Professional Learning Communities

Forming professional learning communities (PLCs) is easy. Creating effective, sustainable PLCs is not easy. In fact, researchers warn that many, if not most, never become effective and/or sustainable. Why? Because collaboration involves skills that aren’t inborn or easy to master. Those skills are best developed through practice—facilitated, deliberate practice that builds trust and expertise with establishing goals, communicating, choosing and working with data, sharing student work, or observing classrooms. This investment leads to communities of peers who can effectively coach each other and improve student learning.

Whether you’re launching PLCs for the first time or looking for ways to help yours become more effective, consider a customized, coaching approach. Services are tailored to meet each learning community’s needs, but frequently include:

Leadership team strengths deployment
Building a common language for teaching and learning
Deep collaboration protocol development
Japanese lesson study

“Jane Kise, Ed.D. has an amazing ability to inspire educators to learn more about working with others by learning about oneself. Jane recently did some training with our district TOSAs and they reference her work and the insights she shared almost daily. Instructional leadership is complex, but Jane’s resources make it easier. I feel privileged to know Jane and to have had more than one opportunity to learn from her. I highly recommend you contact Jane Kise and read her works.”

Kari Ross, Director of Teaching and Learning

Pricing

As with many skills-based services, the most straight-forward way to talk about price is with that hated phrase, “it depends.”
For professional learning communities, it depends on the extent to which I tailor consulting or professional development, the number of teachers or PLC teams involved, and the cost of books, assessment tools or other resources.

The bottom line, though, is meeting your needs. Let’s talk to discern the kind of engagement that will match your goals, make the most of available resources, and foster impactful learning for sustainable change.

Workshop versions

Creating a Coaching Culture for Professional Learning Communities
Professional learning communities (PLC) are meant to be teams that provide professional development to educators so that they can help all students reach mastery. In truth, not all groups of educators become teams where this can happen. Learn how to use one common framework, personality type, as a coaching framework that your PLC can use to improve communication, collaboration, and peer coaching in your PLCs. Contact me to learn about on-site workshops, web-based support of leadership teams, and in-depth coaching of learning communities, especially in mathematics instruction.

Differentiated School Leadership
For decades, businesses have used the theory of personality type to coach leaders, improve team performance, and enhance communication. In this workshop, education leaders will learn to use type tools to build true learning communities in schools. Contact me to for information on workshops designed to help school leaders improve their skills in meeting the needs of the diverse adults on their teams.

Books about professional learning communities

Creating a Coaching Culture for Professional Learning Communities

Are you about to launch professional learning communities? Has your school launched professional learning communities? Are they working? This book, written with veteran school principal Beth Russell, is designed to help PLC leaders understand and meet the wide variety of needs teachers have–all while helping each student succeed. Learn how to make your PLCs both effective and sustainable. From understanding each other to setting effective group norms and goals to using each other’s strengths to improve instruction for all students, this book provides the “how” for PLCs.

Purchase Creating a Coaching Culture

Differentiated School Leadership: A Framework for Communication, Collaboration and Change

Leaders are most effective when they understand their own styles, work from their strengths, and compensate for their blind spots. By using personality type to understand differences in how people lead, communicate, and learn, school leadership teams can more effectively distribute leadership responsibilities and meet the needs of those they lead. Written with veteran school principal Beth Russell, this is the ideal resource for principals, assistant principals, teacher leaders, assistant superintendents, superintendents, and those leading or serving on school improvement teams or other teams.

Purchase Differentiated School Leadership