Professional Learning Communities at Work®

Join us for this webinar to engage in a unique professional learning experience that can work for schools, departments or teams. Choose Your Own Master Class is designed with standalone chapters to offer busy educators the opportunity to join together for a book club, yet begin with the chapter that speaks to their most urgent needs. This webinar will highlight the chapter on civil conversations, including its thought leaders from across disciplines. It will feature reflective exercises and classroom strategies to help you start off the year cultivating a supportive classroom environment. Together we’ll explore ideas to nurture inclusivity and belonging throughout the school year.

As educators and leaders across the nation grapple with the challenge of changing policies, practices, and procedures to ensure high levels of learning for all students, the inability to effectively change the mindsets of colleagues, faculty, and staff is proving to be the biggest hurdle of all. Hence, in order for systems to change, outlooks will also need to change.

PLC concepts resonate with most educators, but making collaborative learning work in small schools or for singleton teachers can be challenging. In this webinar, participants explore three models for creating meaningful professional learning teams—vertical teaming, cross-curricular teaming, and supporting roles— while reviewing common structural barriers that prevent singletons from joining collaborative teams and exploring how others have overcome similar challenges.

Maria Nielsen helps teams see the big picture of a PLC and put it all together in a recurring cycle of collective inquiry. The 15-day challenge is a practical way to bring the PLC process to life.

The impact of Covid-19 will have a long-lasting effect on every facet of our society. Very few institutions were more disrupted than schools. The pandemic affected staffing, funding, morale, and the continuity of student learning. Participants explore the history of the field of education and examine why the tenants of the PLC at Work process were important before the global pandemic and why they are even more important after the pandemic. This is not the time to back away from the PLC at Work process; this is the time to reinforce its foundation.

It has been said that isolation is the enemy of improvement, and yet singleton teachers are too often left alone. Singleton teachers are the only ones at a school who teach a specific course or subject—like a music or art teacher or the only physics teacher—and these teachers often ask how they can effectively participate on a collaborative team at a PLC school (e.g., teachers who teach the same course or subject). Additionally, leaders frequently ask what they should be doing to guide and support these outstanding educators.

Maria Nielsen helps teams see the big picture of a PLC and put it all together in a recurring cycle of collective inquiry. The 15-day challenge is a practical way to bring the PLC process to life.

Join Dr. Timothy S. Stuart as he makes the case for professional learning communities in international schools. He demonstrates the positive impact this structure has had on student learning, professional growth, and school culture.

In order to answer the question “How will we know when students have learned it?”, PLCs need to utilize quality assessment practices.

In the first session of the Mind the Gaps series, intervention expert Mike Mattos will discuss the three essential academic outcomes of an effective multitiered system of support and four critical actions that leaders should take to embed these supports in the school’s master schedule.