What is professional learning community

2024年3月26日发(作者：怎么算油耗多少钱一公里)

What Is a “Professional Learning Community”?

Richard DuFour

To create a professional learning community, focus on learning rather than teaching, work

collaboratively, and hold yourself accountable for results.

The idea of improving schools by developing professional learning communities is currently in

vogue. People use this term to describe every imaginable combination of individuals with an

interest in education—a grade-level teaching team, a school committee, a high school

department, an entire school district, a state department of education, a national professional

organization, and so on. In fact, the term has been used so ubiquitously that it is in danger of

losing all meaning.

The professional learning community model has now reached a critical juncture, one well known

to those who have witnessed the fate of other well-intentioned school reform efforts. In this all-

too-familiar cycle, initial enthusiasm gives way to confusion about the fundamental concepts

driving the initiative, followed by inevitable implementation problems, the conclusion that the

reform has failed to bring about the desired results, abandonment of the reform, and the launch of

a new search for the next promising initiative. Another reform movement has come and gone,

reinforcing the conventional education wisdom that promises, “This too shall pass.”

The movement to develop professional learning communities can avoid this cycle, but only if

educators reflect critically on the concept’s merits. What are the “big ideas” that represent the

core principals of professional learning communities? How do these principles guide schools’

efforts to sustain the professional learning community model until it becomes deeply embedded

in the culture of the school?

Big Idea #1: Ensuring That Students Learn

The professional learning community model flows from the assumption that the core mission of

formal education is not simply to ensure that students are taught but to ensure that they learn.

This simple shift—from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning—has profound implications

for schools.

School mission statements that promise “learning for all” have become a cliché. But when a

school staff takes that statement literally—when teachers view it as a pledge to ensure the

success of each student rather than as politically correct hyperbole—profound changes begin to

take place. The school staff finds itself asking, What school characteristics and practices have

been most successful in helping all students achieve at high levels? How could we adopt those

characteristics and practices in our own school? What commitments would we have to make to

one another to create such a school? What indicators could we monitor to assess our progress?

When the staff has built shared knowledge and found common ground on these questions, the

school has a solid foundation for moving forward with its improvement initiative.

As the school moves forward, every professional in the building must engage with colleagues in

the ongoing exploration of three crucial questions that drive the work of those within a

professional learning community:

? What do we want each student to learn?

? How will we know when each student has learned it?

? How will we respond when a student experiences difficulty in learning?

Educational Leadership/May 2004 1

The answer to the third question separates learning communities from traditional schools.

Here is a scenario that plays out daily in traditional schools. A teacher teaches a unit to the best

of his or her ability, but at the conclusion of the unit some students have not mastered the

essential outcomes. On the one hand, the teacher would like to take the time to help those

students. On the other hand, the teacher feels compelled to move forward to “cover” the course

content. If the teacher uses instructional time to assist students who have not learned, the

progress of students who have mastered the content will suffer, if the teacher pushes on with new

concepts, the struggling students will fall farther behind.

What typically happens in this situation? Almost invariably, the school leaves the solution to the

discretion of individual teachers, who vary widely in the ways they respond. Some teachers

conclude that the struggling students should transfer to a less rigorous course or should be

considered for special education. Some lower their expectations by adopting less challenging

standards for subgroups of students within their classrooms. Some look for ways to assist the

students before and after school. Some allow struggling students to fail.

When a school begins to function as a professional learning community, however, teachers

become aware of the incongruity between their commitment to ensure learning for all students

and their lack of a coordinated strategy to respond when some students do not learn. The staff

addresses this discrepancy by designing strategies to ensure that struggling students receive

additional time and support, no matter who their teacher is. In addition to being systematic and

schoolwide, the professional learning community’s response to students who experience

difficulty is:

? Timely. The school quickly identifies students who need additional time and support.

? Based on intervention rather than remediation. The plan provides students with help as soon

as they experience difficulty rather than relying on summer school, retention, and remedial

courses.

? Directive. Instead of inviting students to seek additional help, the systematic plan requires

students to devote extra time and receive additional assistance until they have mastered the

necessary concepts.

The systematic, timely, and directive intervention program operating at Adlai Stevenson High

School in Lincolnshire, Illinois, provides an excellent example. Every three weeks, every

student receives a progress report. Within the first month of school, new students discover that if

they are not doing well in a class, they will receive a wide array of immediate interventions.

First the teacher, counselor, and faculty advisor each talk with student individually to help

resolve the problem. The school also notifies the student’s parents about the concern. In

addition, the school offers the struggling student a pass from study hall to a school tutoring

center to get additional help in the course. An older student mentor, in conjunction with the

struggling student’s advisor, helps the student with homework during the student’s daily

advisory period.

Collaborative teacher conversations must quickly move beyond “What are we expected to

teach?” to “How will we know when each student has learned?”

Any student who continues to fall short of expectations at the end of six weeks despite these

interventions is required, rather than invited, to attend tutoring sessions during the study hall

period. Counselors begin to make weekly checks on the struggling student’s progress. If

tutoring fails to bring about improvement within the next six weeks, the student is assigned to a

Educational Leadership/May 2004 2