How To Structure A Professional Learning Community

Professional learning communities (PLCs) enhance instruction, drive a culture of collaboration, promote pupil learning, and drive innovation among professionals.

They let educators to piece of work closely with peers to develop new lesson plans, ameliorate learning experience for their students, and pattern more impactful pedagogy.

Just PLCs aren't just for teachers. We'll share how professionals across many industries, such equally nursing, veterinarians, and entrepreneurial moms participate in professional learning communities. You'll learn:

What a PLC is
How they apply to any profession
Why people join them
Different forms that PLCs can take
How professional learning communities work
Examples of professional person learning communities that will inspire y'all
How to create and sustain an effective learning customs
Platforms you can use to create a PLC

What is a professional learning community?

In pedagogy

A professional person learning community is a group of teachers who work together at the aforementioned schoolhouse, unremarkably instruction the same course, and come together to strategize on ways to improve student learning in specific areas.

PLCs accept regular, ongoing discussions, gather inquiries centered around specific issues they want to explore related to student learning, collect data based on those inquiries, and afterward share findings with the grouping.

Some mutual inquiries include:

What do we desire students to larn?
How will we know they've learned it?

Depending on the school, PLCs are mostly formal, and their existence may be mandated by the school'southward administration. PLC meetings occur regularly during the school yr, normally during school hours and typically when students are at lunch or in exploratory classes, such as music, art, or concrete education.

PLCs are of import considering they provide an opportunity for teachers to explore questions related to student learning, allowing them to share findings and ideas with 1 some other and receive immediate feedback during back-and-forth discussions.

Outside of education

The same principles that drive social learning for teachers tin can be practical to merely about whatsoever profession. While teachers and other didactics professionals were the showtime to money the term professional person learning community, these learning communities exist and thrive in other fields as well.

Learning communities can exist organically formed and managed, or they can be crea t ed by an proficient to add together value to their online grade or membership site.

Many online form creators didn't starting time out with eLearning– they were pulled into online course creation by their community members.

Related: 7 Steps to Edifice An Online Community

Why do people join learning communities?

Learning communities are present in many industries and fields exterior of education, and professionals and students cull to join them for many reasons, including:

To develop new skills in their profession
To back up each other through academic programs, such as Latrina Walden'due south study group for nurses
To master a hobby, such as woodworking, scrapbooking, writing, or art

Types of learning communities

A learning customs can generally exist categorized into one of iii master types:

Professional person Learning Community (PLC) : Typically composed of teachers who teach the same grade or subject, PLCs generally prefer a school-wide focus on improving student learning through a variety of methods that include discussion with other members of the PLC, data collection, and inquiry.
Community of Practice (CoP) : Communities of Practise can exist constitute in education but are also common in government and business environments. CoPs refer to a group of people who share a common interest or prepare of problems and come together to see individual and group goals. Members support and encourage each other as anybody works to meet the same objectives.
Professional Learning Network (PLN) : Broader in telescopic than the other learning community types, PLNs can include all the individuals one person is able to connect with online, which means members tin can alive all around the world. In full general, a PLN is a network of both people and resource that support ongoing learning. They're likewise not exclusive to teaching and exist in a variety of industries and organizations.

So while in that location are a few specific types of learning communities, for the purposes of this article, we'll focus on professional learning communities (PLCs) and explore their characteristics and core practices, likewise equally some tips on how to create and sustain an effective professional learning customs.

Agreement how learning communities work

The effectiveness of professional learning communities is partially based on the fundamentals of social learning theory , a psychological concept that suggests new behaviors can be acquired past observing and imitating others — people learning from other people, for improve or worse. And in the context of schools and educators, this is what professional person learning communities offer — a chance for professionals to learn from 1 another.

Characteristics of learning communities

Learning communities, no matter what type they are, all share mutual characteristics around admission, relationships, vision, and role.

For learning communities to succeed, they need:

Proper levels of access: Learning communities must be able to encounter in person or online on a regular footing. Both quality and quantity of time are important.
Potent relationships: Members should accept a stiff sense of belonging to the group and trust in 1 some other.
Shared vision: Learning communities should share a similar vision in terms of outcomes and purpose.
Organized structures in place: For instance, in a PLC for teachers, the teachers in the grouping should work in the same grade or piece of work with the same groups of students. And in a PLC in other industries, such as nursing or veterinary medicine, participants in the community should work in the aforementioned specialty and piece of work on similar levels professionally.

Core practices in learning communities

According to research , in gild for learning communities to exist successful and effective, they must include these critical elements:

Customs
Diverseness
Integration
Active learning
Reflection and assessment

Professional learning community examples that will inspire you

Learning communities don't just be in education — they tin be formed in just near any industry, including medicine, business, and government. Hither are a few examples of communities built by the grade creators from Thinkific.

For veterinarians: The Veterinary Cytology Coffeehouse

Created past Kate Baker, DVM, MS, DACVP, the Veterinary Cytology Coffeehouse is a individual, closed Facebook group for all types of veterinarian professionals, including vets, students, vet nurses, and vet techs, who want to learn more than about animal cytology and hematology.

Topics within the grouping are varied and range from interesting stories to common findings inside the field and rare, out-of-the-ordinary examples.

In its first twelvemonth, the group grew to 35,000 members without any advertising. Eventually, grouping members began asking for courses and opportunities to swoop into some of these topics in depth. And that'southward when Kate started creating courses on Thinkific that touch on many of these aforementioned veterinarian topics.

For nurse practitioners: Help with exam prep

Latrina Walden, MHA, MSN, FNP-C, FNP-BC, of Latrina Walden Examination Solutions , who has too been a professor for over a decade in health intendance, created a Nurse Practitioner study group on Facebook to help immature professionals enrolled in nurse practitioner programs laissez passer their exams.

The group includes written report guides, tips from other members, and live clinical reviews a few times a month. After receiving numerous requests for additional grade materials during some of her live clinical Q&A sessions, Latrina began selling courses through Thinkific.

For entrepreneurial moms: Boss Mom

For mothers who want to raise their kids while however having a meaningful career, Boss Mom provides a wealth of resources and guidance to empower moms to achieve these goals simultaneously.

These are some of the reasons Dana Malstaff created Boss Mom, a business-building community for mom entrepreneurs.

For online course creators: Thinkific community

Thinkific's community on Facebook is meant to serve as a discussion and resource-sharing platform for course creators. Members can share wins, talk over ideas and strategies and distribute data to assist other course creators build successful businesses.

For teachers: Facebook teaching community

Several Facebook groups, including this Teacher'due south Group , are formed so that teachers can get together and discuss new curriculum and lesson ideas, share strategies and how to implement them with individual students, and allow others know almost training and professional development opportunities.

For fitness and health instructors: JJ Virgin's community

JJ Virgin, a Certified Diet Specialist, and Certified Wellness and Fitness Instructor, realized pretty early on in edifice her brand that she could achieve improve results when she worked with people on their health and fitness goals inside a group instead of individually.

"They become to interact with other people who are having challenges just like them and having successes just like them, and they become really tight in that group," JJ explained recently in a workshop hosted by Thinkific.

Ane matter JJ tries to exercise in her programs to keep her community engaged, is breaking up content into manageable bite-sized chunks. This can be an constructive strategy for learning communities because it allows participants to take in what they can when they tin can and not experience overwhelmed by receiving besides much information at once.

Virgin sums up her customs feel by proverb: "The things that I've done in the consumer world, edifice a community, that doesn't thing if it's consumer or professional person, we all need communities now more than ever. Connection is more important now more than always. Y'all wanna build brand loyalty, build a bad-donkey customs."

How to create and sustain effective professional learning communities

Professional learning communities can't thrive on their ain; they need assist from experienced people familiar with these types of groups. Hither are some tips from Thinkific for creating and sustaining professional learning communities.

1. Sympathise your goals

Without a clearly divers purpose, professional learning communities can't thrive. Learning communities are a means to reach several end goals, and these may differ depending on the purpose behind the learning community and industry. In instruction, for instance, the goals of a learning customs might be:

Improving pupil memory
Promoting pupil engagement
Achieving consistency beyond didactics methods among teachers
Promoting student learning
Building a customs among educators and other working professionals

2. Conspicuously position your community and marshal the goals of members

The purpose of the learning community should be clearly defined and goals outlined for each of its members. Consistency is fundamental.

3. Provide construction and guidance: Group rules and a shared set of norms

In order for the learning community to achieve its outlined goals, structure and guidance are important to proceed members on track and focused on objectives.

4. Create a culture of collaboration and empowerment

Everyone in the learning community should exist encouraged to share their viewpoints and experiences so other members can chronicle to each other and share strategies.

5. Create a civilisation of growth

A PLC team should have a mindset of wanting to constantly improve and become more effective.

6. Make sure information technology's reflective

Reflection is an of import function of any learning process, and it'southward particularly vital for professionals in a learning community. To help foster this, a fellow member of the team can select a component to exist examined, whether it's a practice or specific problem, and then prepare the stage for group reflection that's successful.

7. Focus on results for members

Ensuring a learning community is learner-centered and focused on students or other people can help maximize ROI.

What's the all-time platform to build an online learning community?

Facebook Groups

This is i option for edifice an online learning community. Information technology allows leaders of the group to restrict membership, then it can be open or private, and the interface provides an piece of cake-to-use place for group interaction and sharing useful information and resource.

One downside is that Facebook can also be distracting since information technology's inherently a social network. Information can easily go lost in streams of notifications, and it'southward less of a professional platform and more of a social platform.

LinkedIn Groups

Since LinkedIn is more concern-oriented, it does provide a more professional platform for creating online learning communities among working professionals.

However, the main purpose of LinkedIn is to network and find employment, and then it may be challenging to start an online learning community, although LinkedIn does offer a Groups feature.

Once again, since LinkedIn is primarily more of a social and chore networking site, it's easy to get distracted by all the other page elements.

Thinkific

On Thinkific, information technology'southward easy to create and sell online courses, memberships, and access to a private community – all nether your ain brand, and gratis from the distraction of social networks.

A Thinkific Community is a place, outside of your course content, where you can foster conversations with your students. Each Community has a dedicated folio (on your Thinkific site) where students and instructors can interact through written posts and comments. Communities are like to Facebook Groups, with access granted at either a site level, or associated with individual courses or bundles.

The benefits of creating a community on Thinkific

Create your own branded Community: Just similar everything you build with Thinkific, your brand is the star, with no outside distractions. Choose colors and fundamental imagery, plus host your Communities on your own custom domain, without the noise and distractions of social platforms.
Assign Community memberships: Assign Customs admission by a specific course, bundle or memberships, or create a site-broad Community to allow any of your students access!
Fully integrated with your Thinkific site: Community members are automatically added (or removed) based on enrollments in your Thinkific content — no more manually adding and removing people.
Congenital on a platform yous can trust: Thinkific is trusted by over 50,000 course creators, and unlike social media platforms, y'all command all the content that appears in your Community. No ads, no tracking, no spam.

Related: Thinkific'due south Support Commodity For Communities

Closing thoughts

Professional learning communities are vital to the success of educational programs. In PLCs, teachers learn from one another and ensure their students are learning important concepts.

Want to join a professional learning customs created just for you? Join Thinkific's customs for course creators, or start creating your own customs with our Pro plan today!

Source: https://www.thinkific.com/blog/professional-learning-community/

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