Professional Learning Community (PLC): Educators committed to working collaboratively in ongoing processes of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve. Professional learning communities operate under the assumption that the key to improved learning for students is continuous job-embedded learning for educators.
Glossary of Key Terms and Concepts
The following glossary provides a brief definition of key terms and concepts as they are used in the context of this book and in the context of professional learning communities in general.
Attainable goals: Goals perceived as achievable by those who set them. Attainable goals are intended to document incremental progress and build momentum and self-efficacy through short-term wins.
Building shared knowledge: Learning together. When members of PLCs are called upon to resolve an issue or make a decision, they consistently attempt to learn together by clarifying questions and accessing the same information and knowledge base. Members of a PLC, by definition will learn together.
Collaboration: A systematic process in which people work together, interdependently, to analyze and impact professional practice in order to improve individual and collective results. In a PLC, collaboration focuses on the critical questions of learning: What is it we want each student to learn? How will we know when each student has learned it? How will we respond when a student experiences difficulty in learning? How will we enrich and extend the learning for students who are proficient?
Collective inquiry: The process of building shared knowledge by clarifying the questions that a group will explore together. In PLCs, collaborative teams engage in collective inquiry into both best practices regarding teaching and learning as well as the reality of current practices and conditions in their schools or districts.
Common formative assessment: An assessment typically created collaboratively by a team of teachers responsible for the same grade level or course. Common formative assessments are used frequently throughout the year to identify (1) individual students who need additional time and support for learning, (2) the teaching strategies most effective in helping students acquire the intended knowledge and skills, (3) program concerns – areas in which students generally are having difficulty achieving the intended standard – and (4) improvement goals for individual teachers and the team.
Formative assessment: An assessment for learning used to advance and not merely monitor each student’s learning (Stiggins, 2002). Formative assessments are used to ensure any student who experiences difficulty reaching or exceeding proficiency is given additional time and support as well as additional opportunities to demonstrate his or her learning. Formative assessments are also used to help students monitor their own progress toward an intended standard of proficiency.
Foundation of a professional learning community: PLCs rest upon a shared mission of high levels of learning for all students. In order to achieve that mission, educators create a common vision of the school they must create, develop values or collective commitments regarding what they will do to create such a school, and use goals as measurable milestones to monitor their progress.
High expectations: The confident belief that all students can attain mastery of the essential learning and that the staff has the capability to help all students achieve that mastery. “High expectations for success will be judged, not only by the initial staff beliefs and behaviors, but also by the organization’s response when some students do not learn” (Lezotte, 1991, p.4).
Norm-referenced assessment: An assessment designed to compare the performance of an individual or group with a larger “norm” group typically representing a national sample with a wide and diverse cross-section of students (Ainsworth & Viegut, 2006).
Power standard: The knowledge, skills, and dispositions that have endurance, leverage,and are essential in preparing students for readiness at the next level (Reeves, 2002); the most essential learning or outcomes.
Professional: Someone with expertise in a specialized field, an individual who has not only pursued advanced training to enter the field, but who is also expected to remain current in its evolving knowledge base.
Professional development: A lifelong, collaborative learning process that nourishes the growth of individuals, teams, and the school through a daily job-embedded, learner-centered, focused approach (National Staff Development Council, 2000).
