What is a Professional Learning Community

What is a PLC ?
" A Professional Learning Community (PLC) is educators committed to working collaboratively in ongoing processes of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve. PLCs operate under the assumption that the key to improved learning for students is continuous, job -embedded learning for educators.

The 3 Big Ideas of a PLC

- Focus on Learning

Educators agree that the fundamental purpose of their school is to ensure high levels of learning for all students. To keep this in mind they focus on 4 questions:

1) What do we want students to learn?

2) How will we know if they have learned?

3) What will we do if they don't learn?

4) What will we do if they have already learned ?

- Build a Collaborative Culture

Schools improve when teachers are given the time and support to work together to clarify essential student learning, develop common assessments, analyze evidence of student learning and use that evidence to learn from one another.

- Focus on Results

PLCs measure their effectiveness on the basis of results rather than intentions.