Thesis advisor: Irwin Blumer / This study was conducted within a small urban high school that exclusively serves English Language Learners in the northeastern United States. The purpose of the study was to determine teachers' perceptions of learning from each other, student learning and school wide collaboration as a result of the implementation of a Professional Learning Community as a means of improving instruction. The body of related literature provided the theoretical rationale for the data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Major sections of the literature review included: the definition and elements that make up a Professional Learning Community, a review of the theoretical and recent research concerning best practices to support English Language Learners and a review of the research regarding teacher collaboration. Data were gathered from six participants through pre and post interviews, journal entries throughout the year of the study, field notes from announced and announced visits and teacher made documents collected throughout the year of the study. Key findings included participants' perceptions that: they learned both practical and adaptive skills from their colleagues, that peer observation aided teachers in improving their practice, that student learning and student motivation increased, that participants felt that they made stronger relationships with students and that collaboration increased as a result of the implementation of the Professional Learning Community. Current research asserts that schools that implement purposeful and well planned Professional Learning Communities that provide time, space and training may foster teacher ownership that can be used as a powerful vehicle for improving teaching and learning and school wide collaboration. The study findings affirmed this. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Administration.

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on Feb 15, 2010). The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Dissertation advisor: Dr. Barbara N. Martin Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Throughout the post-modern or post-professional age (2000-present), high stakes testing and accountability of public schools forced educational organizations to improve their professional practices to work collaboratively (Little, 2003). As a result, professional learning communities (PLCs) have been found to improve student learning among educational organizations (DuFour, 2007; Hord, 2004). During the past 20 years, a significant amount of research has been conducted, which describes PLCs in the educational settings (Vescio, Ross, & Adams, 2008) Researchers note a lack of empirical research which focuses on teacher and principal perceptions of PLCs (Hord & Sommers, 2008). The central focus of this study is to better understand teacher and principal perceptions of the five dimensions of professional learning communities (PLCs) as identified by Hord through reporting data collected using the Professional Learning Community Assessment- Revised (PLCA-R). This study seeks to report teacher and principal perceptions of PLCs to identify specific practices that are most common in Kentucky schools. Findings suggest teacher and principal perceptions differ regarding the five dimensions of PLCs as described by Hord. Findings also suggest that both teachers and principals agree that all five dimensions exist including: Shared and Supportive Leadership, Shared Values and Vision, Collective Learning and Application, Shared Personal Practice, Supportive Conditions – Relationships, and Supportive Conditions- Structures. However, principal perceptions reflect that PLC practices were more common than teachers reported.

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on Feb 26, 2010). The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Dissertation advisor: Dr. Jennifer L. Hart. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

The purpose of the study was to examine and evaluate the extent to which the supportive conditions (collaboration, teacher efficacy, shared leadership, and trust) were present in the district's current professional learning communities (PLCs) model, and whether teachers perceived the supportive conditions to be related to improving their instructional practices. This mixed-methods study used Pearson correlation coefficient, multiple regression, and focus group interviews to concurrently triangulate data to answer the research questions. The sample from this study was identified from 600 middle school teachers. Survey participants included 139 teachers and each of the four focus group interviews contained 6 teachers for a total of 24 teachers. Of the four supporting conditions analyzed, trust generated the highest mean (M = 3.41). Results from this study indicate that the supportive conditions for PLCs have a strong correlation (0.10) with the studied district's current PLC model and each specific supporting condition elicits a targeted aspect of professional learning that has a significant impact on teacher instructional practices. Recommendations for future studies include the expansion of this study to include elementary and high school participants and to extend this study to a larger scope of interested districts seeking to improve their PLC structures for improved teacher instructional practices. Expanding this research could build upon the current body of literature as it relates to PLCs, professional learning, and student achievement.

Many K-12 schools across the US have embraced the philosophy of professional learning communities (PLC) as a school improvement measure; however significant quantitative research is lacking on the effectiveness of this phenomenon. Survey data were collected from a purposeful sample of elementary school principals or designees from four large school divisions in three metropolitan areas in Virginia. The survey incorporated questions regarding demographic information, including pass rates on the Virginia English and Math SOL tests for 2015-2016, the percentage of students classified as economically disadvantaged, the school's experience as a PLC, as well as Hord's (1996) School Professional Staff as Learning Community Questionnaire (SPSLCQ) instrument, to determine functionality as a PLC. Of the 158 surveys distributed, 74 were returned for a 47% return rate. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, including a hierarchical multiple regression analysis. The results of the hierarchical multiple regression support a predictive relationship between English SOL pass rates and the independent variables of economically disadvantaged students and the degree of functionality of PLCs. The model significantly predicted English SOL pass rates (F(2,71) = 70.86, p < 0.001, adjusted R2 = 0.66). Second, the results of the hierarchical multiple regression support a predictive relationship between Math SOL pass rates and the independent variables of economically disadvantaged students and the degree of functionality of PLCs. The model significantly predicted Math SOL pass rates (F(2,71) = 33.21, p < 0.001, adjusted R2 = 0.47). Lastly, there was no statistically significant relationship between the number of years a school had operated as a PLC and the functionality of the PLC (r = 0.16, p = 0.17). The findings may assist school leaders in determining the benefits of PLCs on student achievement as measured by pass rates on Virginia's English and Math SOL tests. / Ed. D. / Many K–12 schools across the US have embraced the philosophy of professional learning communities (PLC) as a school improvement measure; however significant quantitative research is lacking on the effectiveness of this phenomenon. PLCs are collaborative teams that work toward achieving common student learning goals. Survey data were collected from a sample of elementary school principals or designees from four large school divisions in three metropolitan areas in Virginia. The survey incorporated questions regarding demographic information, including pass rates on the Virginia English and Math SOL tests for 2015-2016, the percentage of students classified as economically disadvantaged, the school’s experience as a PLC, as well as Hord’s (1996) School Professional Staff as Learning Community Questionnaire (SPSLCQ) instrument, to determine functionality as a PLC. The collected data were analyzed using statistics, including a hierarchical multiple regression analysis that predicts how much change the variables have on an outcome. The results of the hierarchical multiple regression support a predictive relationship between English SOL pass rates and the independent variables of economically disadvantaged students and the degree of functionality of PLCs. The analysis showed that 66% of the change in the English SOL pass rates could be attributed to both percentage of economically disadvantaged students and the effectiveness of PLCs with 5% of the change coming from the effectiveness of PLCs. Second, the results of the hierarchical multiple regression support a predictive relationship between Math SOL pass rates and the independent variables of economically disadvantaged students and the degree of functionality of PLCs. The analysis showed that 47% of variation in the Math SOL pass rates could be attributed to both percentage of economically disadvantaged students and the effectiveness of PLCs with 5% of the change coming from the effectiveness of PLCs. Lastly, there was no reliable relationship between the number of years a school had operated as a PLC and the functionality of the PLC. The findings may assist school leaders in determining the benefits of PLCs on student achievement as measured by pass rates on Virginia’s English and Math SOL tests.

Thesis advisor: Elizabeth Twomey / This case study evaluated the impact of implementing a Professional Learning Community (PLC) model on the role of teacher-leaders in a suburban school district. The study seeks to understand how the role of teacher-leader has traditionally been viewed by teachers and administrators and what, if any, changes have occurred in that role since PLCs were first implemented. Finally the study looks for signs that the initiative may be sustainable over the long-term by examining the changes that the PLC initiative had on the attitudes of both principals and teacher-leaders. This qualitative case study was conducted by a senior administrator in the school district, acting as participant-observer. Data collection instruments included pre- and post-study interviews, document review, researcher-observation of relevant events and the results of several surveys conducted by others during the implementation of the initiative. The study concludes that the role of teacher-leaders changed during the course of the PLC implementation with teacher-leaders becoming more active in school improvement efforts. The study also found that Principals were more willing to distribute leadership to teachers and teacher-leaders after the Professional Learning Community initiative and teachers and teacher-leaders became more committed to working on school improvement efforts as well. Using current research into the topic of sustainable change, the study suggests that these three findings are indicators the Professional Learning Communities may represent a sustainable concept to drive educational improvement efforts over the long-term. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Administration and Higher Education.

Next Generation Science Standards and the Framework for K-12 Science Education encourage teachers to not only change the content of their teaching, but also the way that they deliver it. In order to promote these modern teaching practices, professional development (PD) experiences for teachers need to develop new approaches that enhance the transfer of the PD context into the teachers’ classroom practice. In this research study, professional learning communities (PLCs), defined as collaborative groups of teachers who make their practice visible within their professional learning, are analyzed in a formally instituted series of teacher professional education offerings. Moreover, the setting included a professional learning community composed of teacher-facilitators who were actively engaged as facilitators of other PLCs. The goal of this design experiment was to both explore PLCs as PD models within science education as well as to begin to develop tools for PD that allow teachers to work from within the context of their own classroom. The sources of evidence used in this study included teacher and student produced artifacts and interviews, and written transcripts of the sessions were also examined. All data were primarily explored using methodology taken from grounded theory. This approach facilitated identification of emergent themes that particularly addressed some of the ways that researchers and teacher leaders can work together in the future to make certain that PD and the teachers’ classroom practices are more coherently connected. The following themes were identified: refining the focus of professional learning communities to allow for investigations of student learning in the classroom, especially with an eye towards supporting transparency of practice through artifacts, and the usefulness of cycles of inquiry as a construct for planning professional learning communities. Furthermore, it became clear that there is a need for explicit norms to frame the classroom around what constitutes acceptable explanations and justifications for productive classroom experiences. Among other findings, it is recommended that borrowing from and adapting the work of scholars in sociomathematical norms around the use of explanations can be the basis for a possible framework for improving future studies of teacher professional practice.

自上世纪80年代以来，全球范围内掀起了一系列的教育改革浪潮。学校变革能力的不足，成为各国教育改革面临的最大挑战。专业学习社群的出现，为整体提升学校改革能力带来了希望。而专业学习社群概念产生于西方，已有关于专业学习社群的研究也大多基于西方的教育情境，对于具有丰富教师合作实践的中国学校的研究很少。 / 本研究采用混合研究取向，探讨课程改革背景下中国大陆上海学校教师专业学习社群的特点及对教师发展的影响。首先对10所学校的教师进行个案研究，初步探索专业学习社群的特点与影响。在此基础上提出适用于上海情境的专业学习社群及其影响的概念框架，并据此形成专业学习社群特点及效果问卷，对31所学校进行调查，以验证和修订概念框架，并考察专业学习社群对教师发展的影响。研究进一步选取4所有代表性的学校进行深入的个案研究，探究专业学习社群影响教师发展的过程，并分析影响专业学习社群效果及发展水平的因素。问卷调查、深度访谈、非参与式观察和文件收集是获取资料的主要手段。 / 研究发现上海学校教师专业学习社群在个体层面表现出集体探究与分享、共享目标与责任两个特点，在组织层面表现出支持性领导、文化支持、组织结构、文化障碍、制度障碍五个特点，从而揭示出上海学校专业学习社群的独特特点。上海学校专业学习社群在整体上具有良好的发展水平，对教师发展产生了显著的促进作用，包括增强教师的教学效能，提高其对学生学习的承诺水平，并提升工作满意度。发展水平高和发展水平低的专业学习社群对教师发展的影响存在一定的差异，前者更能促进全体教师的发展与变革，并对教学与学生学习产生积极影响。这是因为高发展水平的专业学习社群与教师的日常教学实践紧密相关，并强调平等对话和民主交流，为教师提供了探究性的学习环境。 / 本研究通过上海学校教师专业学习社群实践回应了专业学习社群的情境依赖性，揭示出专业学习社群与教育改革之间的关系，并丰富了专业学习社群对教师发展影响过程与机制的研究。研究还阐述了不同于合作文化和硬造合作的系统、协调的专业学习社群发展取向，从而为理解专业学习社群提供了新的理论视角。基于研究所见，为进一步促进上海学校教师专业学习社群的发展，不仅要加强学校层面在领导、文化和结构上的支持，也要强化地区教育部门在政策制度、领导和资源上对专业学习社群的支持。 / Since the 1980s, a wave of educational reform has shown up on a global scale. One of the biggest challenges faced by various countries is the lack of schools’ reform capacity. The concept of professional learning community (PLC) seems promising for the improvement of schools’ comprehensive change capacity. While the idea of PLC originates in the western world and the majority of existing research has been based on western contexts, the concept and practice of PLCs in Chinese schools where there are rich experiences in terms of teacher collaboration have largely been ignored. / The present study is located within the context of curriculum reform in Mainland China. Adopting a mixed-method approach, this study examines the characteristics of teachers’ PLCs in schools in Shanghai and their impacts on teacher development. First, semi-structural interviews with teachers in ten schools were conducted to preliminarily explore the characteristics and influences of PLCs in Shanghai schools. Based on this, a conceptualization of PLC was initiated, and a questionnaire was developed accordingly. The author conducted a questionnaire survey of teachers in thirty-one schools to verify and modify the conceptualization of PLC and examine its impact on teacher development. After that, four representative schools were selected and in-depth case studies were implemented, to further investigate how PLCs impacted teacher development and what the key factors were in this process. Questionnaire survey, in-depth interview, non-participatory observation, and document collection were the main methods to collect data. / Results show that teachers’ PLCs in Shanghai schools could be conceptualized in individual level in terms of collective inquiry and sharing and shared goals and responsibility, and organizational level in terms of supportive leadership, cultural support, organizational structures, cultural barriers and institutional barriers, which indicates the unique characteristics of PLCs in Shanghai schools. Teachers’ PLCs in the schools in Shanghai performed well in general, and significantly improved teacher development, including their teaching effectiveness, commitment to student leaning, and job satisfaction. There were differences between high-level PLCs and low-level PLCs in terms of their influences on teacher development, i.e. the former had a greater role in promoting the whole teachers’ development and reform, and also their teaching practices and student learning. This is because high-level PLCs focused on teachers’ teaching practices and emphasized equal dialogue and democratic exchanges, which provided favorable environment for teachers’ inquiry and learning. / This study, by presenting the practices of PLCs in the schools in Shanghai, responded to the context specificity of PLCs, disclosed the relationship between PLCs and education reform, and enriched existing research on the influence process and mechanism of PLCs on teacher development. The study also identified a systematic and coordinated approach to develop PLCs, which was different from collaborative culture and contrived collegiaty and thus provided a new theoretical perspective for us to understand the concept of PLC. To further promote the practices of PLCs in the schools in Shanghai, support at both the school level such as leadership, culture and structure, and the district level such as policy, leadership and resources need to be strengthened. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / 張佳. / Parallel title from added title page. / Thesis (Ph.D.) Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2015. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 305-339). / Abstracts also in English. / Zhang Jia.

Australian policy contexts are promoting school transformation through teacher learning and the development of schools as professional learning communities. However, Australian practitioners have very limited contextualised research to guide their efforts in response to these policies. The researcher’s involvement in a school revitalisation process provided the impetus for this research study that investigates the practitioner experience of a developing professional learning community at RI College (pseudonym for a large independent girls’ school in Brisbane). This study endeavours to gain a more informed and sophisticated understanding of developing a professional learning community with the intention of ‘living’ this vision of RI College as a professional learning community. Praxis-oriented research questions focus on the practitioner conceptualisation of their school as a developing professional community and their experience of supporting/hindering strategies and structures. The study gives voice to this practitioner experience through the emerging participatory/co-operative research paradigm, an epistemology of participative inquiry, a research methodology of co-operative inquiry and mixed methods data collection strategies. Incorporating ten practitioner inquiries over two years, recursive cycles of action/reflection engaged practitioners as co-researchers in the collaborative reflective processes of a professional learning community while generating knowledge about the conceptualisation and supporting/hindering influences on its development. The outcomes of these first-person and second-person inquiries, together with a researcher devised online survey of teachers, were both informative and transformative in nature and led to the development of the researcher’s theoretical perspectives in response to the study’s research questions. As outcomes of co-operative inquiry, these theoretical perspectives inform the researcher’s future actions and offer insights into existing propositional knowledge in the field. Engagement in this practitioner inquiry research has had significant transformative outcomes for the co-researchers and has demonstrated the power of collaborative inquiry in promoting collective and individual professional learning and personal growth.