Devoting time to a professional learning community (PLC) can be frustrating or rewarding. The authors have experienced both of these outcomes and can share processes that may help make your PLC one that enriches your professional growth and improves your students' learning. In this article they provide guidelines to make your experience…

Through the process of initiating, implementing, and sustaining a schoolwide professional learning community (PLC), teachers and administrators at the pseudonymous Silver Valley Middle School provide a powerful example of distributed leadership in action. New leadership roles, coordination, and interdependency among staff have led to an increased…

Collaborative inquiry groups, such as professional learning communities and lesson study groups, are proliferating in schools across the United States. In whatever form, the potential for impacting student learning through this collaborative work is expanded or limited by the nature of teachers' conversations. Polite, congenial conversations…