Fostering Teacher Collaboration in PLCS

Edited from an article that appeared in the March 2011 edition of Kappan magazine.

The original article was co-authored by Rebecca A. Thessin and Joshua P. Starr

When schools and districts implement Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) to provide teachers with time to collaborate, they also realize that learning how to work in teams does not just magically happen. Districts must be deliberate in their efforts to teach teachers how to collaborate.

I served as superintendent of Stamford (Conn.) Public Schools in the early 2000. During the 2007-08 school year, we introduced PLCs in the district’s 20 schools. It was Year 1 of our PLC work, and the communities were part of an overall system redesign led by me and supported by a grant from the G.E. Foundation Developing Futures Program. Stamford’s PLCs were established in response to teacher comments that they needed more time to collaborate with peers. In preparation for PLC work, the district’s assistant superintendents worked with school leaders to ensure that, beginning in September 2007, teachers at every school would have time to meet weekly with other teachers to discuss their practice.

But simply putting well-meaning individuals together and expecting them to collaborate was not enough. Central office support was essential for teachers to make the shift from planning activities to having conversations focused on instruction. Stamford learned from both its successes and its missteps. By the third year of implementation, we had identified the critical responsibilities for district leaders if PLCs were going to operate successfully. When implementing PLCs systemwide, we learned that districts play four key roles:

• Ownership and support — Districts must involve teachers and administrators in developing and leading the PLC process;
• Professional development — Districts must teach administrators and teachers how to work together effectively in PLCs;
• Clear improvement process — Districts must show how PLCs fit into the district’s improvement process so that each PLC’s work fits into an overall plan; and
• Differentiated support — Districts must support schools according to their unique needs in order to help them move to the next step in their PLC growth.

Our results in Stamford show that PLC time can enable teachers to work together and make a difference for their students. The 2009 Connecticut Mastery Test results illustrated strong improvements in achievement, especially in grades 6 and 8 in math, grades 5 and 8 in reading, and grade 8 in writing. Particularly, white, black, and Hispanic students showed higher overall achievement in the percentage of students scoring at or above “goal” when compared to students’ performance statewide.

Again in 2010, Stamford students’ performance on Connecticut’s state test was on an upward trend, particularly in math. In grades 3, 5, and 8, the gain in the percentage of students who scored at or above goal in Stamford exceeded gains by the state.

Overall, between the 2006-07 and 2009-10 school years, math scores improved by 13% in grade 5 and 15% in grade 6. Based on our successes and our own learning through this process, we encourage other districts implementing PLCs to lead PLC work with clear expectations and provide differentiated supports in the first year. Like students, adult learners who are engaging in problem solving and teamwork for the first time need differentiated supports to ensure that they can work together effectively to meet their students’ learning needs. By providing teachers with the time to collaborate and the necessary supports to build high-functioning learning teams, districts and schools can begin to ensure that teachers become effective team members and, as a result, effective instructors in the classroom.