PLC is an acronym that is used widespread, and it is defined in different ways. For me, PLC stands for Professional Learning Community, based on the book by Rick DuFour.
I have led many, many PLCs over the years, and one of the things I have learned to do is become a facilitator of leading. What’s that? For me, it’s the key to leading a successful PLC. To be a facilitator of leading is to do more than lead it. A PLC takes teacher ownership, and if you present yourself as the leader, the teachers will rely on you to keep the conversation going. They will always look to you to decide what to discuss next.
At the beginning of the school year, teachers will look to you for guidance in implementing the PLC model. Guide them in creating and establishing norms, in looking for ways to document the meeting, and in looking at data and creating assessments and ways to implement strategies. As time goes on, release responsibility. You are the support in those meetings. Keep asking probing questions to get the team to think through their issues, and facilitate them to come up with answers that will help them succeed as a team.
Norms are where that ownership starts. They are the first thing a team builds together, and they are the thing the team comes back to every single meeting.
What are examples of PLC norms?
Norms are the agreements a team makes about how its meetings will run and how its members will treat one another. They keep a PLC focused on planning and strategizing for students, and they give teachers permission to hold each other to the agreement without it feeling personal. The list below may evoke thoughts about a list of your own. Share it with teachers as a starting point, never as the finished product.
Norms about time and preparation
- All team members will arrive and be ready to begin the meeting no later than five minutes after planning time begins.
- All team members will arrive with the materials they need, including the data or student work the agenda calls for.
- Cell phones will be silenced and out of view during PLC and planning time.
- We will end on time, and anything unfinished goes on the next agenda.
Norms about how we talk to each other
- Everyone will have the chance to voice their opinions and share their ideas.
- All team members have the right to agree or disagree with other team members without judgment.
- One conversation at a time. Side conversations wait until the meeting ends.
- We assume positive intent and ask a question before we react.
Norms about students and data
- Any discussion about student data will be kept professional and will not leave the room.
- All suggestions, ideas, and opinions shared will be student-centered and data-driven.
- We name the problem in the instruction before we name the problem in the student.
- Every meeting ends with one thing each of us will try before we meet again.
Five to ten norms is the right number. More than that and nobody remembers them. Fewer and the team has skipped the hard conversations about what gets in the way.
Why PLC norms change what happens in the meeting
A large part of leading or being a part of an effective collaborative planning meeting or PLC is making sure teachers have a good relationship with each other. Norms and team values are important parts of a productive, successful planning meeting and PLC, and one of your many roles as a coach is to be a support during PLCs.
I recently worked with a coach who attempted to launch very data-driven PLCs in her building. The goals of creating the PLCs were to have each team collect and share data from their classrooms. We wanted them to be keenly aware of how each student in their building was performing on each standard.
The building’s coaches led the teams through setting goals and norms. Together they also determined their core values. The coaches made spreadsheets in Google and shared them with team members to input pre- and post-test data. They created “minutes” forms to log discussion notes from each meeting.
The coaches also attended each grade level’s planning once or twice a week to lead the PLC discussion and keep teachers on track. The woman I coached spoke of this approach as being great . . . until it wasn’t. The building’s coaches also served as interventionists, and one grade level’s planning time might be one or two other grade levels’ RTI time. The coaches had to run their Coaching Sprints (coaching cycles). They had lessons to model while some teachers might be in a PLC session. Even with two leaders in the building, scheduling was too much for them to perform their job.
The coaches found that when they were unable to be present, the teachers did not know how to maintain the routine of the PLC. As the rigor of the year got heavier, the coaches’ ability to keep up with the PLCs dwindled, and so did the teachers’ interest in learning how to do it themselves. When the woman I was coaching and I discussed the situation, she noted that the coaches did a poor job of gradually releasing responsibility.
That is what norms are for. When the team owns the agreement, the meeting runs whether the coach is in the room or down the hall modeling a lesson. At the beginning of each meeting, “set the mood” for team collaboration by having the teachers revisit the norms they set. Then ask them to read their core values aloud. This reminds everyone of why they are there. It’s to serve their students, never their own agenda. Revisiting norms also ensures that side-table conversations don’t happen and that extra work is put away, allowing everyone to focus as they prepare to share ideas.
How do you create PLC norms with your team?
You will, of course, lead the first meeting, and that is the meeting where you hand the work over. Assign teachers the task of coming up with five to ten team norms, as well as their core values as a team. Doing so helps them unite as teachers and gives them the chance to voice their opinions about their own values. Taking the time to listen lets all the teachers know that their ideas are valued and that these planning meetings are a safe space. The steps below are the protocol I use, and the download walks through each one with the questions to ask and a template the team fills in together.
- 1Lead the first meeting, then hand it over
- 2Ask what gets in the way of a good meeting
- 3Draft five to ten norms as a team
- 4Name the team's core values
- 5Assign rotating roles
- 6Open every meeting by revisiting the norms
- 7Revisit and revise at the semester
- The full steps, the tool, and the Reflect and Apply prompts are in the PDF.Get the download
Want the Sprint template and the video walkthrough for this strategy? They're in the Hub.
Keep the teachers at the center
In situations like the one above, my recommendation is to start by helping the teachers lead the PLC. If there are team leaders, they can facilitate discussions. Another option is for roles to rotate: timekeeper, note-taker, discussion leader. However you decide to do it, keep the teachers at the center of the process. PLCs should be focused, honest, data-driven discussions, and teachers need to know how to do that with or without you present. Creating the norms together is where that starts, because it builds trust between team members and lets every one of them feel valued.
Questions people ask
What are PLC norms?
PLC norms are the agreements a professional learning community makes about how its meetings run and how members treat one another: arriving on time, keeping student data in the room, letting everyone speak, and keeping the conversation student-centered and data-driven.
How many norms should a PLC have?
Five to ten. More than that and nobody remembers them in the moment. Fewer than five usually means the team skipped the honest conversation about what gets in the way of a productive meeting.
Who should write the PLC norms, the coach or the teachers?
The teachers. The coach leads the first meeting and facilitates the conversation, and the team writes its own norms and core values. Norms the teachers wrote are the ones they hold each other to when the coach is down the hall.