I recently revisited the text Learning by Design by Cassandra Erkens and Eric Twadell. The authors share a model having seven leadership practices for highly effective Professional Learning Communities leaders. Core to these practices are:
- creating and sustaining collaborative relationships
- aligning systems
- facilitating shared responsibility.
Furthermore the model has the element of building coherence and clarity as the basis or foundation. Surrounding the core is:
- modeling practices and expectations
- reflection on leadership effectiveness of self and others.
The practices are capped off with developing leadership capacity in self and others. While the leadership practices are interdependent, I was reviewing the text to further my understanding of their model in the context of working with schools looking for continuous growth in developing a culture of Professional Learning Communities.
The following is a simple tool to use with teams looking at furthering their understanding of how the elements all interplay.
Each chapter of the text details the meaning and importance of each element. This organizer is a way to capture key points for each setting and to work towards continuous improvement!
Another way to further explore the concepts from this text is to consider selected questions from the accompanying Study guide from Solution Tree.
If you use or adapt this tool, I would greatly like to hear how your team experience was and how you are moving towards continuous improvement.
Regards-
Lynn Radicello
OCM BOCES Instructional Support 