PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITY

Professional Learning Community



Professional Learning Community

LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction

Many educators argue that professional learning communities offer an important and distinct form of professional development because they are situated between the educational policies of school districts and the realities of schools and practicing teachers. From this perspective, professional learning communities can translate knowledge from the district into an understanding of a particular school's day-to-day practice (McLaughlin & Talbert, 2006). Central to this concept, though, is the ongoing interplay between the notion of community and its demand for a shared perspective, and the community's focus on professional growth and the inherent need to consider individual needs (Little, 2002). Teachers, armed with only a vague understanding of a community's features of “shared beliefs”, “interdependence”, and “meaningful relationships” (Westheimer, 2008), soon find the critical nature of the communal learning experience to be extremely challenging and surprisingly ambiguous work. Uncomfortable with the existence of competing tension, the community's learning experience can often be reduced to “having everyone just try to get along” (Westheimer, 2008). For this reason, we know little about how effective professional learning communities develop, how they are sustained, and how teachers learn to work collaboratively throughout the inquiry process (McLaughlin & Talbert, 2006; Wilson & Berne, 2008).

What is clear, however, is that the notion of inquiry, which is at the heart of a learning community, is a substantial source of interpersonal tension. A group's “inquiry stance” complicates members' relationships because as they initiate group learning, negotiated agendas, shared authority, and compromised actions become paramount (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2008). Although Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder (2002) argue that tension is inherent in group work, little educational research explores the difficulties that teachers experience in establishing and sustaining productive learning communities. In this respect, McLaughlin and Talbert (2006, p. 11) note: “Lack of trust, time, and talent are the usual reasons”; however, Hargreaves (2001) and de Lima (2001) suggest that teachers often do not understand the nature of the interdependence required in effective learning communities. Moreover, there is little research that examines teacher interactions in professional learning communities as they strive to contribute to educational reform (Little, 2002). This, then, raises the question: What collaborative dynamics are involved in developing and sustaining a professional learning community?

The nature of collaboration

To begin, teachers need to appreciate the demands inherent in the collaborative process. Although individuals come with their own expectations of group work, they need to define each others' actions so that they “fit together” to create a shared practice. Out of necessity or convenience, individuals coordinate their activities to achieve common goals that, in time, guide future shared actions (Weick, 2005). The group's “shared history and culture” (Selznick, 2005) eventually provide the stability and predictability that are crucial for meaningful collaborative work to occur (Weick, 2005). There is, however, much more required to transform a group of individuals into a learning community.

Aligning acts to develop a group's practice requires the “mutual engagement” of members (Wenger, 2008). In fact, members' engagement in the learning process provides them with ...