This year Riverside-Brookfield High School teachers and staff will work together more collaboratively than they have ever done before. RB is implementing a model of education called a Professional Learning Community (PLC). You might think that the school, any school, is a professional learning community, but the PLC concept has the potential for transforming the way a school approached education, according to RB Superintendent/Principal Jack Baldermann and other proponents of the PLC model.
So just what is PLC?
“It’s a school-wide improvement program, and the focus is having teachers work together as opposed to working in isolation, which is traditional schooling,” said Baldermann.
The leading proponents of the PLC model are educational consultants Richard and Rebecca DuFour who have written a few books on PLCs. It has been implemented in many schools around the nation, including Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire.
The most immediate impact of the PLC on RB is that starting on Sept. 20 RB students will get to start school a half hour later while their teachers will have to get to school a little earlier. On every Thursday from Sept. 20 until the end of the school year, RB students will start at their day at 8:30 a.m. instead of 8:00 a.m., while teachers will be meeting from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. to implement the ideas of the PLC.
The most important innovation of the PLC is to shift the focus from teaching to learning, according to PLC advocates. Traditionally teachers have focused on just teaching their lessons. However under the PLC model it is the responsibility of the teacher, and the school, to make sure that students are learning what is being taught.
If students are not learning, the teacher must change the way he or she is teaching. The teacher and the school, as much as the student, have the responsibility to make sure that students learn.
“If you’re teaching something the students are not learning then we’re not doing our job,” said Baldermann.
Another task this year will be for departments to develop common assessments, an important part of the PLC model. Common assessments are evaluation tools, usually tests, which will determine just what students are learning. RB will try to assure that all students taking the same subject learn the same essential skills, no matter what teacher they have.
“I think we need a little more consistency throughout the curriculum without completely handcuffing the teachers,” said Baldermann.
Critics of the PLC approach say the model does handcuff teachers, destroying their individuality and denigrating their professionalism. Some teachers may see the PLC model as encroaching on their autonomy to teach their classes the way they see fit. What is the reaction of teachers at RB to the PLC?
“I would characterize it as positive and curious,” said George Miller, the chairman of the English and Foreign Language departments at RB. Miller added that at this early stage most RB teachers don’t know very much about the PLC model.
The common assessments that will be developed this year are just a first step, said Baldermann. The most important aspect of the PLC, he added, is to use the assessments to determine where changes and improvements need to be made.
“What you really should be doing is looking at not just how students performed, but what they’ve learned and what they haven’t learned and then developing strategies for more learning to take place,” said Baldermann. “It’s not just an assessment of learning, it’s an assessment for learning. It’s a fundamental shift, just like the focus is on learning instead of on teaching.”
The assessments are just a starting point not an end point.
“The most important thing is looking at the student performance data from the common assessments and then using that information to improve curriculum and instruction,” said Baldermann. “That’s the whole point.”
