New Ways to Enhance Professional Learning Communities
Author: Rick Phelan
Published: 02.18.15
Growing numbers of educators are learning to work as members of electronic Professional Learning Communities (PLCs). PLCs are groups of teachers who work together to create improved learning opportunities for their students. PLCs focus on student learning outcomes and ask one essential question: How can we better serve the needs of ALL our students?
PLC groups articulate student needs and consider factors that can be changed to increase student success. Some of these factors include:
- Curriculum
- Instructional strategies
- Student groupings
- Technology integration
- Use of time
Electronic PLCs connect and extend professional learning communities beyond the walls of a school and afford greater opportunities to discuss practices and see what other teachers are doing to support students with similar learning needs. This blog post documents three electronic PLC resources that allow educators to interact and share with colleagues across the world.
Education Blogs
Blogs are interactive web-based communication spaces written by people on a range of different topics. To understand what a blog is and how you can set one up, view this YouTube video:
There are thousands of blogs written by educators chocked full of great ideas. Here’s a small sampling of some of my favorite blogs:
Twitter
Another electronic resource seeing growing use among PLCs is Twitter. Twitter is an information network that uses 140-character messages called Tweets. Educators can follow one another and have ongoing conversations about improving education. PLC users can identify their tweet topics using Twitter hashtags. For example, see this list of Education Twitter Hashtags.
Organized Twitter-based PLCs have also been established for educators to interact via Twitter “edchats.” Some edchats are scheduled on a weekly basis and focus on special topics of interest. One popular weekly edchat is California Ed Chat, which takes place on Sunday evenings at 8:00pm PST. Participating educators use the hashtag #caedchat to follow the conversation and share thoughts.
Here is a comprehensive listing of other edchats, organized by day and time.
Video Networks
A precept common to many PLCs is the notion that educators can extend their teaching repertories by watching other teachers teach. Helping educators understand new teaching pedagogies, PLCs use video-recorded lessons to support learning conversations and instructional strategy development. Collections of curated video lessons have been organized by different groups and individuals. Some of these collections are organized as YouTube channels, while others are available on special websites. The collections of videos shared below offer some possibilities.
- Teaching Channel
The Teaching Channel has established a site where teachers can watch, share, and learn new techniques to support student learning. They have over 800 videos documenting teachers working with students. Content can searched by topic, grade, and subject.
- George Lucas Educational Foundation Videos
Researchers at the George Lucas Educational Foundation have established a great collection of videos showcasing what works in education. Videos posted to their Edutopia website demonstrate innovation and evidence-based learning practices in K-12 schools.
Blog: Technology for Learners
