This week in my Masters course we have been reading about Professional Learning Communities(PLCs). I found the topic very interesting because the school I work at has active PLCs. All the high school teachers currently meet on a monthly basis from 8am-10am to discuss various topics. This is seen as "good time" to meet, as opposed to the typical 3:00-5:00 staff meetings. In one of the videos I watched Dr. Ann Liberman said that after school meetings tend to be a bad time because who wants to stay after school to discuss the problems in the classroom. Generally meeting during the day, the teachers have fresh opinions to offer. The meetings at my school generally have a focus to them, sometimes state testing, strategies to use, or new technology we should be implementing in the classroom. One of the interesting things I read about this week was that teachers should have input on the professional development they are taking, because then they will gain more from it. How many of you work at schools where you can choose your professional development? I like to attend workshops in my area, although I struggle with the fact that I like to be in the classroom. Our district recently subscribed to a website called PD360, which allows teachers to take online professional development courses. It's a nice way for teachers to be able to access professional development classes on their own time.
I would like to hear from other teachers about the PLCs that take place in your school. What have your found successful about your meetings, and what did not work so well?
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Our district jumped on board the Dufour bandwagon last year. The DuFours were here last year to give a three day seminar for teacher leaders and admin. They were here again last week for a one day refresher. Over the summer a group of teachers from my high school meet in a book study over their first book and this school year we have a book study on "Learning by Doing". The problem we have is that the meeting times are not built into the school day. We are told they are part of our 20 hours of duty time. Additionally there is no structure yet for the remediation. The math and science departments have been doing plc work for the last 7 years, without any prompting from the admin or district because the concept makes sense. We had not gotten to comparing student data but had made great strides in ensuring common curriculum and had developed common assessments in the form of labs and exams. A problem I see for our district next year is that with budget cuts and increased class size there will be a rebellion if they try to drive the plc through. The budget cuts here in Arizona may leave high school teachers with 40 to 45 students in a class effectively giving them a 6/5's workload without compensation or time to adequately assess the students. As a concept plc's are great. They are helpful when teachers see the real goal of education, helping students learn, and are willing to ask for help or modify their teaching style without fear of being marked down in evaluations.
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