26 | ICS ADDIS | 2019-21
PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES
ICS began the transformation to incorporate professional learning communities and to become a PLC school back in 2017 . PLCs are as much of philosophy and mindset as it is an actual framework and structure . It is a continuous growth opportunity . In 2020 , we are pleased to announce that we have been named a Professional Learning Community exemplar school . We are very proud of this designation and will continue to work hard to keep the exemplar title .
PLCs center around teacher development , based on the idea that the better the teacher the better the learning experience for students . PLCs are collaborative teams of teachers , coming together , sharing , learning together , and are having focused conversations and clarity on student learning targets and concepts . PLCs , bring clarity , consistency , and coherence to the educational experience .
The main ideas that are the foundation for PLCs are
1 . Shifting from a teaching mindset to a learning mindset ensuring students learn
2 . Collaboration , collaboration , collaboration , collaboration-learning from , work with , growing together
3 . The PLC ’ s effectiveness is measured on student results-student results are better when student learning is better
4 . Collective responsibility and accountability for student learning-my students become our students , their success becomes our success
FOUR CRITICAL QUESTIONS
Professional Learning Communities focus on learning by asking 4 critical questions . These questions may seem simple , but they have proven to have a significant impact on student learning when asked and answered regularly by a collaborative PLC team .
Question 1 : What do we want our students to learn , understand , and be able to do ? Question 2 : How will we know when our students have learned it ? Question 3 : How will we respond when there is evidence that our students are not learning ? Question 4 : How will we respond when they already know it ?