Professional learning communities (PLCs) have become an increasingly popular strategy to strengthen teaching and student learning in K-12 STEM topics, particularly mathematics and science. But, like any other strategy for improving STEM teaching and learning, buy-in from teachers and administrators is pivotal in determining teacher participation and a supportive context for the PLCs at the building and district levels.
When queried about strategies for garnering and maintaining support for STEM PLCs from principals and teachers, a panel of 12 experienced practitioners offered a number of insights, which are described below.
- Mandatory or voluntary—Ensure participation of key faculty members in STEM PLCs.
- You can lead a teacher to water but…—Be strategic about obtaining teacher buy-in to the STEM PLC.
- Pave the way—Be proactive in garnering and maintaining administrative support for STEM PLCs.
Empirical Research on STEM PLCs
As STEM PLCs have grown as a popular feature in K-12 schools and districts, it is timely to examine the findings of empirical studies on the topic. The extensive network of National Science Foundation funded MSP projects have produced a number of studies on STEM PLCs that add to this growing body of research. The MSP-KMD project reviewed the empirical research conducted by MSP projects on STEM PLCs to complement an earlier review of the research on STEM PLCs from the broader literature by researchers from the National Commission for Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF) and WestEd. Summaries of each review are available through links in this knowledge review.
The MSP-KMD project identified and reviewed 13 studies of STEM PLCs by MSP projects. These studies echo several of the findings found in the NCTAF report, including evidence of the positive effects of STEM PLCs on deepening teacher knowledge of disciplinary content and pedagogy, influencing teacher classroom practice, and inconclusive evidence on the impact of STEM PLCs on student achievement. The MSP studies add to the knowledge base on STEM PLCs through studies of the effects of the involvement of STEM university faculty members on K-12 STEM PLCs and studies of the effects of facilitation strategies on interactions among members of STEM PLCs.
Practitioner Insights
STEM professional learning communities (STEM PLCs) are an increasingly common approach for improving mathematics and science teaching and learning. But, like any other strategy for improving STEM teaching and learning, buy-in from teachers and administrators is pivotal in ensuring teacher participation and a supportive context for the PLCs at the building and district levels.
When queried about strategies for garnering and maintaining support for STEM PLCs from principals and teachers, a panel of 12 experienced practitioners offered a number of insights, which are described below.
Mandatory or voluntary—Ensure participation of key faculty members in STEM PLCs.
Expert practitioners highlighted the importance of ensuring that key faculty members participate in STEM PLCs. Although it may not be possible to involve all teachers of a particular subject in a school/district in the STEM PLC initially, program leaders cautioned that involving only a subset of teachers could cause problems down the road. As one noted:
Not involving every teacher creates situations in which students are going from grade level to grade level or classroom to classroom where there are inconsistent expectations, a wide range of practices, and even varying sets of learning goals. This situation sends mixed messages to our students and our parent community. Not involving every teacher can also lead to frustration and resentment across the faculty in a building. If some teachers are working hard to support student learning, but if they also know they will be sending them to a classroom the following year where the hard work they are doing will be undermined, they are not happy. Likewise, teachers who receive students from classrooms where instruction has not been strong have to work harder to build productive norms and prepare students to meaningful engage in the content expected at their grade level. These frustrations and resentments eventually contribute to a toxic school environment and may mean that teachers who are working hard on their practice transfer to other buildings where they have more colleagues who are doing the same.
Inevitably, questions arise about whether voluntary or mandatory participation is more productive. Program leaders acknowledged that requiring teacher participation in PLCs comes with its own set of risks. As one program leader commented:
We cannot ignore the challenges associated with teachers attending PLCs against their will, complaining about the work at every opportunity, failing to engage, and making facilitation more complicated than it needs to be.
When participation is voluntary, teachers tend to demonstrate more openness to learning and examining their own teaching practice, whereas mandatory participation may foster resentment and introduce negative attitudes into the PLC. Some program leaders recommended voluntary teacher participation in STEM PLCs in order to avoid these negative attitudes. Said one:
I recommend voluntary participation. For whatever reason, there exists those teachers who are not interested in improving their teaching or improving student learning. I have encountered this in the formation of secondary PLCs. Their negativism affects the PLCs, making group interactions more tense than if [unmotivated teachers] were not present.
Some program leaders who were reluctant to recommend mandatory participation reported success in offering incentives for participation.
I am a big fan of incentives. It can get those most in need on board without required participation. My favorite incentive is graduate credit in science or math education. It often works to charge a fee and reimburse the fee upon successful participation. Of course this means university course approvals, official syllabi, rubrics, and assigning grades. But, I think it’s worth it. Mandatory participation is ugly more often than not.
Other experienced practitioners described how making the work of the PLC public motivated more teachers to participate.
We have found some success by starting with teachers who volunteer to participate, creating some success in these classrooms which we then try to make public, and then using data as well as actual classroom visits to make a compelling case for the value of the work.
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When a new PLC is started with participants who are motivated and willing to change, it is more likely that the change will be successfully implemented in the district. The teachers can advocate for the change in their district, can model new strategies, and recruit other teachers.
Whether participation in a PLC is voluntary or mandatory should be connected to the PLC’s goals. As one program leader explained:
[Whether to require participation] depends on your purpose. If your goal is to improve STEM teaching throughout the entire school, then only a building mandate would get all teachers to participate. If you are testing new instructional materials or strategies, then you might want to begin with a voluntary PLC.
While the majority of expert practitioners queried favored voluntary participation, there was general agreement that, at some point, all STEM teachers should become involved. Involving all STEM teachers conveys the expectation that participating in the PLC is part of the regular work that teachers do, and contributes to school-wide improvement efforts. Some expert practitioners recommended a phased approach in which participation is voluntary initially, participants recruit others and/or share what they are learning, then transition to the requirement that everyone participate as part of professional expectations. One practitioner said:
I would recommend a tiered approach, beginning with “voluntary” to get (hopefully) a critical mass moving—and to provide opportunities to highlight successes, then move to requiring all to participate as part of the professional expectations for practitioners. OR, if you didn’t want to pursue the “mandatory” route, clear and descriptive expectations for teacher practice and evidence can be created–and as long as all teachers can demonstrate/produce evidence, they can work as they choose. In our experience, MOST teachers sought others to work/learn with when clear expectations/evidences were put in place.
You can lead a teacher to water but…—Be strategic about obtaining teacher buy-in to the STEM PLC.
Insight in Action
Teachers within an elementary school studied the [state] standards for mathematics in order to move toward standards-based instruction. They set this goal as a whole school and then each grade level group chose a standard they found challenging or puzzling, and conducted lesson study, studying the standard and related research and then having a number of team members teach successive versions of a lesson designed to get at some part of it. Teams shared their research lessons with the school in many cases, and/or reported on what they had learned about the standard and supporting it in instruction. The specific focus on mathematics meant the work was relevant to all…This elementary school showed a substantially greater increase in standardized test scores than other district schools over the period of their school-wide lesson study in mathematics.
Regardless of whether participation of teachers is voluntary or mandatory, expert practitioners agreed that securing the buy-in of teachers is critical to the success of a PLC. All group members need to feel invested in its purpose as this supports a sense of accountability for the work of the PLC. For a STEM PLC to be successful, it is critical that members of the PLC make a commitment to the group and its actions, which is evidenced in consistent attendance, engagement with other members of the PLC, and participation in carrying out the tasks that are part of the PLC work.
A key aspect of establishing and maintaining teacher buy-in is ensuring that the work of a STEM PLC is relevant to teachers and their instruction. If teachers do not see a benefit to their participation, they will be less likely to invest in the experience. Further, teachers are more likely to buy in to the work of a STEM PLC if they perceive it as aligned to other school/district efforts, and if they believe it is valued by the school/district administration.
One suggested strategy for securing teacher buy-in was to allow teacher input in determining the work of the PLC, creating a stronger feeling of ownership of the PLC among participants, and helping ensure that the work of the PLC has a clear alignment to teachers’ needs.
Another strategy for teacher buy-in is to utilize the PLC to address issues teachers are already grappling with or will need to grapple with in the future. In this way, teachers will not see the STEM PLC as an add-on, but instead as an important part of their professional life. As one program leader described:
[In one STEM PLC,] because their principal was pushing a greater rigor and relevance design, they figured out how to meet the purpose of the PLC and their principal’s requirement. This helped them combine things “on their plates” rather than add more to their plates.
Another program leader noted that buy-in can also happen as a result of the STEM PLC experience itself, as participants see the usefulness of the resources with which they are engaged:
In our cross-district school-year PLC, buy-in was accomplished throughout. There was not a specific activity or event that created buy-in, rather buy-in built with each day we met. It was a function of the perceived value of strategies and tools introduced during the PLC (e.g., 5E model, cooperative learning strategies, assessment probes, observing student learning in the classroom) and the small and large group discussion occurring every day we met.
Insight in Action
One multi-school PLC focused on interpreting state standards in terms of acceptable evidence of student success and designing assessments that would elicit that evidence. Teacher buy-in was critical. Not only did the teachers need to commit to critical conversations with their peers, which sometimes uncovered their own content deficiencies but, because they were designing assessments, they had to also try them out and bring back student data to subsequent meetings. These teachers were provided with the “vision” and “mission” of the PLC at the outset. Because it was so completely aligned and specific to their day-to-day work, they saw the potential and benefit almost immediately. As these teachers were “invited” to participate because of proven teaching success, they felt honored and valued and therefore wanted to contribute. As the work progressed throughout the different content “units”, they all realized the value of having such conversations and engaging in such efforts, so they made the meetings productive and successful.
Pave the way—Be proactive in garnering and maintaining administrative support for STEM PLCs.
The success of STEM PLCs requires the support of school and/or district administrators. Administrators have the power to create policies and processes that support and maintain the work of STEM PLCs. For example, administrators can protect time for teachers to attend the PLC and ensure that other initiatives do not operate at cross-purposes with the PLC. Administrators also can help members of a PLC access the resources necessary to address teachers’ needs. Further, administrators can take steps to establish accountability by, for example, reviewing attendance data and other meeting documentation. As one program leader noted:
I think it is helpful for school administrators to know (and value!) the goals of the PLC so they are prepared to talk with teachers about those goals and support teachers as they work toward achieving those goals.
Expert practitioners agreed that it is important for PLC designers to be proactive about establishing and maintaining buy-in of administrators for the work of the STEM PLC. They suggested that PLC initiators meet with district/school administrators early on to describe the vision for the PLC, how the PLC efforts are aligned to the goals of the school/district, and the research evidence supporting the effectiveness of the PLC approach in improving mathematics and science instruction.
As part of this process, program leaders recommended communicating with administrators about the characteristics of a PLC, the complexity of the PLC process, the incremental nature of the work, how to support the PLC, and what to expect over time as evidence of the success of the PLC. As two program leaders commented;
Administrators must be made aware that having teachers meet in a group does not constitute a PLC. They should understand the characteristics of a PLC, the importance of an effective facilitator, and that it takes time and effort for an effective PLC to be established. Also, administrators can schedule planning periods (this has worked in secondary schools) to enable PLCs to meet in purposeful groups.
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What I have heard consistently from participants is that they wish their administrators could understand more about how challenging it is to make these shifts in their mathematics teaching practice so administrators don’t expect changes overnight, and administrators understand how hard participants are working.
One program leader recommended providing explicit guidance to administrators about how to support STEM PLCs and getting input from administrators on potential conflicts with the work:
[In our project] a meeting was called with administrators before ANY of the actual work commenced, and before the participants were invited. It was essential to communicating with administrators what the perceived benefits would be—both in terms of teacher growth (e.g., in-depth understanding of the standards they are expected to teach, greater assessment literacy, and more reflective pedagogy) and in terms of “deliverables” (e.g., common assessments supported by implementation data, articulated ‘translations’ of the standards to clarify their intent for teachers and students in the form of learning targets). Administrators were provided with some specific suggestions for supporting the teachers (vs. just imploring them to “support”). A suggested timeline was also provided up front — and they were asked to provide input on any changes that may be necessary to avoid other district work “conflicts”, etc.
If PLCs involve multiple schools, administrative support can be maintained through updates at regularly scheduled administrators’ meetings, and arranging for administrators to visit and/or participate in a PLC. As two program leaders described, the work of supporting STEM PLCs can become the fodder for discussions among administrators:
In our PLCs, administrators meet separately from the [teacher] PLC in role-alike sessions three times during the school year. They become familiar with the goals and purpose of the STEM PLC and they experience some of the same activities, for example how to establish norms in a PLC. And they focus on how to support and sustain the work of the STEM PLC in their work, including through focusing the process of classroom observation on student learning.
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We believe that parallel PLCs should be created for administrators that focus on how to support teachers in the work their PLCs are doing, and having periodic meetings with BOTH the teachers and administrators that are required and focused on analyzing evidences/artifacts/data and making plans for next steps.
One program leader advised that caution should be taken when eliciting support from administrators as their involvement could potentially have negative impacts on the work:
Outside of administrators verbally supporting the work and providing time, they need to steer clear of the work. If the goal or task is prescribed by an administrator, then the PLC is nothing but an ad hoc committee.
Insight in Action
An elementary school-based PLC focused on differentiating instruction. On the faculty were some strong teachers of mathematics as well as a number of teachers whose mathematics teaching practice needed improvement. At the onset of the work, project leaders met with one of the teacher leaders and the principal to plan the work of the PLC. The planning process involved looking at assessment data as well as visiting each of the classrooms together, even if only briefly, during mathematics instruction. This collaborative planning allowed the group to consider how to structure the work of the PLC, taking into account the strengths and challenges around mathematics teaching and learning in the building.
The principal took care of the arrangements for the sessions, making sure teachers all knew the schedule, and communicated the expectation that everyone participate. (This was scheduled as part of the required contract time teachers were expected to use for professional development.) The principal also attended the first session. Partway through the PLC, project leaders conducted a learning walk at the school with the teacher leader and the principal, where they went into classrooms, and chatted briefly with teachers about their work to differentiate instruction.
In this instance, the principal played a key role in getting the work going, communicating his support, and following up on progress. It also felt that at the same time, as part of this process of collaboration, he was learning more about what he might want to see happening in classrooms as teachers strengthen their mathematics teaching practice.
If you are interested in how these practitioner insights were collected and analyzed, a summary of the methodology can be found here.