Principal Paul
You are interested in establishing a professional learning community. But, you want to be certain that your leadership behaviors are compatible with those of principals who have established professional learning communities.

Your task is to find the five most common leadership strategies that principals use to establish a professional learning community and prepare a presentation to your staff about what strategies you will be practicing and why they are important to the establishment of a learning community and to improve student achievement.

  1. Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL)
    Shirley Hord and the researchers at SEDL have investigated the change process and school improvement. They have done extensive research on Professional Learning Communities and regularly review that research in Issues for Change that can be found on the SEDL website. Of particular interest for this study is the article Professional Learning Communities: What are they and why are they important? And the discussion of the principal’s role in the learning community that can be found at: www.sedl.org/change/issues/issues72
    Another resource for leadership is Leadership for Changing Schools, which can be found at: www.sedl.org/change/issues/issues12.
     
  2. National Staff Development Council (NSDC)
    The National Staff Development Council is the largest non-profit professional association committed to working on school improvement through staff development. NSDC has many articles about how schools have used staff development strategies to move towards professional learning communities. Rick DuFour is a popular author and presenter. One of his articles that addresses the principal’s role in professional learning communities can be found at: www.nsdc.org/library/jsd/dufour204.html.
     
  3. Quality Leadership by Design
    Anne & Bill Conzemius in Creating Capacity to Lead: The Changing Role of the 21st Century Principal, describe the characteristics of principals with whom they worked and who were successful at building leadership cultures.