Professional Learning Communities as Meetings, or, How You Do Things Around Here?

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session Ten
  In Roundtable Session: School Improvement Networks Grounded in Culture and Trust (Table 5)

Abstract

Professional learning Communities (PLCs) can be challenging to become deeply engrained within the school’s culture and accepted as organizational norms. Many teachers perceive PLCs as additional meetings, instead of venues for meaningful learning. Utilizing the case study methods, we examined one middle school that has sustained a culture of high-functioning PLCs for over 15 years to explore the cultural characteristics of a high-functioning PLC. We identified (a) practices and systems of sustainability for PLC culture and (b) vulnerability and innovation as the core of educator mindset that contributed to sustaining high-functioning PLCs. Principals should continually dedicate themselves to the establishment of relational trust and vulnerability across the faculty to promote PLCs as part of school culture.

Authors

• Joonkil Ahn, University of Arizona
  Presenting Author

• Osly J. Flores, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Presenting Author