Professional Learning Communities
from NCTE INBOX 6-14-11
In his On Demand Web seminar Developing Your Personal Learning Network, Bud Hunt shares how educators are creating personal learning networks for themselves and their students, making classroom connections across town and around the world using tools like Twitter, blogs, and wikis, among others. The following resources from NCTE show other examples of Professional Learning Communities.
The Language Arts article "School Leadership Teams: Extending the Reach of School-Based Literacy Coaches" (E-M) describes how establishing a literacy-focused school leadership team can strengthen and expand the reach of the literacy coach. This article describes one way to structure professional development work with these teams and highlights one school leadership team’s journey with its faculty as it begins working toward transforming the way teachers work with each other and their students.
Teachers Organizing for Change: Making Literacy Learning Everybody’s Business (E-M) offers teachers and teacher educators a practical, hands-on guide to effecting positive change in their own learning communities and in the larger social community. The book features numerous real-life examples, scenarios, and adaptable materials from community activists and teachers.
"Through the participation in professional learning communities, teachers can reinvigorate their teaching careers," states the Voices from the Middle article "Creating a Circle of Learning: Teachers Taking Ownership through Professional Communities" (M). Support systems like the National Writing Project allow teachers to build upon their own strengths, as well as learn from others across all grade levels and disciplines. While more traditional professional development options often consist of one-day workshops, professional learning communities continue to push members to grow as learners and educators, ultimately impacting student learning. These communities can provide a model for teachers to use in their own classrooms, providing tools to unlock student potential as well as teacher potential.
Teachers often learn with other teachers as part of professional learning communities. But what about learning something new with students? NCTE's Adolescents and Digital Literacies: Learning Alongside Our Students (M-S) addresses the ways teachers and students work together to navigate continuous change and what it means to read, write, view, listen, and communicate in the 21st century.
The author of "Facing the Issues: Challenges, Censorship, and Reflection through Dialogue" (S) outlines steps for creating professional learning communities that engage with censorship issues and prepare schools to deal with book challenges in thoughtful, supportive ways.
In the English Education article "Rejoining the Learning Circle: When Inservice Providers Conduct Research" (TE), a group of inservice providers and beginning researchers describe their experiences in learning to conduct evaluation research on a long-term school-university partnership program. Through this experience, the essential question changed from "How can we convince others that we do good work?" to "How can we make our work better?" -- a question at the heart of professional learning communities.
A critical assessment of experiences while teaching in Kingsborough Community College’s learning communities is shared in the Teaching English in the Two-Year College article “A Culture of Conversation: Faculty Talk as Meaningful Assessment of Learning Communities” (C). The article shares that official data failed to capture both successes and failures and makes the case for reflective, subjective assessment.
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