Professional Learning Communities

Educators are faced with many challenges regarding professional learning communities and how they should be implemented into schools. Many schools are utilizing these strategies as a way to improve their schools for the principals, teachers, and students. Although there are many challenges implementing professional learning communities into schools, there are also many successes that provide students with the best education they can receive. Professional learning communities or PLC’s can be defined as a group of educators that meet regularly, share expertise, and collaborate to improve teaching skills and the academic performance of students. According to Huffman and Hipp, “PLC’s are implemented into schools to provide support for the school’s professional staff members who continuously seek to find answers through inquiry and act on their learning to improve student learning.” Today educators are trying to reform their …show more content…
Participants need to focus on continuous learning as well as have a common purpose. The PLC strategies construct a vision of the school where individuals work together, learn from one another, and become a better environment for the students. As a result of the collaboration individuals start to support beliefs and share the same visions of the PLC. The principal is one of the major key components in the PLC process. They can either make the system be successful or fail depending on if they are willing to be a supportive leader. The principal’s main job is to make sure the PLC system is accepted, nurtured, and appreciated. They oversee the implementation, but also needs to learn how to share the power with the school staff. This may be difficult at first for everyone to share the power nevertheless it will happen over time when individuals have developed respect for one another through observations and