Professional Learning Communities within Elementary Schools and the Importance of Principal and Teacher Alignment

By

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

My thanks go out to all who have helped me complete this study and with whom this project may have not been possible. In particular, my gratitude goes out to friends, facilitator and family for extensive and helpful comments on early drafts. I am also deeply indebted to the authors who have shared my interest and preceded me. Their works provided me with a host of information to learn from and build upon, also served as examples to emulate.

DECLARATION

I, [names and surname here], declare that the contents of this dissertation/thesis represent my own unaided work, and that the dissertation/thesis has not previously been submitted for academic examination towards any qualification. Furthermore, it represents my own opinions and not necessarily those of the University.

Signed __________________ Date _________________

ABSTRACT

In the present-day educational system, the term professional learning communities (PLCs) became a popular concept for all schools attempting to have teachers collaborate together and focus more on student learning. The effective PLCs need to have collaboration of the teachers and administrators point of view with respect to the success factors. There is difference in the perspective of the two as they both play different roles in the elementary schools that make them to adopt different approaches for making the PLCs successful. Lack of support, time, and resources, as well as conflicts that arise from different personality traits can all be barriers to building effective PLCs and aligning teachers and principals. The vision is considered to be an important factor that creates the different perspective of the teachers and the administrators in the successful implementation of the PLC. Other than this, the different levels of collective efforts on the teachers and administrators side are also one of the problems that prevent them from developing the elementary schools as effective PLCs. The study is mainly based on the case study approach described in the book of Robert Yin and adopts different cases of schools for studying the PLCs. The study on the effective building of PLCs will be carried out by using the qualitative methodology that is based on the interviews with the principals and teachers. These interviews will contain open ended questions that asks about different concepts of the PLCs and the factors that can impact the perception of teachers and principals in the elementary schools. Teachers and principals from different elementary schools of the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools of the United States.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTii

DECLARATIONiii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION6

Background of the Study7

Problem Statement10

Purpose of the Study11

Theoretical Framework13

Research Questions14

Nature of the Study16

Significance of the Study16

Definition of Terms18

Summary21

REFERENCES22

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

In the present-day educational system, the term professional learning communities (PLCs) became a popular concept for all schools attempting to have teachers collaborate together and focus more on student learning (Eaker & Keating, 2008; Hord, 2009). PLCs were based on the business sector idea that people within organizations are capable of learning by collaborating and reflecting on their practices. The idea had been reorganized for the realm ...