RSA#1: A PLC and Changing School Culture: Using Documentation to Support Collaborative Inquiry

RSA#1: A PLC and Changing School Culture: Using Documentation to Support Collaborative Inquiry

http://web.ebscohost.com.cucproxy.cuchicago.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=8&hid=110&sid=cc91b20d-395d-4a67-ac0d-315ab7053287%40sessionmgr110

 

            A PLC has one purpose: increase student learning by improving educator performance.  There are different arguments on how to achieve this common goal.  One way is for educators to collaborate, and in the book Learning By Doing, Richard and Rebecca Dufour, Robert Eaker, and Thomas Many (2010), stated “the fact that teachers collaborate will do nothing to improve a school (p.119).  The group must be focused on goals they may work as a team and not as a group.  Educators must “work interdependently to achieve a common goal for which members are mutually accountable [or] they are not a team” (p. 153).   The article chosen helps support that collaboration is good and to how make it work.

                The article discusses the use of collaboration to improve student learning by providing guidance to educators through documentation.  According to Heidi Given, Lisa Kuh, Debbie LeeKeenan, Ben Mardell, Susan Redditt, and Susan Twombly (2010), “teachers who engage in collaborative inquiry often struggle with questions about how to define their work, share power, and validate their process.” (p. 2).  The article explains through examples of organized collaboration the use of documentation fixes this problem. In addition to providing the examples it also addresses the “tensions and shifts teachers experience in collaborative work” (p. 3).

            The concept of a PLC has been around for a long time, yet for many schools the implementation seems to be an issue.  Learning By Doing and Changing School Culture helps explain how to deal with the issues and tensions that arise from collaborative processes.  In order to create an environment conducive to learning and to achieve a shared mission and vision, “a collective purpose . . . cannot be accomplished by working alone” (p.139) An organized collaborative system with well defined goals is not an end but a beginning.

Work Cited

Dufour, R., DuFour, R., Eaker, R., & Many T. (2010). Learning By Doing (2^nd ed.). Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

Given, H., Kuh, L., LeeKeenan, D.,  Mardell, B.,  Redditt, S., &  Twombly, S. (2010). Changing School Culture: Using Documentation to Support Collaborative Inquiry. Theory Into Practice, Vol. 49 Issue 1, 36-46.  DOI: 10.1080/00405840903435733