Notes from Boss and Krauss, Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Creating a Professional Learning Community

I am fortunate because I have a PLC at my disposal-- I will be teaming with Amy, Roger, and Mike for my class.  In addition, there are three other teachers in my school teaching the ninth grade CDAT class, so I have them as references.  I won't be teaching alone; my class is designed to be interdisciplinary.  Most importantly, I have the complete support of my administration.  My principal wholly supports PBL and is willing to create frameworks within the school to support PBL.  For example, she rearranged our lunch schedule so that we would all have lunch together to meet and plan.

Boss and Krauss cite the following benefits to professional learning communities:

• decreased teacher isolation
• increased commitment to the vision
• shared responsibility 
• more powerful learning  (p. 33)

however, Boss and Krauss do not talk about some of the challenges that may occur in a PLC.  For many teachers, collaborating requires a huge paradigm shift (as PLB does as well), and teaching as a unit can be uncomfortable.  Although Amy and I get along as friends and I think have the same goals as teachers, I do anticipate challenges.  I think that I value efficiency where she is more flexible with time.  I am much less organized than she is and I think I'm more comfortable with a certain amount of chaos than she is.  We have different styles of classroom management that I think might cause conflict.  In addition, I'm just used to my classroom being my domain and it will be a shift to working with another teacher on a daily basis.  I know that we will work through issues when they come up; I'm just trying to be open about some of the concerns I have and the issues that I anticipate could possibly arise.