Leaders Responsibilities in

Running Effective Professional

Learning Communities (PLCs)
Utah Leadership Summit
June 17, 2014
What is a PLC?
It is hard enough to explain what a
complex idea means for action when you
understand it. . .It is impossible when you
use terms that sound impressive but you
dont really understand what they
mean.
Pfeffer & Sutton, 2000, pg. 52
Programmable Logic Controller [PLC]
Platoon Leaders Class [PLC]
Post Lunch Coma [PLC]
Professional Learning Community
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.
PLCs operate under the assumption that the
key to improved learning for students is
continuous, job-embedded learning for
educators.
DuFour, DuFour, Eaker and Many 2010
The Elements of
Professional Learning Communities

A Focus on Learning
The very essence of a learning community is a
focus on and a commitment to the learning of
each student.
The Elements of
Professional Learning Communities

A Collaborative Culture
A PLC is composed of collaborative teams
whose members work interdependently to
achieve common goals for which members are
mutually accountable.
The Elements of
Professional Learning Communities
Collective Inquiry Into Best Practice
The teams in a PLC engage in collective inquiry
into both best practices in teaching and best
practices in learning. They also inquire about
their current reality including their present
practices and levels of achievement by their
students.


The Elements of
Professional Learning Communities

Action Oriented: Learning by Doing
Members of PLCs are action oriented: they
move quickly to turn aspirations into action
and visions into reality.
The Elements of
Professional Learning Communities

A Commitment to Continuous Improvement
Inherent to a PLC are a persistent disquiet
with the status quo and a constant search for
a better way to achieve goals and accomplish
the purpose of the organization.
The Elements of
Professional Learning Communities

Results Orientation
Members of a PLC realize that all of their
efforts must be assessed on the basis of
results rather than intentions.
The Elements of
Professional Learning Communities



Video


Principals Role in Leading a PLC

Principals arguably are the most
important players affecting the character
and consequence of teachers school-site
professional communities. Principals are
culture-makers, intentionally or not.
Milbrey McLaughlin and Joan Talbert

Principals Role in Leading a PLC
In their meta-analysis of sixty-nine studies
conducted from 1978 to 2001, (Marzano et al.
2005) found the average correlation in studies
conducted in the United States indicates that
principal leadership has a significant and
positive relationship with student
achievement.
Since then other studies have arrived at this
same conclusion (Robinson 2007).

Principals Role in Leading a PLC
Our evidence also points to the continuing
preference on many teachers to be left alone.
these teachers typically view the presence of a
principal in their classrooms as unnecessary and
sometimes bothersome. . . Maintenance of the
status quo, which for most secondary teachers
meant not having direct and frequent contact
with the principal (or anyone else, for that
matter) about ways to improve instruction was
preferred.
Louis et al., 2010, p.91
Principals Role in Leading a PLC
Principals Role in Leading a PLC
Principal Actions
Collaborative
Team Actions
Teacher Actions
in the Classroom
Student
Achievement
Assessing Your Place on the PLC
Journey
1. Pre-Initiation Stage: The school has not yet begun to address the
practice of a PLC.
2. Initiation Stage: The school has made an effort to address the PLC
practice but the effort has not begun to impact many staff members.
3. Implementation Stage: A critical mass of staff member is participating
in implementing the PLC practice, but many approach the task with a
sense of compliance rather than commitment.
4. Developing Stage: Structures are being altered to support the changes,
and resources are being devoted to moving forward. The focus has
shifted from Why are we doing this? to How can we do this more
effectively?
5. Sustaining Stage: The PLC practice is deeply imbedded in the culture of
the school. It is a driving force in the daily work of staff. It is deeply
internalized, and the staff would resist attempts to abandon a PLC.

Making a Case for PLCs
Jim Collins (2001) begins his best selling book
Good to Great with a provocative observation:
Good is the enemy of great. Good
organizational performance can cause
complacency and inertia instead of inspiring
the pursuit of continuous improvement
essential to sustained greatness.
Principal Leadership:
Five Key Strategies
Build Shared Knowledge
Start with the questions:
What is the current state of our school?
Are our students learning?
What needs to improve?
How can we work together to meet student
needs?
What does research say about effective practice?
Principal Leadership:
Five Key Strategies

Build the Capacity of Leaders
Effective principals will not attempt to do it alone.
They will foster shared leadership by identifying and
developing educators to lead their collaborative
teams, because with out effective leadership at the
team level, the collaborative process is likely to drift
away from issues most critical to student learning.

Gallimore, Ermeling, Saunders & Goldberg, Moving the Learning of Teaching Closer to Practice, Elementary School Journal (2000)

Principal Leadership:
Five Key Strategies

Build the Capacity of Leaders
Factors to Consider When Selecting Team
Leaders:
Influence on their colleagues
Willingness to be champions of the PLC process
Sense of elf-efficacy and willingness to persist
Ability to think systematically

Principal Leadership:
Five Key Strategies

Create the Structural Conditions That Will Build
the Capacity of the Team
Organize the staff into meaningful teams that are
focused on student learning
Provide teams with the time they need to collaborate
Engage teams in identifying collective commitments
Ensure team norms are established and honored

Principal Leadership:
Five Key Strategies

Build a System of Intervention
If the mission of the school is to ensure all students
learn, then our practice should support that mission
If all students are to learn, then we must acknowledge
that some students will need extra time and support.
If some students will need extra time and support,
then we must create structures and systems to
provide the time and support, while not removing
them from new instruction.
Principal Leadership:
Five Key Strategies

Build Your PLC to Last
Anchor your PLC in structures, processes, procedures,
routines, rituals, and expectations that support the big
ideas of a PLC
Make sure your PLC is not person or personality
dependent
Be deliberate in building the capacity and self-efficacy
of teacher leaders
Consider leadership development and the role of the
district
Principal Leadership:
Five Key Strategies

1. Build Shared Knowledge
2. Build the Capacity of Leaders
3. Create the Structural Conditions That Will
Build the Capacity of the Team
4. Build a System of Intervention
5. Build Your PLC to Last





PLCs, SLOs and The Utah
Measurement of Instructional
Effectiveness

Why is a PLC essential
to teacher evaluation
and SLOs?
PLCs, SLOs and The Utah
Measurement of Instructional
Effectiveness

What has traditional teacher evaluation
looked like?
How can PLCs improve the teacher
evaluation/improvement process?

PLCs, SLOs and The Utah
Measurement of Instructional
Effectiveness

Standard 6: Instructional Planning
The teacher plans instruction to support
students in meeting rigorous learning goals by
drawing upon knowledge of content areas,
Core Curriculum standards, practices, and the
community context.
PLCs, SLOs and The Utah
Measurement of Instructional
Effectiveness

Standard 7: Instructional Strategies
The teacher uses various instructional
strategies to ensure that all learners develop a
deep understanding of content areas and their
connections, and build skills to apply and
extend knowledge in meaningful ways.
PLCs and The Utah Measurement of
Instructional Effectiveness

Standard 8: Reflection and Continuous
Growth
The teacher is a reflective practitioner who uses
evidence to continually evaluate and adapt
practice to meet the needs of each learner.
PLCs and The Utah Measurement of
Instructional Effectiveness

Standard 9: Leadership and Collaboration

The teacher is a leader who engages collaboration
with learners, families, colleagues, and community
members to build a shared vision and supportive
professional culture focused on student growth
and success.
PLCS and SLOs
Results Oriented Goals:
An Essential Component of a PLC
Leaders foster effective teams when they help team establish
specific, measurable, results-oriented, performance goals.
Promoting teams for the sake of teams-building exercise does
little to improve the effectiveness of the organization.

There is nothing more important than each members
commitment to common purpose and a related performance
goal to which the group itself jointly holds itself accountable.

Katzenbach & Smith, 1993

PLCS and SLOs
Student Learning Objectives
Student Learning Objectives will be used as a part
of the Utah Model for Educator Effectiveness.
Student Learning Objectives are especially
powerful when teachers are able to collaborate
together to create the quality common
assessments needed to measure all students
within a grade level, department or content area.
PLCS and SLOs
SMART Goals
A team smart goals is:
Strategic and specific
Measurable
Attainable and appropriate
Results-oriented and realistic
Time-bound

Advice for Leading a PLC Initiative
Link the Change to Current Practices and
Assumptions
Focus on the Why of Change
Be Flexible on the Implementation but Firm
on the Essence of the Initiative
Disperse Leadership
Expect to Make Mistakes
Be Positive
Advice for Leading a PLC Initiative
1. To get anywhere, you have to
do something
2. In doing something you have
to focus on skills
3. Acquisition of skills requires
clarity
4. Clarity results in ownership
5. Doing this together with
others generates shared
ownership
6. Persist no matter what.
Resilience is your best friend.
Advice for Leading a PLC Initiative

We have always worked hard.
Will we now choose to work
smart?