Bringing Your Learning Community to Life: A Roadmap for Sustainable School Improvement

How can you take the concept of a learning community from theory to the school building? This how-to guide walks you through the process of establishing a PLC step by step over a flexible timeline of nine to twelve months. Leadership and organizational development specialists Stephen S. Kaagan and Linda Headley provide school and council leaders with a concrete road map and numerous tools for creating and sustaining a PLC focused on improving student learning. Readers will find everything they need to get a PLC up and running, including: specific tasks that help educators ‘learn by doing’ as they create a PLC; practice exercises for conducting productive meetings, building individual and group communication skills, and shaping the group’s identity; brief case studies of problems encountered by educators to spark discussion and support educators’ growth as learners and leaders; and, guidelines for appropriately pacing the chapters, tasks, and exercises with your faculty. Bringing Your Learning Community to Life is an invaluable manual for building capacity and carrying out the work of creating an effective, sustainable PLC focused on continuous improvement.