Personalized Learning in a PLC at Work™: Student Agency Through the Four Critical Questions

by Timothy S. Stuart

Highly effective learning-progressive schools share two common they operate as high-functioning professional learning communities (PLCs) with well-implemented RTI structures, and they promote student agency in the learning process. Rely on this resource to help you build a highly effective school where students are engaged in personalized learning experiences and empowered to take ownership of the four critical questions of the PLC at Work™ process. Use this book to create student-centered learning pathways that drive authentic learning and
Introduction
Chapter 1: A Changing Educational Paradigm
Chapter 2: Student Agency for Personalized Learning
Chapter 3: Systems of Collaboration and Support for Personalized Learning
Chapter 4: Teacher-Led Instruction and Release of Responsibility for Essential Disciplinary Learning Outcomes
Chapter 5: Co-Constructed Learning for Transdisciplinary Learning Outcomes
Chapter 6: Personalized Learning Outcomes
Chapter 7: From Theory to Practice in Elementary Schools
Chapter 8: From Theory to Practice in Middle Schools
Chapter 9: From Theory to Practice in High Schools
Chapter 10: The Change Process and Strategic Planning
References and Resources

216 pages, Perfect Paperback

Published May 7, 2018

Reviews

[Gordon Eldridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book takes the four questions that Richard Dufour proposes should be the foundation of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) in schools and describes how they can be used to personalize learning for students by inviting students into the PLC conversation around these four questions. The authors visited more than 100 schools who were successfully personalizing learning for their students and the book is a distillation of what they learned from these visits.

The book has three sections. The first is a summary of the key learnings from the school visits. The second is a set of descriptions of a selection of the schools as examples, including a chapter for elementary schools, a chapter for middle schools and a chapter for high schools. The final section is just one chapter and describes the change process at one of the schools in a way which could be adapted for use in other schools.

There are some real nuggets of insight in this book and the final chapter describing the change process at Singapore American School has some eminently transferable learning in it. In the end, however, I found the book disappointing. The early promise I felt in the opening chapters had me eagerly anticipating the concrete examples from schools in later chapters. But the examples were simply not described with a sufficient level of concreteness to be useful. They talked mostly in abstractions, with the odd, tantalising piece of more concrete description. As a reader I was left not really understanding what any of the schools being described had really done in concrete enough terms to think about how it might be relevant to my own school, however.

[Kellye Bojorquez · Rating 4 out of 5]

A useful guide to using PLC at Work process to transform your school into a highly effective and learning progressive school.

[Michael G. Zink · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exceptional book that lays out a clear, optimistic path for education in the 21st century.