Description
Imagine all professionals in all schools engaged in continuous professional learning!
Education experts Shirley M. Hord and William A. Sommers explore the school-based learning opportunities offered to school professionals and the principal's critical role in the creation, development, and support of an effective professional learning community (PLC). This book provides school leaders with readily accessible information to guide them in initiating and developing a PLC that supports teachers and students. Using field-tested examples, the text illustrates how this research-based school improvement model can help educators:
- Increase leadership capacity
- Embed professional development into daily work
- Create a positive school culture
- Develop accountability
- Boost student achievement
Table of Contents
Foreword by Andy Hargreaves
Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
1. What Is a PLC? Professional Learning Communities: Definitions and Effects
2. Why Leadership? Leadership Imperatives for Professional Learning Communities
3. Culture and Context, Structures and Schedules, Policies and Procedures
4. Creating Conditions to Get Started
5. What Are the Skills Needed to Build Professional Learning Communities?
6. Where Are We? Where Should We Be? Who Is Monitoring Our Work?
7. What Have We Learned?
References
Index
