Collaboration and Professional Learning Communities (PLCs)

There has been some lively debate recently about collaboration and PLCs, and about who supports what in the literature. There is a clear split between DuFour and those who endorse his approach (including Michael Fullan) and those who challenge it. Andy Hargreaves has vigorously critiqued DuFour’s approaches to PLCs, and consistently argued for forms of collaboration which are teacher-friendly and not contrived or coerced.

Below is an extract from a recent BCTF Research Report on the issue of PLCs that reviews much of the recent literature on the issue. The complete report, “Recent literature on Professional Learning Communities: Informing options for Canadian teacher unions?”, can be accessed on the BCTF web site at http://www.bctf.ca/uploadedFiles/Publications/Research_reports/2007ei02.pdf.

Research report extract

One of the most interesting and useful analyses of PLCs in Stoll & Louis’ (2007) book is provided by Andy Hargreaves, in his paper “Sustainable Professional Learning Communities.” He argues that PLCs are at a crossroads, with their initial near-universal appeal being replaced by concerns as teachers become increasingly coerced into so-called communities with narrow areas of focus, often literacy and math:

“In recent years, as the idea and implementation of PLCs has spread, the result (as is common in many cases where innovations are scaled up) is that their original meaning is becoming diminished and their richness is being lost. The increasingly diluted and distorted character of professional communities is also being exacerbated by ideological and legislative emphases on only literacy and mathematics as the focus of improvement, and on tested achievement as the only way to measure it.” (p183)

Hargreaves’ argument is that PLCs can be powerful and productive, but that teachers cannot be coerced into structures and processes that are inappropriate to their needs. He argues for PLCs that are less slick and stilted (p184), and offers seven principles (depth, breadth, endurance, justice, diversity, resourcefulness, conservation) for developing more sustainable learning communities. He argues that PLCs with such principles are courageous and committed about putting learning before achievement, before testing, not vice versa (p186). He states that the backbone of a successful PLC is trust, and references Bryk & Schneider’s (2004) Chicago study, which found that high-trust schools produced higher levels of student achievement that low-trust schools. Standing at the crossroads that he defines, Hargreaves argues for a renewal of PLCs’ core principles in order to redirect them in ways that renew teachers’ energy by invigorating their collective learning, instead of depleting it by using PLCs as tools to implement mandates from elsewhere (p192). The seven principles in this chapter are explored in greater detail in Hargreaves & Fink’s (2006) book. Sustainable Leadership.

Sources:
Hargreaves, A. (2007). “Sustainable professional learning communities.” In Stoll, L., & Louis, K., eds. (2007). Professional Learning Communities: Divergence, depth and dilemmas. Maidenhead, UK. McGraw-Hill–Open University Press.

Hargreaves, A., & Fink, D. (2006). Sustainable leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Submitted by Charlie Naylor, cnaylor@bctf.ca
April 24, 2008

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