Blog
Professional Development Is Not a Spectator Sport
As a principal I used to be frustrated by how indifferent many of my teachers acted toward professional development activities. After all, I had spent a great deal of time putting the presentations . . . Read more
Professional Learning Communities as the Foundation of a Competency-Based Educational System
The commitment of our district (Sanborn Regional School District in New Hampshire) to build highly functioning professional learning communities in each school has been the driving force behind the . . . Read more
Put Your Money Where Your Maxim Is: “Investing” in PLCs at the District Level
Dictionary.com defines maxim as “a general truth or principle” or “a rule of conduct.” A few years ago when I was a high school principal leading the implementation of a PLC . . . Read more
Are You Married to Your PLC?
Are you married to your professional learning community? Are you just flirting or dating? Maybe engaged? What is your level of commitment to the PLC process? These were the questions and . . . Read more
Reading Recovery
Rebecca DuFour was recently contacted by an interventionist at an elementary school just beginning the PLC process. A new master schedule has been created that includes (1) weekly time for team . . . Read more
Clearing Things Up With the Cloud
The team leader taps away furiously at her computer. “I know we decided this last spring in our release day. Don’t you remember?” Her teammates watch with a variety of expressions . . . Read more
The Toughest Audience of All: Your Colleagues
I have led professional development for school faculties and at educational conferences in the United States and now in Singapore. It’s a slightly heady feeling—walking into a ballroom . . . Read more
Doing the Right Things Right: Building Capacity, Quality Control, Fidelity, and Accountability
“What drives your school improvement efforts—evidence of best practice or the pursuit of universal buy-in?” This question is posed by Dr. Richard DuFour in his article, . . . Read more
Learning in a PLC: Student by Student, Target by Target
Collaborative teams in PLC schools use the four critical questions of learning to drive their collective inquiry and action research: What do we want students to learn? (essential . . . Read more
Sustaining and Maintaining: No One Answer
Dear School Administrators, A question often asked during professional development workshops on professional learning communities is: “How do we sustain the PLC process from one year to . . . Read more
To Ability Group or Not to Ability Group? That Is the Question
From Richard DuFour and Rebecca DuFour: At a recent PLC at WorkTM Institute that included over 1,500 educators representing 14 states, it became evident that ability grouping for homeroom . . . Read more
An Open Letter to My First-Grade Teacher
I am a failure. Many define failure as lack of success and omission of required action. I would say that in my past, I qualified as a failure on both counts. Today, as a principal in a school, . . . Read more
Avoiding the “PLC Lite” Scenario
Despite the overwhelming evidence supporting the full implementation of professional learning communities, some schools and districts are still settling for a superficial level of application. In a . . . Read more
What’s the Plan?
The ability of leadership teams to effectively answer this very simple question has either kicked off a great initiative or served as the catalyst for many difficult or frustrating conversations. . . . Read more
Let the Debate Begin
Robert J. Marzano in What Works in Schools: Translating Research Into Action (2000) wrote that a “guaranteed and viable curriculum” (p. 22) is the school-level factor that most impacts . . . Read more