FAQs

The Philadelphia Learning Collaborative (PLC) works to uncover common strengths and challenges among member schools. We believe that there is real power in having educators and administrators come together to work on solving sticky challenges or amplify successful innovations. A PLC Community of Practice (CoP) is an intentional and deep professional development opportunity where we invest in educators and provide resources and facilitation support for folks to ‘kick the tires’ on curricula or other strategies that support the work of each school.

Our teachers are incredibly talented, skilled professionals capable of solving many school challenges when we offer structured time, space, compensation, and resources.  Too often teachers are asked to teach curriculum or take on tasks that administrators or funders have developed without their input. PLC is demonstrating the powerful changes that happen in schools when we value teachers’ expertise and experience and ask them for input and revision. 

This model prioritizes investment in teachers’ sense of self-efficacy, and community and relationship building because these elements build resilience and energize teachers to help them flourish in today’s schools.  We focus on cultivating talent and building educator leadership with our model so school staff are able to grow skills and are well positioned to act as master mentor staff in their buildings and beyond.

PLC CoPs can be facilitated at any level of our schools. In our model it is important to include school-based staff from a variety of member schools and to engage teams of educators/counselors/administrators from each building.

Educators meet frequently in person and virtually. Sometimes, they meet with small groups of teachers from their school buildings and other times, they meet with teachers from a network of schools. CoP participants have clear deliverables where they test out an initiative or curriculum in their schools and have the opportunity to make or recommend adjustments that strengthen the initiative in each context.  Critically, all CoP members are paid stipends for the additional time they invest in the project. PLC knows it is important to treat educators as professionals and to honor their time and contributions that make education stronger across our city. 

Importantly, PLC intentionally incorporates leadership development into the experience. Teachers have the opportunity to shape the CoP by taking on tasks such as facilitating professional development, writing curriculum, building and managing an online community that allows them to communicate asynchronously, planning a culminating student event showcasing student progress, and more.

Educators describe being re-energized and feeling supported, so much so that they expanded the implementation of the tool being explored from a few classrooms to schoolwide. In this season of #teacherburnout and #teachershortage we need to invest in deep professional development like our CoP to help sustain our teachers. Research shows that by increasing an educator’s self-efficacy, enhancing resilience, and deepening relationships we can decrease burnout. Our CoP model helps educators do all three of these things.