The Professional Learning Community: a culture of

collaboration
By John Hellner

The last two decades in education have witnessed paradigm shifts in our views of
professional development in response to an accelerating rate of change and the
exponential growth of a research culture. In the late 1980s, Susan Rosenholtzs research
on the teaching workforce proposed sharing ideas, collaboration, learning from each
other and improved practice as, ultimately, the gateway to improving student outcomes.
In 1990, organisational guru Peter Senges Fifth Discipline promoted the idea of a
work environment in which employees engaged as teams, developed a shared vision and
operated collaboratively to improve corporate outcomes and maintain a competitive edge
in a globalised world.

Rosenholtz and Senges paradigm shift caught the attention of educators. In the mid 90s,
seminal thinker Sergiovanni argued that when a school functions as a community, its
members embrace shared ideals, norms, purposes and values, which contributed to
continuous school improvement. The label became learning communities.

Critical attributes of a PLC: shared leadership

The literature suggests five critical attributes of a Professional Learning Community

(PLC). Firstly, a shared and supportive leadership, in turn nurturing leadership among
staff with a distribution of power, authority and decision making. Such an environment
implies egalitarism, inclusivity, democracy and a dispensing with formalities as
characteristic of such a community.

Critical attributes of a PLC: shared vision

Another attribute, shared values and vision, evolves from the values of the staff and leads
to building staff supported behaviours. The 2006 Ministry of Educations draft INSTEP
document endorses the creation of shared vision arguing that it essential this vision-

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building is carried out collaboratively and not simply imposed by educational leaders.
Embracing the notion of a shared and collaboratively developed vision assumes the
vision must be embedded in improving teaching practice and an undeviating focus on
student learning. The vision should aim to make teaching and learning a lasting and
powerful experience not just a clich about learning for all found in school mission
statements.

Critical attributes of a PLC: collaboration

A third attribute, the practice of collective learning and collaboration, might be central to
the functioning of a PLC, judging by the repetition of the theme in various configurations
throughout the literature. In a collective and collaborative learning community, teachers
seek new knowledge, skills and strategies, share information and work together to solve
problems and improve learning opportunities inherent in real, site based challengers.

The Ministry of Education document uses the phrase interactive professionalism. The
indicative term captures the essence of the relationship and communication necessary to
foster reflective inquiry and the co-construction of understanding about professional
practice. Collaboration and collegiality form the twin pillars supporting interactive
professionalism. Within a culture of collaboration teachers are empowered as
professionals by the practices and processes within the organisation.

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Critical attributes of a PLC: deprivatisation of practice

The next attribute, teachers sharing personal practice, proves equally as prevalent in the
literature as collective learning and collaboration. Teachers observing classroom
practice, giving feedback and mentoring each other, leads to individual and community
improvement. Dufour (2004) delineates this attribute of PLCs referring to collaborative
conversationsto make public what has been traditionally private goals, strategies,
materials, pacing, questions, concerns, results. Under various guises open lessons, job
embedded professional development, deprivatisation of practice few disagree that open
doors, candid conversations and opportunities for reflection and discussion should be the
norm in a PLC. Sharing personal practice, as an evaluation or appraisal process, can
prove high risk or threatening to teachers. As a consequence, the practice is best viewed
as the timeless application of a peer helping a peer and not management judging staff.

Critical attributes of a PLC: support

Intrinsic in the first four attributes of a PLC is a fifth dimension: supportive conditions.
Supportive conditions include school structures and resources, open communication
channels, trusting and respectful relationships. It seems exceedingly difficult to imagine
a collaborative, supportive and sharing community without such a fundamental state of
affairs.

Benefits: teachers

Current literature makes a strong case for the growth and development of teachers as
members of a Professional Learning Community. The benefits for teachers flow on to
students and to the school: educations equivalent of the trickle down theory.

The research offers a broad cornucopia of positive results for teachers, from the tangible
effects such as: reduced isolation; job satisfaction; higher morale; less absenteeism;

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making teaching adaptation for students to the less tangible and less measurable:
commitment to school mission and to systemic changes; shared responsibility for student
success; new and powerful knowledge and beliefs about teaching and learners; increased
meaning and understanding of curriculum and the teachers role; professional renewal and
inspiration.

When teachers feel supported in their own ongoing learning and classroom practice they
feel more committed and effective than teachers who do not feel supported. PLC teacher
members prove more willing to venture into the unknown, to engage in long term inquiry,
to take calculated risk, and to share what they learn. In comes as little surprise to find
policy studies on PLCs concluding they can provide educators with purpose,
collaboration, commitment and community.

As a consequence of working in a satisfying and rewarding professional environment,

teachers feel empowered as professionals and take responsibility for their own learning.
Teachers feel more positive about staying in the profession and recruitment and retention
issues lessen within PLC schools.

Other studies and systematic reviews report on the positive impact of collaborative
environments in changing teachers attitudes. Teachers report greater confidence; greater
commitment to trying something new and to change in general; and, enhanced self-
efficacy they believe more in their power to make a difference in pupil learning.

The only qualifying remark on the effectiveness of the collaborative environment in a

PLC for teachers seems to be that the positive outcomes sometimes only emerged after
periods of relative discomfort in the change process things often got worse before they
got better.
Benefits: students

The teachers attitudinal shift, reflected in a renewed love of professional learning

afforded in a PLC, is caught by students not taught. When teachers become internally
motivated learners they can better model the joy of learning for their students. Research
suggests that ultimately, greater teacher effectiveness in schools with PLCs impacts on

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student results. Dropout rates drop, student absenteeism declines and achievement gaps
between students from different backgrounds diminish. Other studies note some
unanticipated student outcomes in terms of a change in attitudes and beliefs, more
motivation and active participation in classroom. Almost anti climatically, PLCs and
collaborative teacher enquiry link to improved student academic performance.

Benefits: schools

Teacher growth and enhanced student outcomes interweave to further institutional

adaptivity and reculturation, focused on pupil learning. The creation of new
organisational knowledge and behaviours serves as the drive shaft for continued
collaboration, which proves important in sustaining the changes. Rather than being a one
off reform initiative, the PLC becomes the supporting structure for schools ongoing
transformation through their own internal capability.

Win Win

Current evidence clearly indicates gains for teachers, students and schools in PLCs. The
change begins with the growing teacher professionalism fostered in a PLC and inexorably
translates to positive student outcomes. In the end, like the proverbial snowball rolling
downhill, the impact grows and grows in a self perpetuating cycle of continuous
improvement.
References:

DuFour, R. (2004). What Is a Professional Learning Community"? [Electronic version].

Educational Leadership, 61(8), 6-11.

Ministry of Education. (November, 2006). Towards a Framework for Professional

Practice: INSTEP (draft). Available online at www.minedu.govt.nz/goto/instep.

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