![]() Inquiry leads you to ask ‘Why are they struggling?’ Action Research is your mission to find out. The school-wide goal may be to improve student achievement. Suppose you’re a teacher, and a number of your students are currently struggling. When staff members are actively observing their students and trying to figure out better ways to help them, this level of engagement can be a more powerful form of research. Because this is about the students after all, not just a numbers game. This is something you could put into practice on a day to day basis in your classroom. What does it tell you about what your school is doing well, and what needs work? But it’s more than data. This could involve looking into school data. How will these identified goals be met? Action research implies doing. The next step is to find answers to these identified questions. This kind of collaboration creates a school-wide community of active staff members, who have a voice along with administrators. In some schools, smaller teams of teachers may meet and brainstorm and then discuss with a larger group, perhaps organized by grade level or department, before meeting a school-wide consensus. Questions like these can help identify school-wide goals. Important questions to ask may be: Who are your students? What are their needs? What are their strengths? What are the goals for all students? So the inquiry should involve teachers, administrators, students, their parents etc. If there is to be school-wide Professional Learning Community, then there needs to be a school-wide culture of learning that affects everyone in the school. Teachers may ask their students: What problem do you want to solve? What interests you? Why do you think this is the way it is? Why are you interested? Etc. Inquiry is what many educators encourage in their students to help them learn. They said that PLCs would work in cycles of inquiry and action research. Let’s break down Solution Tree’s definition. A PLC is a process that allows educators to meet regularly and effectively collaborate, for the purpose of better serving students. So it’s not the occasional staff meeting, a shiny program, or tool that you can download. Professional learning communities operate under the assumption that the key to improved learning for students is continuous job-embedded learning for educators.” To be exact, “An ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve. A PLC isn’t a special program, but rather a system of working collaboratively that affects the entire school. What are they? Is this just a fancy name for a staff meeting?Īccording to Solution Tree, a company with years of professional development expertise, PLCs are none of the above. ![]() If you do, what does this look like? More importantly…ĭoes it function well, or is it “just another staff meeting”?Įven if your school in particular doesn’t “have PLCs” likely you’ve heard of them. Why are PLCs important? Is your school a PLC? Professional Learning Communities (PLCs).
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