Summary of Literature Relevant to the Operation of PLCs.
Professional Learning Communities, PLCs are the most powerful strategy for improving growth in teaching and learning. It is through establishing a collaborative culture and creating collective responsibility in the staff. Many schools claim to utilize a PLC model, but when you truly observe within a PLC meeting you may find a planning meeting. A true PLC model ensures that students are learning through a culture of collaboration that focuses on results. This requires a hard work, commitment and persistence of all building staff.
At the beginning of most school years, you hear school leadership and staff in discussion about their building mission and vision. Unfortunately, schools
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This foundation starts with a clear and consistent mission, vision, collective commitments, and goals (p. 10). All aspects of the foundation must be understood and have staff buy in.
School leaders must know and clearly articulate the mission which is why the school exists (p.10). Next, the staff must develop a shared vision that describes what staff is working to create and what the school will look like when this shared vision comes to life. The shared vision must be followed up with collective commitments that align with the vision and describe individual behaviors that staff agree to follow to make a contribution to achieve the shared vision (p. 11).
Once the foundation of the PLC is in place school leadership must move staff from status quo to a whatever it takes attitude for student achievement. This occurs by organizing people into meaningful teams focus on learning, providing time to collaborate, and ensuring that the campus layout supports ongoing collaboration and shared responsibility for student learning (p. 15). Student and staff growth cannot happen unless teams have time to meet and collaborate. It is imperative for school leaders to create schedules that provide time for collaboration (p. 19). This time must be structured and follow team initiated norms and protocols that focus on growth of all students. Teams should share strategies and learn from each other
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22). Teams have a potential for success and for dysfunction because we are all human (p. 23) It is so important that all PLC members are prepared, contribute and are held accountable for the collaborative work. One way to ensure this happens is to continually monitor the groups dynamics. Marzano et al., (2016)suggest using three elements: group norms, trust and relationships, and productive collaboration(p. 23) The three elements can be used to validate team purpose, create joint efforts,and ensure active
After many discussions with peers, I have found that for a team to work collaboratively there are some key qualities that are needed, which include:
As a leader candidate, I can understand the challenges and multiplicity of complications that administrators must face each day. However, I will not accept any remote possibility that the students must be affected by some flaws of the school organization. We all as leaders, must be strategic with people, time, and money to guide our students towards an academic success.
According to our text, Communicating at Work, an effective team has eight characteristics. These characteristics are: clear and inspiring shared goals; a results driven structure; competent team members; unified commitment; collaborative climate; standards of excellence; external support and recognition; and principled leadership. A group goes through four stages in becoming an effective team; forming, storming, norming, and performing (Adler and Elmhorst, 240, 251). Most of the characteristics of an effective team are brought to the team by one or more members, others are formed during the development process.
Without trust, task performance can be negatively affected. The leader should ask the team members’ opinion on meeting processes as a means of enforcing fairness. As a leader who doesn’t know very much about his/her team members, the forming and norming stages of team development will be very important. This consists of the part of the shared task they must accomplish to complete the team’s goal (366).
The school provides a safe environment for students to accomplish academic, social and emotional development. The leadership of a building will include effective decision making, human resource management, mission or purpose, understanding of change, relationship buildi...
Overall findings reveal that the participants share the same view as it relates to the PLC attributes observed within the school. Based on the data collected, the area of PLC that is best practiced in my school is Supportive Conditions with an emphasis on Relationships and Supportive Conditions with an emphasis on Structures. Table 1:1, illustrates that 11 out of 11 participants selected the highest score, strongly agree on survey statements 33 through 43. The results revealed that participants observed attributes that support relationships within the school. Participants also found that loving relationships existed among the staff and were built on trust and respect.
Due to the complex nature of the school environment all stakeholders’ key focus is inclusive of a shared mission and vision, and core values of high-education and academic success and well
He stressed, “The rise or fall of the professional learning community concept depends not on the merits of the concept itself; but on the most important element in the improvement of any school-the commitment and persistence of the educators within it.” (DuFour, 2004) Linda Darling-Hammond shed light on what it is needed in order to support the success of professional learning communities within schools. She feels very strongly that time is a major issue that inhibits the effective implementation of PLC’s. Darling-Hammond suggests, “In order for such teaching communities to exist, schools need to allocate time to teachers during the work week to collaborate, whether in grade-level or department-level teams or a combination of both.”
The PD program does increase the capacity of faculty because we learn new strategies for learning and engaging learners. By looking at data, faculty is able to align their instruction to the school’s vision and mission. Twice a month (at least) all faculty attend the Professional Learning Communities (PLC) training workshops. These are geared towards instruction, district initiatives, and student achievement. Professional Development is provided for teachers to assist them with the required materials to guarantee all students obtain highly quality instruction.
Principals, teachers, parents, and students are the key players in the work of schooling. When working together, they form a concentration of leadership that is a powerful force in a school. If led by a skillful principal, teachers will often band together to form a team of professionals that invites parents and students into the work of leadership. Anytime an individual work together in reflective terms, they make the most out of their combination of talents. For instance, faculty meetings are occasions for educators to learn to collaboratively, action research teams elicit inquisitiveness and a regard for evidence, and study groups test the assumptions of their members by introducing them to new ideas.
In conclusion, we feel as if we built trust in our team. Seeing as how we’re leaders in our own way, we each created a culture of trust among ourselves. Once we got to know each other personally and shared some personal information about ourselves, our families, hobbies, and other interests, that’s when we started to develop a bond and all the trust built up between us. And this paper assessed our group’s 3-5 major strengths and weaknesses and what successful strategies we hope to add to our team to build a more effective team in the future. Thank you for reading.
We were a group of people with a vision working towards a common goal. The building of our team was complicated. We negotiated roles and tasks according to our strengths and interests. We worked well together, but far from perfect. Through varies conflicts ideas were exchanged and meaningful productivity resulted (Porter, 2003). Good communication resulted from trust and respect. All members shared an equal participation which made it easier for each individual to contribute to the success of Week 3.
In order to be an effective school, all school personnel must work together in a friendly, caring, polite, and respectful manner. There are a number of positions and employees in a school. “A school is a complex social system, and all the people in it contribute to making it run smoothly” (Kauchak & Eggen, 2014, p. 182). It’s important to acknowledge the contributions of all staff and faculty members. The principal, leader of the school is the ...
Leave it to a physical education teacher to say this, but, being a school administrator is based on teamwork, no one individual can run an entire school. To me, the idea of creating a collaborative culture simply means getting your staff, students, parents and community on board with your philosophy. Since the buck stops with the principal, it is important for his/her staff to be on the same page. In order for a principal to foster this kind of environment, they would have to utilize a variety of supervisory styles and techniques. The most important leadership characteristics designed to achieve this goal are:
Another important aspect in towards positive group dynamics is to make all members feel accepted in spite of any diversity. Trust is an important trait for the survival of a group. More importantly, the likelihood of accomplishing goals increases with maximum trust and confidence. However, numerous personalities with different backgrounds may cause friction while attempting to resolve conflicts or reaching a consensus. These challenging situations can lead to stress and tension amongst the group members, but when successfully resolved they lead to further strengthening of the bonds and the emergence of a more cohesive group. Also certain measures can be taken to avoid certain petty discrepancies right from the beginning. Specific ground rules; code of ethics and conduct should be established that would encourage smooth functioning and efficient target