The teacher in the workplace has to deal with a lot of factors. What do you teach and when? How do you teach these different topics? What methods are most effective for teaching different subjects? A teacher that feels unsupported can have a hard time teaching and lead to the students not receiving the education that they deserve. In a Professional Learning Community (PLC) teachers support each other and share knowledge and techniques in order to improve their teaching standards and help the students achieve better grades and understanding of content. In a PLC time is designated for teachers to get together and share ideas, support each other, and work on improving their teaching for the students.
The benefit of a PLC is that all of the teachers are on the same page. A new teacher in the school can jump right in and be an effective teacher right away. Also a community full of different shared ideas and solution provides a larger wealth of techniques and experience than just one teacher teaching behind closed doors. In a PLC the individual teacher is still responsible for teaching his/her own class but the experience can be drawn from other teachers improving the skill and overall education throughout the school.
A PLC benefits the students also. If their is a particular problem with a student or if a student is struggling with a particular question and the teacher does not know the answer, solutions can be pooled in the PLC and a group of teachers can come to a solution that benefits each student best. The PLC opens up a wealth of knowledge and experience and its influence reaches down to the student so that even a new teacher can use an experienced technique to help the student.\
In a PLC the teachers have a shared vision that is discussed and improved on during designated meeting times. Staff are not just involved in creating the shared vision but each staff member helps make goals based on the vision and the staff help each other reach those goals.
The PLC relates to Project Based Learning because in PBL the students need a wealth of resources and in the PLC a teacher can either provide the resource using another teacher or the PLC can come up with ways of bringing resources to the school in order to help the students. This creates a better learning environment for the student who is working on their project, and the student recieves valuable information from better resources from the PLC.
Hi Adam!
ReplyDeleteI really like that the first thing that you touched on was the various factors that teachers have to sort out when they begin teaching, and how overwhelming this feeling can be! I think that we all started out with this feeling in the education program and have been progressively been immersing ourselves into what it will really feel like when we begin teaching. The way in which you framed the importance of a PLC really hit home for me, and did as I was reading the chapter. I also really like the "shared vision" of the teachers within the PLC. As long as teachers have the same shared vision, which should be the students' success, I think great things are bound to happen! Nice job! :)
-Sabrina
Adam you made great points here and really built a case for Professional Learning Communities. We have so many things we must teach our students it is overwhelming! If we are a struggling teacher and don’t have the support we need our students won’t be getting the education they deserve. Ultimately, this will have a ripple effect on their education. Once you are behind it is so hard to get caught up! This alone should be a reason to make time to collaborate with your colleagues. If we are teachers, shouldn’t we be teaching each other? It seems like common sense that we would all want to be on the same page as a school. Our goal is to make the students successful. It shouldn’t just mean that we are only invested in OUR classroom, the other teachers will be getting these students and what we do will affect their other classes. Really, learning off each other will make everyone a better teacher ;-)
ReplyDeleteI also loved that you brought up the importance for the students to collaborate with each other too. We definitely don't have all the answers and I think there is more value when they make the discovery!
Adam, I enjoyed reading your post. I liked how you started off your blog with the series of questions, all the ones you stated are all very true for teachers. I agree that a professional learning community allows teachers the support that they may not get if that practice isn’t being used. I think it is important for teachers to collaborate with each other and share ideas because the more teachers talk and share ideas the stronger their lessons will be resulting in the students learning being even higher. I agree with you that a benefit of a PLC is that all the teachers in the PLC are on the same page, this is extremely important and not only benefits the teachers but the students as well. I like how you brought up the connection of PLC to project based learning, because they are related and in the end a better learning environment for the students and a supportive environment for the teachers is the final outcome which is great. I think the professional learning community would be something any new teacher would seek out because they would gain the support from all the other teachers and if a PLC has not been started in a school then I think the teacher should take the stand and start one, I know a school I help out at uses this method and the outcome is great and because of it the teachers are more supportive and have higher trust in each other which results in them going to each other to discuss things. I enjoyed this chapter and reading your post.
ReplyDelete-Michelle