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Building a Professional Learning Community at Work™ A Guide to the First Year Building a Professional Learning Community at Work™: A Guide to the First Year addresses the real-world critical questions that arise when schools begin their work to become professional learning communities (PLCs). How can administrators and teachers take the promise of a PLC and turn it into reality? How can school leaders transform theories of collaboration into highly effective nuts-and-bolts practices? This book is set in the context of one year in the life of a PLC. It chronicles the efforts of a building principal, Steve, and his teachers to build a true PLC at Central Middle School by focusing on the successes and challenges inherent in the process. Each chapter includes four elements. An opening story highlights an important event in the growth of a learning community. "Lessons From the Front Line" spotlights the successful decisions and common mistakes made by the characters in the opening story. The "Relevant Theory and Research" section introduces the theories of experts and connects them to the work of PLCs to provide readers with an approachable framework for understanding—and a language for describing—the complex, yet predictable, changes that are inevitable when schools restructure as PLCs. The "Recommendations" section offers a collection of suggestions from which to draw while working through change in a building. The lessons in Building a Professional Learning Community at Work™ are drawn from the authors' own experiences working as teachers, building administrators, consultants, and coaches at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. It emphasizes that powerful collaboration can happen anywhere, but it requires hard work, purposeful steps, and a deep understanding of the PLC model. The tools in this book have been tested time and again by real teachers and teams. This book serves as a guide by presenting the kinds of steps teams can take to polish professional learning in their own buildings.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Part I: Summer: Committing to a Common Purpose Chapter 1: Starting With a Vision Chapter 2: Empowering the Core Team Part II: Fall: Building a Team Chapter 3: Creating Trust Chapter 4: Supporting Team Development Part III: Winter: Weathering the Challenges Chapter 5: Negotiating Personalities and Conflict Chapter 6: Experiencing Frustration Part IV: Spring: Looking Forward Chapter 7: Connecting Data Analysis and Instructional Improvement Chapter 8: Building a Collective Intelligence Epilogue References REPRODUCIBLES The Capacity of a Professional Learning Community: Four Interconnected Factors Professional Learning Community Capacity Planning Checklist Conversation Tracking Sheet Turning Principles Into Stories Professional Learning Teams Finding Your Hedgehog Who Are the Personalities in Your Organization? Balancing the Core Team Creating Opportunities for Dialogue Building Relationships With Teachers The Trust on Our Team Survey Record of School Relationships Professional Learning Community Administration Survey Professional Development for Learning Teams Learning Team Collaboration Survey Stages of Team Development Weathering the Storm: Storming Strategies and Suggestions for Learning Teams Team Agenda Template Team Roles to Consider Fist-to-Five Ratings Managing Team-Based Conflict Administrator Roles in Team Conflicts Tools for Twenty-First-Century Learning Teams: Planning Guide Tools for Twenty-First-Century Learning Teams: Matrices Midyear PLC Survey What Is Our Team Monitoring? Structuring Data Conversations Team Action Planning Template Evidence of Practice in Action Professional Learning Team Data-Literacy Survey Recommended Resources for More Information on Lesson Study and Action Research Tracking the Interventions in Your Building |
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