RSA2: Supervisor Transformation within a Professional Learning Community

RSA 2: Supervisor Transformation with a Professional Learning Community

http://www.eric.ed.gov/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=EJ896072 

In this week’s reading, Chapter 10 caught my attention. The charts included in this chapter reflect cultural changes in a PLC. (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker & Many 249-251) These charts are interesting and reflect what is happening within our PLCs a little at a time. It would be difficult to focus on all of the changes in one year. It would be beneficial for PLC groups to use these charts when planning for their PLC year. Each group could pick a couple of areas to focus on and they could plan their work around it.

The article that I found for this week is about a study that was conducted through the College of Education at Texas State University-Sane Marcos. The university recruited six participants for their study of PLCs. The PLC focus was supervision of teachers. The members met for eight sessions with each session being 2 hours. They each brought unique experience with them. The purpose of the study was to watch the transformation that occurred in this PLC. (Jacobs & Hoppey 2010)

I felt that the study that was conducted at Texas State was interesting but I felt they lacked focus in their meetings. The meetings seemed to be focus on whatever the group brought to talk about. There was some structured curriculum they used but it seemed like they were more focused on the dilemmas they were each having in their workplace. In fact, a diagram was included in the study that had dilemmas as the main topic of conversation in the PLC group. I think if the group had used the chart included in Chapter 10 of our text, their discussions might have been more useful. Each participant grew professionally through his or her experience with this PLC but I think it would have been more useful if they had more of a focus within the group. 

References

DuFour, R., DuFour, R., Eaker, R., Many, T. (2010). Learning by Doing: A Handbook for

         Professional Learning Communities at Work (2nd ed.). Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

Jacobs, J., & Yendol-Hoppey, D. (2010). Supervisor Transformation within a Professional Learning Community. Teacher Education Quarterly, 37(2), 97-114.