A Model of What Professional Learning Communities Could Be?

Comments

[Andrew B. Watt]

Wow.

OK... let's take a look at this idea for a moment from the perspective of schools.

These tools — Wikis, forums, company e-mail lists, and so on — are in the process of flattening BEST BUY's corporate hierarchy. They can try more ideas, and experiment with more tools, in a shorter period of time. A company like BEST BUY can throw $300 at a program, see if it works, and then scrip it or replicate it as seems appropriate. The corporate hierarchy at the center-top of the company gets to experiment with all sorts of tactics and strategies. They get to see whose ideas are working, and whose aren't. Everyone contributes as a way of building their social capital within the organization.

Schools... don't do things this way. There's a curriculum, imposed from outside or from above, which students and teachers are expected to follow. Schools have disciplinary policies, dress codes, and lists of rules; in most schools these rules are not subject to student review or alteration.

They could be, but they're not.

Schools have limited budgets. They're not about to throw $300 at anything, even if a lot of people think it's a good idea. There's a question of turf wars, too, with people getting upset if my classroom has better stuff than yours (a TV I bought for my classroom was absorbed into the school's general TV-cart population to avoid just such a turf war, for example). At many private schools, the budget is so secret that no one below the level of department chair has any idea what COULD be spent.

Let's think about what a school would look like that was able to use wikis, e-mail forums and other social media tools directly:

1) Schools run democratically by their students and teachers.
2) fewer administrators to oversee the school's process.
3) more collaborative projects
4) (greater) budget transparency
5) (potentially) over-funded sports programs

I think the biggest change, though, would be a greater degree of experiment at the level of the individual school. If each school were acting with a degree of autonomy, just about anything could happen. Kids would be setting their own curricula, based on what they didn't know but wanted to learn.

Potentially. I think, as with many "let's not leave the children back" initiatives, the adults would hamstring the online communities to prevent them from changing the school too much or too fast.

Of course, the sense that many of us have, that online communities can potentially break the way school is done, means that many teachers are deeply, deeply frightened by online technologies. They can't imagine what school would look like any more, just as newspaper owners and journalists can no longer see what news distribution will look like.

[Rob Jacobs]

I think about how this could increase collaboration, sharing ideas, creativity, and innovation within the control of teachers and grade level teams. This is how schools run right now.

I have seen schools throw way more than $300 dollars at things that were spur of the moment, not investigated, and un-proven. It happens all the time. Doesn't make it right, but it happens. I could go into great detail about some of the lamest ideas that were funded.

I agree about experimentation. Fear of technology is site dependent. I know that teachers at Apple Distinguished schools are not afraid of technology. The technology allows for sharing of wisdom across a broader spectrum within schools and districts. Unleashing these ideas is why I think this might be how PLC would operate in the future.

You make excellent points and it is clear you have done some great thinking on the subject.

We got to keep pushing if we know we are right.

[Melvin Hall]

Bring it on. Can it be done? Yes. I have some students that are just (this week) starting with Best Buy. They will bring this experience back to our classroom and share/implement the great things they learn.

[Rob Jacobs]

I agree Melvin. It can be done.