The School Leader's Guide to Professional Learning Communities at Work TM. Richard DuFour
basis in our individual classrooms? How will we gather evidence of each student’s learning as a team? What criteria will we establish to assess the quality of student work? How can we be certain we can apply the criteria consistently?
› How will we respond when students do not learn? What steps can we put in place to provide students who struggle with additional time and support for learning in a way that is timely, directive, and systematic rather than invitational and random? How can we provide students with multiple opportunities to demonstrate learning?
› How will we enrich and extend the learning for students who are proficient? How can we differentiate instruction among us so that the needs of all students are being met without relying on rigid tracking?
2. The second big idea is that if we are to help all students learn, it will require us to work collaboratively in a collective effort to meet the needs of each student. Bringing this idea to life requires attention to the following conditions:
› Educators are organized into meaningful collaborative teams in which members work interdependently to achieve common goals for which they are mutually accountable.
› Regular time for collaboration is embedded into the school’s routine practices.
› Educators are clear on the purpose and priorities of their collaboration. They stay focused on the right work.
› Principals demonstrate reciprocal accountability (Elmore, 2004). They provide teachers with the resources, training, and ongoing support to help them succeed in implementing the PLC process.
3. The third big idea is that in order to know if students are learning and to respond appropriately to their needs, educators must create a results orientation. They must be hungry for evidence of student learning and use that evidence to drive continuous improvement of the PLC process. This big idea requires attention to the following conditions:
› Every member of the organization is working collaboratively with others to achieve SMART goals that are (O’Neill & Conzemius, 2006):
a. Strategically and specifically aligned with school and district goals
b. Measurable
c. Attainable
d. Results oriented, that is, requiring evidence of higher levels of student learning in order to be achieved
e. Time bound
› Every member of the organization is working collaboratively with others to gather and analyze evidence of student learning on a regular basis to inform and improve his or her professional practice as well as the collective practice of the collaborative team. Team members explore questions such as, Who among us is getting excellent results teaching this skill? How can we learn from one another? What is the area in which our students are having the most difficulty? What must we learn as a team in order to better address that area of difficulty?
› Evidence of student learning is being used on a regular basis to identify the specific needs of individual students. The school moves beyond using data to make general observations about the achievement of all students. It creates processes to use assessment results to respond to students by name and by need.
› Educators throughout the school assess the effectiveness of every policy, program, procedure, and practice on the basis of its impact on student learning.
It is imperative to note that the emphasis placed on student learning in a PLC does not diminish the importance of teaching. In fact, the primary reason to become a PLC is to impact and improve teaching. Too many school reforms have swirled around but not within the classroom. Schools have changed their schedules, added graduation requirements, administered required tests, and responded to countless other reform initiatives, and yet, instructional practice in the classroom has too often remained unchanged. The PLC process is specifically intended to create the conditions that help educators become more skillful in teaching because great teaching and high levels of learning go hand in hand.
Before addressing the actionable steps that bring the big ideas to life, once again we return to the question of how you will define your role as principal. All principals work hard. What distinguishes effective principals from their less effective colleagues is that they identify the conditions most vital to the success of their school and concentrate their efforts on creating those conditions. Warren Bennis (2000) asserts that the difference between managers and leaders is that managers do things right but leaders do the right thing. Both roles are important, and effective principals will certainly manage the building well. However, they will also be driven to lead because they recognize the moral imperative that the school serves. They focus on impacting lives whereas less effective principals focus on managing their jobs (Louis, Leithwood, Wahlstrom, & Anderson, 2010). So before pressing on with the rest of this book, take time to think about and ultimately to clearly define your role as principal. If a Martian were to ask you to explain the responsibilities of a principal, how would you respond?
Getting Started
One of the first questions a principal must address to create the conditions that lead to higher levels of learning for both students and staff is simply, Where do I begin? We recommend the following steps.
1. Start with questions.
2. Create a guiding coalition.
3. Build shared knowledge with staff by learning together.
4. Help staff members clarify the school they are attempting to create.
5. Clarify the commitments that are vital to creating the school.
6. Establish indicators of progress and strategies for monitoring those indicators.
7. Develop a critical mass to support implementation and begin taking action.
It is not imperative that a principal know all the answers to the challenges confronting a school; it is imperative that the principal ask the right questions to help identify and focus attention on those challenges. A principal new to a school should meet with the staff in small groups to ask a series of questions, such as:
• “What do you feel I need to know about this school to be effective as its principal?”
• “What makes you proud to be a staff member at this school?”
• “What are some of the challenges that you confront in the school that make it difficult for you to be as effective as you would like?”
• “What would make this an even better school?”
Small-group dialogues have three benefits:
1. They allow a principal to honor the past efforts of staff members and the history of the school.
2. They demonstrate that the principal values the perspective of others and recognizes they have important insights.
3. They make it possible for the principal to present challenges and ideas in the words of staff members themselves. At the conclusion of the process, a principal is able to say, “I have heard your concerns, and you have helped me to understand the challenges you face. Now let’s work together to address those challenges and make this an even better school.”
With some minor tweaking, a principal could use similar questions to engage both parent groups and central office staff in similar dialogue. The initial challenges of a new principal include engaging in a fact-finding mission about