Infographic-Roles and Responsibilities of a Professional Teacher

Infographic-Roles and Responsibilities of a Professional Teacher

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Infographic-Roles and Responsibilities of a Professional Teacher

For this week’s assignment, you will reflect on what you’ve read and how it has informed your decisions and thoughts about your roles and responsibilities as a professional teacher. Your response will be in the form of an infographic.
Based on the session’s readings, your own experience, and what you know about infographics, your infographic should:
Outline the role of a professional teacher in a clear and concise definition (your definition, not copied from the literature).
Identify two (2) responsibilities of a professional teacher.
Identify (at least) three (3) goals for yourself as a teacher.
Share your learning through an infographic with one of the software in this session’s “What is an Infographic?” resource. Whatever software and template you choose, be sure it is easy to view/read and conveys knowledge. Be creative! Please do not pay for any software; plenty of free sites exist.

Additional Reference:

About PLCs
A professional learning community (PLC) is an ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve. Professional learning communities operate under the assumption that the key to improved learning for students is continuous job-embedded learning for educators.
Read what advocates say about the impact of PLCs.

What Are Professional Learning Communities? Observing the growing popularity of the term professional learning community has been interesting. The term has become so commonplace. It has been used so ambiguously to describe virtually any loose coupling of individuals who share a common interest in education that it is in danger of losing all meaning. This lack of precision is an obstacle to implementing PLC processes because, as Mike Schmoker observes, “clarity precedes competence” (2004a, p. 85). Thus, we begin with an attempt to clarify our meaning of the term. To those familiar with our past work, this step may seem redundant. Still, we are convinced that redundancy can be a powerful tool in effective communication, and we prefer redundancy to ambiguity.

We have seen many instances in which educators assume that a PLC is a program. For example, one faculty member told us they implemented a new program each year in their school. In the previous year, it had been PLC; the year before had been “understanding by design,” and the current year the year of  differentiated instruction.” They had converted the names of the various programs into verbs, and the joke on the faculty was that they had been “UBDed, PLCed, and DIed.” The PLC process is not a program. It cannot be purchased, nor can it be implemented by anyone other than the staff itself. Most importantly, it is ongoing—a continuous, never-ending process of conducting schooling that profoundly impacts the school’s structure and culture and the assumptions and practices of the professionals within it.

We have seen other instances in which educators assume that a PLC is a meeting—an occasional event when they meet with colleagues to complete a task. We commonly hear, “My PLC meets Wednesdays from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.” This perception of a PLC is wrong on two counts. First, the PLC is the larger organization, not the individual teams. While collaborative teams are essential to the PLC process, the sum is greater than the individual parts. Much of the work of a PLC cannot be done by a team but instead requires a schoolwide or districtwide effort. So, we believe it is helpful to think of the school or district as the PLC and the various collaborative teams as the building blocks of the PLC. Second, once again, the PLC process has a pervasive and ongoing impact on the structure and culture of the school. If educators meet with peers regularly only to return to business as usual, they are not functioning as a PLC. So, the PLC process is much more than a meeting.

So, what is a PLC? We argue that it is an ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve. PLCs operate under the assumption that the key to improved learning for students is continuous job-embedded learning for educators. The following section examines the elements of the PLC process more closely.

A Focus on Learning
The very essence of a learning community is a focus on and a commitment to each student’s learning. When a school or district functions as a PLC, educators within the organization embrace high levels of learning for all students as the reason the organization exists and the fundamental responsibility of those working within it. To achieve this purpose, the members of a PLC create and are guided by a clear and compelling vision of what the organization must become to help all students learn. They make collective commitments clarifying what each member will do to create such an organization, and they use results-oriented goals to mark their progress. Members work together to clarify exactly what each student must learn, monitor each student’s learning on a timely basis, provide systematic interventions that ensure students receive additional time and support for learning when they struggle, and extend and enrich learning when they have mastered the intended outcomes.

A corollary assumption is that if the organization is to become more effective in helping all students learn, the adults in the organization must also be continually learning. Therefore, structures are created to ensure staff members engage in job-embedded learning as part of their routine work practices.

There is no ambiguity or hedging regarding this commitment to learning. Whereas many schools operate as if their primary purpose is to ensure that children are taught, PLCs are dedicated to the idea that their organization exists to ensure that all students learn essential knowledge, skills, and dispositions. All the other characteristics of a PLC flow directly from this epic shift in assumptions about the purpose of the school.

A Collaborative Culture With a Focus on Learning for All
Collaboration is a means to an end, not the end itself. In many schools, staff members are willing to collaborate on various topics as long as the focus of the conversation stops at their classroom door. In a PLC, collaboration represents a systematic process in which teachers work together interdependently to impact their classroom practice in ways that will lead to better results for their students, their team, and their school.

Collective Inquiry Into Best Practice and Current Reality
The teams in a PLC engage in collective inquiry into best practices in teaching and learning. They also inquire about their current reality, present practices, and student achievement levels. They attempt to answer vital questions by building shared knowledge rather than pooling opinions. They have an acute sense of curiosity and openness to new possibilities.

Collective inquiry enables team members to develop new skills and capabilities, leading to new experiences and awareness. Gradually, this heightened awareness transforms into fundamental shifts in attitudes, beliefs, and habits, which, over time, transform the school’s culture.

Working together to build shared knowledge on the best way to achieve goals and meet clients’ needs is what professionals in any field are expected to do, whether it is curing the patient, winning the lawsuit, or helping all students learn. Members of a professional learning community are expected to work and learn together.

Action Orientation: Learning by Doing
PLC members are action-oriented: they move quickly to turn aspirations into action and visions into reality. They understand that the most powerful learning always occurs in the context of taking action, and they value engagement and experience as the most effective teachers. Henry Mintzberg’s (2005) observation about training leaders applies here: deep learning requires experience, which requires action. It “is as much about doing think as thinking to do” (p. 10). The very reason that teachers work together in teams and engage in collective inquiry is to serve as catalysts for action.

A Commitment to Continuous Improvement
Inherent to a PLCise is persistent disquiet with the status quo and a constant search for a better way to achieve goals and accomplish the organization’s purpose. Systematic processes engage each member of the organization in an ongoing cycle of:

Gathering evidence of current levels of student learning
Developing strategies and ideas to build on strengths and address weaknesses in that learning
Implementing those strategies and ideas
Analyzing the impact of the changes to discover what was effective and what was not
Applying new knowledge in the next cycle of continuous improvement
The goal is not simply to learn a new strategy but to create conditions for a perpetual learning environment in which innovation and experimentation are viewed not as tasks or projects to be completed but as ways of conducting day-to-day business—forever. Furthermore, participation in this process is not reserved for those designated as leaders; rather, it is the responsibility of every organization member.

Results Orientation
Finally, members of a PLC realize that all of their efforts in these areas (a focus on learning, collaborative teams, collective inquiry, action orientation, and continuous improvement) must be assessed based on results rather than intentions. Unless initiatives are subjected to ongoing assessment based on tangible results, they represent random groping in the dark rather than purposeful improvement. Peter Senge and colleagues conclude, “The rationale for any strategy for building a learning organization revolves around the premise that such organizations will produce dramatically improved results.”

This focus on results leads each team to develop and pursue measurable improvement goals aligned with school and district goals for learning. It also drives teams to create a series of common formative assessments administered to students multiple times throughout the year to gather ongoing evidence of student learning. Team members review the results from these assessments to identify and address program concerns (areas of learning where many students are experiencing difficulty). They also examine the results to discover strengths and weaknesses in their teaching to learn from one another. Most importantly, the assessments are used to identify students who need additional time and support for learning. Frequent common formative assessments represent one of the most powerful tools in the PLC arsenal.

Please also see What Is a “Professional Learning Community”?

DuFour, R., DuFour, R., Eaker, R., & Many, T. (2006). Learning by Doing: A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities at Work™, pp. 2–4.