July 17, 2009
Whatever It Takes*
Reflection
In the text, the authors address what steps need to be taken in order for a true Professional Learning
Community (PLC) to be successful. In order for a PLC to be successful, three critical questions must be
addressed: 1) What is it we want all students to learn? 2) How will we know when each student has
acquired the intended knowledge or skill? and 3) How will we respond when students experience initial
difficulty so that we can improve on current levels of learning? The idea of a PLC moves away from
responding when students have already failed, to responding much, much earlier than that. In order to
make sure that a school lives by the motto that all students can and will learn at a high level, that
school must respond when students first show signs of struggling, and even before! When establishing
a PLC in a school, that school embark on a journey that has no destination for there is always room for
improvement! “The process of searching for an answer is much more important than actually finding
the answer” (p. 4).
In a successful PLC, teachers and administrators are working together as a community. They must have
the mindset that all students are capable of high-level learning. Not only do our students have the right
to attend school, but they have the right to learn while they are there. However, in order to say that all
students can learn, we must first define what it is they need to learn. By working together as a team to
determine what it is that students need to learn, teachers are ensuring that every student will receive
the same response when they struggle. When teachers work together and combine their experience,
knowledge of teaching, and their teaching skills, it ensures that the best possible strategies are being
used to make certain that all students are learning. The focus, thus, turns to what the students need to
learn and how they are going to learn the subject rather than how we are going to teach it. “Schools
can guarantee all students have access to the same essential outcomes only when the teachers in that
school work together to clarify and commit to those outcomes” (p. 174).
Once the PLC has determined what content students need to master for high-level learning, the
teachers much put forth a strategy to assure that each student has acquired the intended knowledge.
The most important thing that a school can offer is support and positive reinforcement to make sure
that the students are learning. Traditionally, schools offer negative consequences when students are
not meeting the expectations of the classroom or the school. For example in a school I’ve taught in,
students would be dropped from a class if they accumulated more than 5 absences. In many schools,
students will be suspended if they break any rules. Many times, these consequences can be
counterproductive and students will still not be learning the necessary knowledge or skill because they
won’t be in school! Instead of consequences for doing something wrong, give students positive rewards
for doing something right. Given as an example in the text, a particular school made it so that each
school year their students would gain more privileges starting from when they are freshmen. If
students fail to meet the expectation of the school, those privileges would be taken away until they can
get their academics back on track. This way the students are working towards an incentive, rather than
working away from a punishment that may not even work for some students. It is then the job of the
* Whatever It Takes – How Professional Learning Communities Respond When Kids Don’t Learn. DuFour, Richard; DuFour, Rebecca; Eaker,
Robert; Karhanek, Gayle. National Education Service, Bloomington, Indiana. 2004.
July 17, 2009
teachers and the administrators to continue to encourage the students to meet the expectations, even
when they’ve slipped a little, because they always have the opportunity to earn those privileges back.
This ensures that, even if students are not meeting expectations, they are still learning and still
encouraged to work hard rather than allowing them to fail.
Traditionally in schools, time is the constant and learning is the variable. Students are allotted a
particular amount of time in which some will be able to learn and some won’t. In order to ensure that
all students are learning, time must become the variable in order to make learning the constant. All
students are different, and some need more time than others to master a particular skill. It is important
to offer students the extra time and support in order to help them meet the intended expectations.
And not only must the time and support be offered to the students, but they will be required to take it
if teachers and administrators feel that it is necessary for them to be successful. It is important to push
all students beyond their comfort zone and then provide the necessary support that will help them be
successful.
Once a school as put in the necessary strategies to make sure that students will learn the intended
knowledge or skill, how do they determine if they are actually learning? It becomes extremely
important to assess the students on a regular basis in order to monitor their learning. The best way to
do this is through summative assessments. Traditionally, schools will use formative assessments, which
determine how much a student as learned, usually at the end of a unit, before moving on to the next
topic. Summative assessments are designed to assess how much the students are learning as they go,
not just at the end. By using these types of assessments, teachers can determine what the students are
struggling with and modify the approach to the topic. I really liked the analogy that was given in the
text: summative vs. formative assessments is like comparing a physical exam to an autopsy. A physical
exam is used to determine if there is something physically wrong with a person, and then used to
determine the necessary treatment. An autopsy is performed at the end of a person’s life to determine
what went wrong to cause the death. In a school, we want to use a physical exam, or summative
assessments, in order to diagnose a problem early on and then find the necessary strategies to fix it.
We can’t only use autopsies, or formative assessments, because it is most often too late to do anything
productive about it and students end up falling more and more behind.
Lastly, and perhaps the most important characteristic of a successful PLC, is what actions are taken
when students are not learning the desired skill. “Failure is not an option!!” It is extremely important
that action is taken before the students fail. We want to be proactive in our efforts and offer a series of
interventions rather than the traditional remedial approach. We want to prevent students from failing
rather than trying to catch them up when they do fail. One strategy would be to determine what type
of support students will need before they even reach high school. By talking with middle school
counselors, teachers could work together to catch the student before they even begin to fall. It is also
extremely important to keep their parents notified at all times. By including as many people as possible
in the intervention and the process to making a student successful, it gives the student the idea that
nobody is going to let up; nobody is going to let them squeak by. Without the choice to slack off, they
are forced to take responsibility for their own learning and be much more successful in the process.
As I was reading this text, I was encouraged and inspired to make sure that as a teacher I will take all of
the necessary steps to making sure that all of my students are successful, not only in my class but in
school and life in general. With all of the focus that Poudre School District is putting on the transition to
PLCs taking place in all schools, I am becoming extremely excited to be a part of the process towards
success. “Failure is not an option.” With the success of our schools comes the success of our students!
* Whatever It Takes – How Professional Learning Communities Respond When Kids Don’t Learn. DuFour, Richard; DuFour, Rebecca; Eaker,
Robert; Karhanek, Gayle. National Education Service, Bloomington, Indiana. 2004.