The School Leader's Guide to Professional Learning Communities at Work (Essentials for Principals)

For the school leader who wants to investigate the Professional Learning Community (PLC) process, this is a great digest of books written by Richard DuFour and his associates. In 90 pages, the authors concisely describe the PLC process, which is outlined in much greater length in books such as  Learning By Doing: A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities at WorkTM (2nd Edition)  ), 281 pages, and  Revisiting Professional Learning Communities at Work: New Insights for Improving Schools [REVISITING PROFES-10TH ANN ], 520 pages.This book's primary audience consists of elementary and middle school leaders, but it is also valuable for administrators in high schools who want to explore the PLC process. But, it is only a digest; the authors state, "In order to lead a PLC, principals must have a deep understanding of what constitutes a PLC and what it does not (p. 3)". Therefore, I recommend that school leaders must also, at the very least, thoroughly read the two books cited in the previous paragraph.Regrettably, the authors display a habit of misquoting, or taking out of context, several authors, such as D. Goleman et al.  Primal Leadership: Learning to Lead with Emotional Intelligence , K. Patterson et al.  Influencer: The Power to Change Anything , Robert Evans  The Human Side of School Change: Reform, Resistance, and the Real-Life Problems of Innovation (Jossey-Bass Education Series)  and Howard Gardner  Changing Minds: The Art And Science of Changing Our Own And Other People's Minds (Leadership for the Common Good) . It would be more beneficial if they did not include quotations if they are not willing to carefully read these authors and understand their full messages. For example, on page 79, they take out of context and conflate a quotation from K. Patterson et al. (2008) to support their argument that principals should use punishment against teachers who do not comply with the principal's directives. The concept of "punishment" has no place in education; it has gone the way of the strap, the dodo bird and, hopefully, the "zero" (Reeves,  Leading Change in Your School: How to Conquer Myths, Build Commitment, and Get Results ).What is more astounding is that they invoke Howard Gardner's work as inspiration to use punishment against teachers if necessary. Gardner is misquoted on page (78), before the misquotation of K. Patterson: Gardner describes "lever" #7 as "Resistance"; these authors state that "strategy" #7 is "Require", a very significant error. The juxtaposition of Howard Gardner's work and the discussion of punishment in the same book result in a cognitive dissonance for the serious educator.One positive challenge the authors present to readers is to find research that refutes the PLC process. In turn, however, the authors must also carefully research the writers they quote to support their arguments for the PLC process; otherwise, the PLC process may never gain creditability from learning theorists and other educators.Dr. John MerksTeacherRiverview High SchoolRiverviewNew BrunswickCanada

Excellent resource for all school leaders implementing PLC's!

You can't go wrong with a DeFour book. This one was a requirement for class, but I'd read it on my own. Good stuff.

Most helpful in implementing PLC