Why Professional Learning Communities Matter?

"Every Student, Every Day, A Success! We Teach Hearts as Well as Minds" This is a bold, yet admirable mission statement for Grand Island Public Schools and it captures the essence of intentions of our everyday work.  Yet, despite our best efforts and intentions, there are still students that are falling behind, that move from grade to grade without the knowledge and skills needed to be successful.  Is it realistic to think that we can ensure that "every" student achieve the skills in order to "thrive" in an ever changing world?  I believe it is!  We know our students face many challenges (behaviors, achievement gaps, language, trauma, chronic stress) that impact their rate of progress.  Although many of the situations are out of our control, there is strong research to support that what we do when students are in our care every day, can make a difference and change the trajectory of their future.       
The unique needs, academic and social emotional, that our students walk through out doors with everyday deserve our very best-our attention--our collective effort to break down those barriers.  It's time to innovatively engage students, have high expectations, and increase the rigor--facilitating opportunities for students to take ownership their learning.  The "how" we accomplish this is what has to change if we are to accomplish our vision.  The quote at the top of this blog stresses the importance of collaboration.  The collective expertise of a group of educators focused on root cause of achievement gaps,  use of effective instructional, implementation of interventions and extensions to address specific student learning needs, and planning to engage students in a learning environment that is rigorous and inclusive, accomplishes far more, than if engaging in this process alone.  The GIPS structure to accomplish this work is through Professional Learning Communities (fondly called PLC 2.0).  The visual below provides a brief overview of essential characteristics, however, I am also linking a one page summary of the GIPS PLC 2.0 that evolved through research of effective PLC implementation. 

Although the concept of PLC's 2.0 sounds fairly simple, implementation has it's challenges.  Personalities, belief barriers, confidence, communication, growth mindset, response to change, all impact effectiveness of outcomes of the PLC.  The time allocated for this work is a gift for teams to come together for the common purpose of improving student learning.  It is a shift in what we have typically called "collaborative planning" where planning the week's lessons and sharing the responsibilities in preparing materials was the focus to intentionally focusing on what students need to know and be able to do, setting goals around standards, using student learning results to inform instruction, intervention and extensions throughout the unit, and growing professionally in practice by learning from others. This doesn't just happen, all members have to contribute, engage and honestly reflect about the process. The vision is common and clear, and although engaging in PLC 2.0 work may not be comfortable or natural to some, when the team is effective, the academic achievement needle moves farther than if going about this work alone.

With any new practice, level of implementation happens at different rates and I have observed this through PLC 2.0 visits this last couple of weeks.  That is ok as there are supports, reflections and professional learning along the way. It's just not ok, to not move towards implementation. Thank you in advance for all you do everyday and for taking ownership of the process by reflecting on how you are contributing to your team as an educator as well as how you can grow in practice as a result.  EMPOWER each other, using DATA to PERSONALIZE standards based instruction for students.  If this becomes just what we do, we will RISE GI!