Tuesday, August 23, 2011

PLC=GANG!

Hey Gang...are any of you using Professional Learning Communities in your school?  We have been implementing this the past few years and I would love to hear your thoughts on it.  How it works?  Any changes that you have made.
We struggle with the meeting time.  An hour is a long time for us to find in our schedule.  Our specials time is only 45 minutes and by the time you head to the restroom and drop you kiddos off that is 10 minutes.
Are you creating assessments for your subjects?  I would love to see what you are doing. 
Please share so we can compare:)
Thanks for being my Virtual PLC Gang!

5 comments:

Robbie said...

Good Morning,
First let me tell you how much I love this blog and all the blogs associated with Me and My Gang. There are so many amazingly creative and dedicated teachers out there! I started following your blogs this summer and have become hooked. You all are inspiring.
Next, how lucky are you! You have 45 min. specials? I have only 1 45 min. special a week. All others are 30min. Talk about barely time to use the bathroom.
Our district has started professional learing communities. They take place after school. I haven't participated in any yet but a good friend has initiated starting one for Daily 5 and I told her I would go and help/show support any way I can.
Thanks again to all of the bloggers! You've inspired me to start a professional blog of my own so I can have a place to organize all my favoriet blogs~
Robbie

Elizabeth said...

I am a pretty new teacher, so I don't know the world without PLC's! It was hard to get everyone on board, but it is getting there now. Our principal reserved Wednesday mornings for PLC time, so we have close to an hour each and every Wednesday. Every third Wednesday, we meet with the RTI specialists to talk about and move around our children. This has made a HUGE difference, and I feel like more people know my students more in depth. We have started creating assessments, but we have been more compiling than creating. We started Reading Street 2 years ago, so we thought putting together resources from the curriculum for our common assessments would save some time. I think we have a good start, but I, too, would love to hear more ideas!
Thank you for your amazing blog! I love all of the ideas so much!

Anonymous said...

Yes!! I have used PLCs for the past 2 years and love them!! They are truly amazing!! We did the meeting for about 45 mins during the school day, but then switched (along with budget cuts and other changes) to a weekly minimum day where we met for up to 3 hours. We created common formative assessments, materials to support and extend in class, and analyzed scores, etc. We implemented RTI for each grade level in math and in reading.

If you have any specific questions, please let me know. Once you get a rhythm it's such a great resource...

Sara said...

I just spent all day at a workshop about PLC's. First of all, for it to technically be a PLC, you must be collaborating. Most people think they are, and they are actually just sharing lesson plans and cooperating. That's not collaboration. You must be focused on student achievment, not just sharing your favorite lessons.

However, we meet in our PLC once a week, for 50 minutes. Then we meet quarterly for a half day to go over our benchmark data, and re-group for the next 9 weeks.

Unknown said...

We have also been doing PLCs in my school for the past few years. I think we are finally understanding what we need to do. Our principal purchased all the teachers a 3 inch binder for a data notebook. We keep all our testing information in there so we can discuss it at PLC meetings. We also only have 45 minute specials so we don't really plan during our PLC. We meet also as a grade level to plan on a separate day. This year, we are going to take turns leading the PLC so our principal isn't the meeting leader all the time. Most of the time we discuss how our kids did on assessments, how we can improve our scores, and what we are doing that's working.

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