How to Establish and Develop Communities of Practice to Better Collaborate
Keywords:
professional learning communities (PLCs), professional learning communities, collaboration, professional development, school principalsAbstract
Although education research has shown collaboration to be of the utmost importance, schools continue to lack the necessary means to help them incorporate professional learning communities (PLCs) to facilitate and sustain their development and growth. We analysed the process by which PLCs were gsuccessfully implemented, under the guidance of a research-action-training initiative (R-A-T), as well as the conditions for effective collaboration between the different instances involved (school districts, university, and principals). The study was based on a conceptual framework consisting of three key concepts: (1) the PLC and two of its sub-themes, namely, participation and reification (Wenger, 1998); (2) the capital involved (economic, human, and social) (OECD, 2001; Bourdieu, 1979a; 1979b; Bourdieu et Passeron, 1970); and (3) shared leadership (Wenger, 1998). The data was from multiple sources (individual interviews, questionnaires, focus groups, personal logs). Results show that economic capital made it possible to access the human and social capitals. Economic capital in fact enabled the establishment of three PLCs which generated social capital, supported by a team of university facilitators, and ultimately human capital (material pertaining to supervision: reification).
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