Module 3 Evaluating the Impact of a PLC

As I read Martin-Kniep’s (2008) Evaluating the Growth and Expertise of community Members (p. 133-154), I begun to think about the outcomes that a Professional Learning Community (PLCA) can experience and how to measure those outcomes. Martin-Kniep provides several documents that can be used to measure growth and disposition. However, even though these documents are valuable and can serve as great tools; I am most interested in reading or hearing from real teachers about how PLC has changed their practice. Therefore, I begun to search for available resources that would have some of these components and I found All Things PLC . This is a site devoted to provide tools for the implementation of PLCs . It includes Blogs, literature resources, community locators as well as videos. All available for teachers to download. In fact, they encourage teachers to share them.

In this video, Resources and Leadership, we can observe a conversation among educators who are discussing the conditions they have encountered while implementing a PLC at their schools. Some of the common concerns educators have include: time and money. However, according to Dennis Sparks, these are not the real obstacles. Sparks states that the most significant drawback is the “habit of mind and behavior” and that the crucial point in any PLC is having the courage to begin a new course of action that has not been started before. Once the process has started, schools can see positive results within one year. As Richard DuFour affirms “the will to Act is the fundamental pre-requisite”.

Texas Educators Reflect on Their PLC Journey Middle/Secondary Teachers, includes a PLC panel discussion among intermediate and high school teachers while they are collaborating and sharing the benefits of PLC on their students’ achievement. These teachers consider their reflections, their goals and practices while working in partnership; and question their motives to teach how they do and why they hold the teaching philosophy they have. In addition, they share the changes they have made to their teaching practices and express the benefits of having a common time to collaborate.