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

By

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. Effective PLCs need to have collaboration of both teachers' and administrators' points of view with respect to success factors. There is a difference in the perspective of the two as they both play different roles in elementary school that allows 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 perspectives of teachers and administrators in the successful implementation of the PLC. Other than this, the different levels of collective efforts on the part of teachers and administrators are also one of the problems that prevent them from developing elementary schools into effective PLCs. The study is mainly based on the case study approach and adopts different cases of schools for studying PLCs. The study on the effective building of PLCs will be carried out by using the qualitative methodology that is based on interviews with the principals and teachers to determine if an alignment between principals and teachers is necessary to build a PLC that increases student achievement. These interviews will contain open ended questions that allow participants to continue a train of thought that may be just outside the realm of the research questions. Teachers and principals from different elementary schools of the Metropolitan Nashville, Tennessee district will be interviewed.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACTii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION1

Background of the Study2

Problem Statement5

Purpose of the Study6

Research Questions8

Nature of the Study10

Significance of the Study10

Definition of Terms12

Summary14

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW16

Defining PLCs16

Concept of Professional Learning Community18

Changes in the Role of Principal19

Benefits of Professional Learning Community21

Essential Characteristics of Professional Learning Community21

Building and Sustaining Professional Learning Community23

History Leading to Professional Learning Communities24

PLCs as Part of Teaching Movement25

Mission and Vision26

Past Studies on Professional Learning Communities27

Collaboration28

Collaboration for Professional Learning Communities29

Obstacles in Collaboration30

Collaborative Teams for PLCs31

Learning and Professional Teaching and Learning Cycle31

Professional Development32

Improving Quality of Teaching32

School Leadership33

The Principal34

Critiques34

The Principal as School Leader35

Leadership in Professional Learning Communities36

Instructional Leadership37

Principal Teacher Collaboration38

Sustaining Leadership Capacity40

Summary41

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY43

Research Method43

Research Methods and Design44

Case Study Analysis44

Participants45

Materials/Instruments46

Data Collection, Processing, and Analysis47

Methodological Assumptions48

Limitations49

Delimitations50

Ethical Assurances51

Summary52

REFERENCES53

APPENDIX58

Interview Questionnaire58

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

The current study is based on the Professional Learning Communities within elementary schools and the importance of Principal and Teacher alignment for the student's achievement. The development of the Professional Learning Community is an important task that has been given due attention by the teachers and principals. The alignment of teacher's and principal's perspective is an important factor for the student's achievement in the elementary schools. The 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 ...