiences and outcomes.

The Big Ideas of Collaborative Teams:

Collaborative Culture:

In a Collaborative Team, collaboration represents a process of shared leadership and responsibilities in which teachers build authentic relationships while working together interdependently in order to positively impact their classroom practice in ways that will lead to better experiences and results for their students and for their team.

Focus On Learning:

In a Collaborative Team, a focus on learning means that educators center students by creating effective learning conditions and experiences. Educators work to understand the strengths and needs of each student they serve and collaborate to ensure targeted, rigorous learning grounded in standards. In doing so, educators focus on their own learning to develop and deepen the expertise essential to their roles.

Results Orientation:

In a Collaborative Team, being results-oriented means that educators focus on data and evidence of student experiences and outcomes related to identified learning goals and targets. Data and evidence is collected and analyzed in an effort to be responsive to the needs of students. As a part of this process, educators collaboratively assess practices, procedures, and programs to understand their impact on the experiences of all learners and the intended learning outcomes.

We have adapted the following model of continuous improvement based on the work of Dr. Rick DuFour.