What is a professional learning community?

Schools that operate as a professional learning community have developed a culture and a structure that embrace continuous improvement on behalf of their students. The key characteristics of a PLC school include:

• A well-defined mission, vision, values, and goals
• A collaborative culture
• A focus on collective inquiry and the use of data for instructional decisions
• An action and results orientation
• A commitment to continuous improvement.

The engine behind school improvement is the team--grade level teams, department or course teams, and cross departmental/grade teams. The actions of these teams are guided by the following questions:

• What should students know and be able to do?
• How do we know they are learning?
• How do we respond when they aren't learning or if they already know it?