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Education Reform And The Creation Of Learning Communities Article Review

¶ … Professional Learning Community"? Professional learning communities: Article review

DuFour, R. What is a 'professional learning community?' Educational Leadership, 2004.

A popular idea in the field of education today is the need to develop a 'professional learning community' of educators to facilitate the goals of the institution. One of the 'big ideas' of a professional learning community is the responsibility for educators to come together and to determine how students really learn and how to achieve set learning objectives. For example, if a teacher is struggling with providing differentiated instruction to a diverse community of learners, the school can offer her additional support and resources to bolster the intervention when they experience challenges. Rather than waiting for the student to make the overture, there are procedures to ensure the student is required to seek extra help. Intervention rather than remediation is the aim (DuFour 2004: 2).
A second 'big idea' is the concept of collaboration -- quite simply, when teachers find that particular strategies work, they should share them with their fellow educators. This ensures that teachers are able to learn from one another and that positive techniques are disseminated through the school. However, the article notes that subjective impressions are not enough to validate that particular approaches work: these must be determined…

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A second 'big idea' is the concept of collaboration -- quite simply, when teachers find that particular strategies work, they should share them with their fellow educators. This ensures that teachers are able to learn from one another and that positive techniques are disseminated through the school. However, the article notes that subjective impressions are not enough to validate that particular approaches work: these must be determined through objective instruments. For example, having teachers give the same types of formative assessments enables them to compare what techniques enhanced student retention and which did not (DuFour 2004: 3). Instead of just presenting teachers with state curriculum standards, schools must try to answer the question 'how will we know when each student has learned' (DuFour 2004: 4).

Not all teachers, it should be noted, would necessarily embrace such an approach -- this type of data-driven method of evaluation could force some teachers to have to change their methods, based upon such measurements. This objection might also directly link with the third big idea behind professional learning communities: being results-oriented in a statistical fashion. The 'results-oriented' concept taps into many of the notions behind quality improvement in private enterprise, namely setting specific metrics for student achievement such as decreasing the rate of failures by a specific percentage and increasing the rates by which students pass state exams. This is contrasted with making vague 'goals' such as instituting a great books program or setting objectives in relation to educators, administrators, and program externals. Instead, it is important to ensure that initiatives translate in student success.

Professional learning communities and the growing professionalism of education may not be welcome to all. The article states quite bluntly teachers "must stop assessing their own effectiveness based upon how busy they are" and they must confront "brutal facts" (DuFour 2004: 6). Students likewise may not necessarily enjoy being forced to seek outside assistance when they do not wish to do so. The development of such 'learning communities' means a certain degree of conformity, despite the upbeat tone of the article and this may be welcome to some but not to all.
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