Create a Learning Community

    

     I heard a principal say to a group of instructional leaders that “we must allow for teachers to dialog with us about what they think so we can guide them in their understanding”.  This is a powerful statement from an instructional leader’s perspective.  Many studies show that teacher collaboration has the biggest effects size when it comes to teacher growth.  Interestingly enough isn’t this what we ask teachers to do with our students – check for understanding?  

     When we begin to treat schools as learning organizations for teachers – student achievement will take care of itself.  Campus principals must model effective collaboration and disallow teaches to isolate themselves in their practice.  Teaches are the most influential professional in a student’s educational career, we must ensure that we are providing the venues for them to learn.  Research states that PLC’s do impact achievement in students and teachers (Dufour,Mattos, 2013).

     As an instructional leader you must focus on planning for your school community to focus on learning and not on teaching.  In my district we have elected to implement Instructional Rounds– We want to collectively work on the practice of teaching and create a culture of classroom observations that focus on learning for both the teacher and the student.  I am proud to say that our dialog has changed as we have prepared to implement this initiative.  What a great day it will be when teachers share a vision of shared learning and student achievement. This happens because campus leaders have created the time and set the expectation that their campus will learn together.   

     Educators are naturally lifelong learners, let’s allow for time each day for them to pursue professional growth – after all Webster’s definition of EDUCATION is the action or process of educating or of being educated.  Let’s commit to learning communities within the halls of our schools.

Until next time –Dr. Mc

How Do Principals Really Improve Schools? http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/apr13/vol70/num07/How-Do-Principals-Really-Improve-Schools%C2%A2.aspx

Rick DuFour and Mike Mattos

Professional Learning Communities http://www.centerforcsri.org/plc/literature.html