Building a learning community : examining the factors associated with the implementation of professional learning communities
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Education research says that collegial work is connected to teachers' sense of efficacy, professional growth and positive student outcomes, but for various social, psychological as well as organizational reasons teachers often face challenges to working together. As a result, efforts to bring teachers together have had uneven success. There is a good deal of research about what effective professional learning communities (PLCs) look like, but less has been done to examine the implementation process. This study combines survey data of 33 New Jersey public schools involved in a state-sponsored PLC training program and case studies of two of those schools in order to trace the factors associated with the implementation of PLCs. The data suggest that a set of predicted variables—vision, community, resources (including time to meet and expertise) and processes —were associated with the development of collegial professional practice, and all of these factors were mediated by principal leadership and the wider distributed leadership structures at the schools. These qualitative findings were corroborated by the survey data from the two case study schools and the larger pool of schools in the program. Other factors such as the state and local contexts of the two case study schools and the leaders' judicious use of their means of control while also supporting teacher autonomy proved to be important factors for these schools as well. While both schools saw even reluctant teachers notice greater depth to their collegial work, there were challenges that remained in terms of scheduling equity and the use of data to support high quality teaching as opposed to state testing preparation.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2011 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Mindich, Daniel |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, School of Education. |
| Primary advisor | Darling-Hammond, Linda, 1951- |
| Thesis advisor | Darling-Hammond, Linda, 1951- |
| Thesis advisor | Cuban, Larry |
| Thesis advisor | Lotan, Rachel A |
| Advisor | Cuban, Larry |
| Advisor | Lotan, Rachel A |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Dan Mindich. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the School of Education. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2011. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2011 by Daniel Mindich
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
Also listed in
Loading usage metrics...