Successful PLCs

After my last blog about PLCs, I had a couple comments asking what they were and how we did them successfully.  So first off PLC stands for Professional Learning Community.  Basically meeting in teams according to subject, department, and grade level.  We meet once a week and it rotates each week, but we meet as a subject team the most often. 

What we do:

As a subject team we plan curriculum, develop common assessments, analyze student results, make goals to improve student learning.

As a department we set department goals, report on student learning, discuss and plan new strategies.

As a grade level team we only meet once at the end of the quarter and once at mid terms.  We discuss students that are struggling and ways we can best help them.  This team has been so successful this year that the local universities are trying to figure out what we are doing.

For this to be successful the teachers HAVE to buy into it.  I think that you also have to have teachers that really care about students, not just the lip service but really willing to put in the extra work to help students succeed.  PLCs are a great tool in helping all the students in your classes succeed by using your colleagues expertise to ensure all students learn.