There's a lot to be said for the professional learning communities model based upon data from schools/districts that have successfully implemented it. At the same time, there's a certain anxiety level among many staff members who are comfortable with things the way they are. Specifically, there is the issue of teacher autonomy. Many teachers enjoy the fact that, except for formal evaluations, they are largely left alone to craft, implement, and assess on their own.
With PLC's, teachers meet regularly and collaboratively to share best practices, develop common timelines for units, common formative assessments, etc. The idea, for those of you not familiar with the model, is that by establishing and maintaining this dialogue, teachers scrutinize assessment data, discover which lessons, delivery methods, etc. have had the greatest impact on student achievement, and then adopt that practice as a group. By continuously working within this "loop," they hope to continuously improve instruction and, therefore, achievement. For those students who are not meeting standards, interventions are implemented immediately with the goal of bringing the student up to standard while still working within a given unit.
Question... Are the potential gains worth the loss of autonomy for the teacher and the extra work involved?
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Dan,
After reading your blogs on PLC, I am going to give you my opinion to your question stated at the end of your post. I feel teachers need to collaboratively plan and share best practices in order to help all students. In saying this, I am confused on the "autunomy" part of the question. I feel the more involved the better the scope and sequence. After all, best practices and theories aren't linked to one person. The people who are concerned with notarity usually sell "their" ideas and move onto the marketing side of education.
It does take time for PLCs to develop. It is a collaborative effort and vision of the school.
Enjoyed your blog,
William
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