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Professional Learning Communities

The professional learning community, or PLC, is based on a single, simple premise: To be effective, educators must change their focus from teaching to learning. In a PLC, educators have three goals:

• Ensuring that all students learn. Every classroom includes students of varying abilities. In a PLC, teachers are prepared to serve both the students who learn material quickly and those who need additional time and support. That means developing a coordinated strategy to provide timely intervention when students are struggling.
  
  
• Creating a culture of collaboration. In many schools, teachers work in isolation. While staff may come together to formulate basic operational policies (like how to respond to tardiness or supervise recess), they do not engage in professional dialogue about what works in their classrooms. In a PLC school, educators share best practices, join forces to solve problems and work together to improve both their individual performances and the school's performance as a whole.
  
  
• Focusing on results. To ensure that a PLC meets its educational goals, educators must identify students' current levels of achievement, establish clear educational objectives, work together to meet those goals and provide evidence that they have succeeded.