Professional Learning and Student Achievement

When student achievement steadily declines, a teacher can become less motivated. But what happens when the whole school district is underachieving? Teachers feel helpless and lose confidence in their ability to make a difference and kids are not able to learn. Myers and Rafferty (2012) describe a similar situation from their school district in Illinois. Their district began implementing professional learning communities, or PLCs. Over a period of seven years, their school district has seen a steady rise in student achievement.

            Myers and Rafferty (2012) describe PLCs who are dedicated to student success.These teachers set high expectations and were committed to helping students reach the goals the PLCs created. Leane (2014) also worked a with a fellow math teacher to create a PLC to raise math scores. They began using the advisory period for math remediation and tracked student progress. Every student in the grade knew what was expected of them, and Leane and his fellow PLC teacher worked together to help every student meet those goals by the time state testing was administered.  Myers and Rafferty (2012) also acknowledge that successful PLCs constantly review student achievement data and plan the next steps and strategies that will be used to meet the goals. Leane (2014) followed this model and tracked student progress individually and across the grade. Grade-level data was displayed outside the classroom. By displaying this information, students were able to take responsibility for their learning and see how it affected the grade-level data.

            By forming PLCs, Myers and Rafferty (2012) point out that teachers can build a shared knowledge of not only content but also the students they are working with. By collaborating together, members of PLCs are able to better meet their students’ needs.  Teague and Anfara (2012) found similar results in Miami; members of PLCs were able to improve and strengthen their instructional strategies and direction their own professional development by working collaboratively to resolve struggles each teacher faced in his or her classroom.

            Strong and effective PLCs do not form overnight. Myers and Rafferty (2012) acknowledge that in order for PLCs to be successful, all educators must believe that all student can learn and be willing to commit to helping every student succeed. It also requires measurable goals and support from the school leadership. Poekart (2012) emphasises the important role that school administration bears when implementing PLCs saying that it is the duty “as visionary leaders” to develop an organized change process for collectively building 'community' in the organizational structure of the school” (p. 58).

            Although my school only has five teachers, I would say we still form an informal group of collaborative learning. Since our school is small, we all have a shared knowledge of the students we are working with, and following the advice of Myers and Rafferty (2012) and Teague and Anfara (2012) we work together to solve situations as they arise in our classrooms. I think I will suggest to my principal that next year we give up one staff meeting a month and use that time for a formal PLC. If we were to set school-wide goals for student achievement and discuss strategies to meet those goals, the experiences of Myers and Rafferty (2012)  and Leane (2014) prove that student achievement would increase.

References

Leane, B. (2014). How I learned the value of a true PLC. The Phi Delta Kappan, 95(6), 44-46.

Myers, N. & Rafferty, E. (2012). Moving up from mediocre. School Administrator, 1(69), 21-26.

Poekert, P. (2012). Examining the impact of collaborative professional development on teacher practice. Teacher Education Quarterly, 39(4), 97-118

Teague, G., & Anfara, V. (2012). What research says: Professional learning communities create sustainable change through collaboration. Middle School Journal, 44(2), 58-64.