Professional Learning Communities and Teacher Enquiry

Professional Learning Communities and Teacher Enquiry PDF

Author: Alison Fox

Publisher: Critical Publishing

Published: 2020-03-16

Total Pages: 156

ISBN-13: 1912508842

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Evidence-based teaching is fast becoming a new orthodoxy. There are many strong voices, including policy voices, advocating its adoption. Understanding the underlying principles allows you to better evaluate the benefits of different approaches to evidence-based teaching and how they relate to your own school context. This book provides a critical overview of different ways of thinking about professional learning as a social process through collaborative and collective activity, including the notion of professional learning communities and how these might be used to support teacher enquiry. It examines the opportunities and challenges this poses to teachers and school leaders, and includes practical advice on how to facilitate, engage with and evaluate collaborative teacher enquiry models.

Collaborative Action Research for Professional Learning Communities

Collaborative Action Research for Professional Learning Communities PDF

Author: Richard Sagor

Publisher: Solution Tree Press

Published: 2010-04-01

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1935543814

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Constant, high-quality collaborative inquiry sustains PLCs. Become disciplined and deliberative with data as you design and implement program improvements to enhance student learning. This book delves into the five habits of inquiry that contribute to professional learning. Get to know them and the action research process they represent. Detailed steps show you how to accomplish collaborative action research that drives continuous improvement.

Teacher Collaboration for Professional Learning

Teacher Collaboration for Professional Learning PDF

Author: Cynthia A. Lassonde

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2009-12-04

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 0470553979

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Teacher Collaboration for Professional Learning contains the essential information, tools, and examples teachers and school leaders need to create, manage, and sustain successful collaborative groups. Designed to be a hands-on resource, this practical guide shows you how to: Advocate for collaborative teacher learning Develop and sustain collaborative research groups Organize and conduct productive research projects Address issues of ethics, leadership, and group dynamics Evaluate and sustain collaborative learning activities Based on data from a major survey, Teacher Collaboration for Professional Learning features extensive case examples from model research communities collaborating within schools, across districts, in partnership with universities, and as online networks. The book also offers a wealth of reproducible templates as well as reflection questions and exercises?invaluable tools for organizing study groups.

Demystifying Professional Learning Communities

Demystifying Professional Learning Communities PDF

Author: Kristine Kiefer Hipp

Publisher: R&L Education

Published: 2010-02-16

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 1607090511

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The purpose of this book is to clearly define an approach to school improvement that uses professional learning community (PLC) practices to achieve school improvement and success for every student. This book offers information, examples and case studies to clarify the concept of a PLC, to respond to critical issues in schools, and to support educational leaders in addressing the important mandates of accountability and school improvement. As school leaders proactively lead efforts to create learning communities, their schools, districts, and staff will incorporate knowledge, skills, and practices that focus on teaching and learning for all. The authors' findings will assist leaders, change agents, policy makers, and university faculty in guiding schools toward creating and maintaining PLCs as they sustain school improvement for student learning.

Learning by Doing

Learning by Doing PDF

Author: Richard DuFour

Publisher: Solution Tree

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 9781949539479

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In the third edition of Learning by Doing: A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities at Work®, authors Richard DuFour, Rebecca DuFour, Robert Eaker, Thomas W. Many, and Mike Mattos provide educators with a comprehensive, bestselling guide to transforming their schools into professional learning communities (PLCs). In this revised version, contributor and Canadian educator Karen Power has adapted the third edition for Canadian educators, emphasizing how Canadian educators can effectively improve learning for each student across their unique and widely diverse provinces and territories. Rewritten so that the scenarios, research, and language appropriately meet the needs of Canadian educators, this version is packed with real-world strategies and advice that will assist readers in transforming their school or district into a successful PLC.

Professional Learning Communities at Work

Professional Learning Communities at Work PDF

Author: Richard DuFour

Publisher: Solution Tree

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781879639607

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Provides specific information on how to transform schools into results-oriented professional learning communities, describing the best practices that have been used by schools nationwide.

Professional Learning Communities

Professional Learning Communities PDF

Author: Louise Stoll

Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)

Published: 2007-03-16

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 0335230253

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“All who are interested and concerned about educational reform and the improvement of schools will find this book a must read. It stimulates, it challenges, and it informs, such that the reader is most surely enriched by its plenitude.” Dr Shirley Hord, Scholar Emerita “At last we have a book of international cases to add to the literature on networks! Policymakers and practitioners alike will find the reasons why networks are fast becoming the reform organizations of choice. The book elevates network understanding to a new level.” Ann Lieberman, Senior Scholar at the Carnegie Foundationfor the Advancement of Teaching What is a professional learning community? What are the key challenges facing these communities and how might they be resolved? Is it time to extend our thinking about professional learning communities? There is great interest internationally in the potential of professional learning communities for enhancing educational reform efforts and sustaining improvement. This international collection expands perceptions and understanding of professional learning communities, as well as highlighting frequently neglected complexities and challenges. Drawing on research, each chapter offers a deeper understanding of topics such as distributed leadership, dialogue, organisational memory, trust, self-assessment and inquiry, and purpose linked to learning. The last section of the book focuses upon three of the most challenging dilemmas that face developing professional learning communities - developing professional learning communities in secondary school, building social capital, and sustaining professional learning communities. The authors provide pointers on why these challenges exist, offering rays of hope for ways forward. Professional Learning Communities is key international reading for education professionals, school practitioners, policymakers, academics and research students. It is a must-read for anyone interested in building capacity for sustainable learning and the ability to harness your community as a resource for change.

The Reflective Educator’s Guide to Professional Development

The Reflective Educator’s Guide to Professional Development PDF

Author: Nancy Fichtman Dana

Publisher: Corwin Press

Published: 2008-05-01

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1452239258

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"A tool box overflowing with ideas that will help every staff developer craft a school culture hospitable to adult and student learning." —Roland S. Barth, Author, Lessons Learned "The book speaks to many audiences, including instructional coaches, PLC leaders, action researchers and group leaders, and university professors working with action researchers and PLCs." —Gail Ritchie, Coleader, Teacher Researcher Network Fairfax County Public Schools, VA "A terrific resource for connecting teacher networks and action research to create powerful professional development opportunities. This book is a joy to read." —Ellen Meyers, Senior Vice President Teachers Network Powerful tools for facilitating teachers′ professional development and optimizing school improvement efforts! Professional learning communities (PLCs) and action research are popular and proven frameworks for professional development. While both can greatly improve teaching and learning, few resources have combined the two practices into one coherent approach. The Reflective Educator′s Guide to Professional Development provides educators with strategies, activities, and tools to develop inquiry-oriented PLCs. Nationally known school reform experts Nancy Fichtman Dana and Diane Yendol-Hoppey cover the ten essential elements of a healthy PLC, provide case studies of actual inquiry-based PLCs, and present lessons learned to help good coaches become great coaches. With this step-by-step guide, readers will be able to: Organize, assess, and maintain high-functioning, inquiry-oriented PLCs Facilitate the development of study questions Establish the trust and collective commitment necessary for successful action research Enable PLC members to develop, analyze, and share research results Lead successful renewal and reform efforts By combining two powerful training practices, coaches, workshop leaders, and staff developers can ensure continuous, robust school-based professional development.

Teachers Leading Educational Reform

Teachers Leading Educational Reform PDF

Author: Alma Harris

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-31

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 1317247884

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Teachers Leading Educational Reform explores the ways in which teachers across the world are currently working together in professional learning communities (PLCs) to generate meaningful change and innovation in order to transform pedagogy and practice. By discussing how teachers can work collectively and collaboratively on the issues of learning and teaching that matter to them, it argues that through collective action and collaborative agency, teachers are leading educational reform. By offering contemporary examples and perspectives on the practice, impact and sustainability of PLCs, this book takes a global, comparative view showing categorically that those educational systems that are performing well, and seek to perform well, are using PLCs as the infrastructure to support teacher-led improvement. Split into three sections that look at the macro, meso and micro aspects of how far professional collaboration is building the capacity and capability for school and system improvement, this text asks the questions: Is the PLC work authentic? Is the PLC work being implemented at a superficial or deep level? Is there evidence of a positive impact on students/teachers at the school/district/system level? Is provision in place for sustaining the PLC work? Teachers Leading Educational Reform illustrates how focused and purposeful professional collaboration is contributing to change and reform across the globe. It reinforces why teachers must be at the heart of the school reform processes as the drivers and architects of school transformation and change.

Connecting Inquiry and Professional Learning in Education

Connecting Inquiry and Professional Learning in Education PDF

Author: Anne Campbell

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-03-07

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 1136032061

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How might inquiry enhance the professional practice of student and practising teachers, teacher educators and other practitioners? What effect might this have on the learning of young people in and outside of the classroom? Based on the findings of an international colloquium and drawing upon a range of practices from the UK, USA, Canada, Europe and Australia, this book is designed to make explicit the connections between Practitioner Inquiry and Teacher Professional Learning in Initial Teacher Education and Ongoing Teacher Professional Development. Considering issues such as the relationship between practitioner inquiry and pedagogical content knowledge whether it is possible to scale up from small local and intensive innovations to more broadly-based inquiry inquiry’s role in professional identity, both individual and communal prevailing socio-political contexts and consequences for social policy formation. It brings together writers who work in designing teacher education courses, and those who are practice-based researchers and policy makers. Crucially, many of these writers inhabit both spheres, and their accounts of how they successfully combine their multiple roles will prove vital reading for all those involved in examining and improving practice leading to enhanced teacher professional learning.