Since 1998, we have published many books and videos with the same two goals in mind: (1) to persuade educators that the most promising strategy for meeting the
challenge of helping all students learn at high levels is to develop their capacity to function as a professional learning community and (2) to offer specific strategies and structures to help them transform their own schools and districts into PLCs.
For example, if a student is absent on the first few days when a new topic is being discussed and explained, a teacher will be faced with the
issue of helping that student learn the material on their own.
For example, the Performance Standards developed by the New Standards project focus on the
importance of helping students learn problem solving strategies and self - management techniques.
The need for «real» PLCs is reinforced in a report released by Learning Forward and the National Commission on Teaching & America's Future, Moving from Compliance to Agency: What Teachers Need to Make Professional Learning Work, which reported that more than 1,600 teachers surveyed characterized their professional development as irrelevant, ineffective, and «not connected to their core
work of helping students learn.»
Summit views mentorship as a critical
part of helping students learn to build social capital — or networks of people — that students can use to achieve success throughout their lives.
«But a charter school needs to close when it fails to demonstrate - on a variety of public and school specific measures - that it is
capable of helping students learn and achieve academic success.
The role of teachers becomes one
of helping students learn to live in this world — and improve it.
Praise is a key part
of helping students learn and grow.