Building Capacity

Building Capacity. Creating Communities.

A variety of studies have shown that site-based professional learning communities (PLCs) are a highly effective strategy for school improvement. Strong instructional leadership is central to building successful professional learning communities. Highly effective instructional teams are tightly focused on continuous improvement, meet to review data, collaborate on lesson plans and assessments, guide student interventions and plan for outcomes. These learning communities build capacity in each other and in the school to increase achievement. In time, these site-based teams also identify and plan for their own professional development as needed to meet their established goals.

Building the capacity of school leaders to create highly effective, ongoing PLCs that are oriented to continuous improvement is a core deliverable in many Teachscape engagements. Helping districts to build the capacity of instructional leaders is critical to the Teachscape model, because it is central to helping schools reach increasing levels of student achievement.

Capacity building is also cost-effective for school districts. Once a principal becomes capable of facilitating a strong PLC around deficits in math, for example, it's relatively easy to transfer those skills to tackle shortages in literacy or to identify new goals in working with English language learners. Over time, this transition to job-embedded professional development saves the district professional development dollars, decreases dependence on third-party consultants, boosts teacher morale, and lengthens the tenure of both administrators and teachers.

As PLCs become focused on improving student outcomes, they need access to common professional experiences to help them understand the work. They also need a common vocabulary to enable them to share research and best practices. Teachscape's online resources bring the latest research to the professional learning communities while creating a shared vision for practice.