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Communication: A key component
In order for members of a PLC to learn effectively from one another, teachers must find time to talk with members of the group.
By Susan Benedict
The most important component of a Professional Learning Community is communication. Determining a method that is appropriate for your group should be a priority. After meeting in person for a full weekend to set our norms and procedures we put into place a Google groups site that would allow for communication among members. Along with choosing a prompt that all of our students would use and a scoring guide that was universal for our group, having specific questions to answer each month kept us logging on to learn from one another and to share our own unique experiences. It was this component that really made our group a professional learning community, rather than a group that simply used a similar assessment and scoring guide. During our second year, we tried on-line chat and video conferencing. These new interactive avenues for conversation worked well when the schedule of members cooperated. What we soon learned, as the school year started, is that along with working with each member’s unique schedules, we had to work around time zones. These obstacles made communication difficult, although it was exciting when it did work out.
So using a group blog site or any type of platform that caters to group discussions allows participants to check in when they have time (or whenever their scheduled PLC time was on the calendar). For the learning process to occur among participants, all conversation needs to be privy to every member of the group. We did discover that with our Google Groups page, it may take longer for each person to respond, but it did allow everyone to keep up and feel part of the group. It was these conversations that brought out many new lesson ideas and overall teaching strategies that enhanced our classrooms.
Some of the questions our PLC members focused on included the following:
- What have my students have learned from me so far this year?
- What have I learned from my students in these first weeks of school?
- Does teaching involve helping students to develop personally?
- How do we motivate beginning journalism students?
- What are the five most important concepts to teach when teaching news writing and reporting?