5 THINGS ABOUT PLC YOU MIGHT

NOT HAVE HEARD OF

PLC, or often referred to as Professional Learning Community is the latest in-thing in

Malaysian government schools. Its research done overseas has shown significant
improvement in the student learning, student achievement and in teachers teaching
practices.
When the concept first made its appearance to schools a few years back, not many
school administrators took a serious look at it. Many school administrators had no
idea why they should buy this new collaborative concept. Then, came School
Improvement Specialist Coaches Plus (SISC+) and School Improvement Partners Plus
(SIP+) where one of their responsibilities is to promote, cultivate and sow the seeds of
PLC in every school with a hope that one day PLC will be embedded in the working
culture in schools.
Over this one year period of promoting PLC, there has been mixed reactions from
schools towards the implementation of collaborative tools in Professional Learning
Community. School administrators were the first to be exposed to the concept and
process of implementation, but apparently this message or information was hardly
passed down or already filtered with only 50% main points to teachers at the ground
level. When asked, teachers either nod their heads to it or shaked their heads to it.
Some couldnt be bothered to say the least.
Im writing this to describe some essential points behind successful Professional
Learning Community. My aim is to pinpoint 5 key principles behind what makes PLC

tick in some schools or sometimes that of a particular subject. Hopefully, this will
give you a better understanding and you can take whatever you think is good and use
it with your community in school.
1. School administrators are not the playmakers
Research has shown that shared and supportive leadership are important to the shape
successful PLC culture in school. When my team, the SISC+ PPD Selangau first
brought all the school administrators together to listen to talks on PLC by experts and
master trainers, we couldnt be more excited. We thought to ourselves,

YES, finally we managed to give first-hand information on PLC to them.

YES, they will be equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills with
regards to PLC.
YES, they now know how to implement it in their schools.

But the outcome is quite the opposite.

My findings showed that while some school administrators or headmasters took
charge in leading their school teachers to develop the PLC culture, many gave reasons
(or you may call it excuses) of being tied down by other more pressing task and
responsibilities. Some claimed to not see any advantages of cultivating PLC.
Having headmasters who know and understand what PLC is and how to do it do not
necessary mean that they are going to do it. The point I want to put forward here is
that while school leaders or headmasters are important, they are not nearly as
important as the subject committee leaders. Where you find school administrator who
could not be bothered about PLC (in worst case scenario), the culture of PLC can still
be developed and cultivated among the subject teachers. But, how?

2. Subject
committee
leader is the
commanderin-chief
Yes, you read
that right.
Subject
committee
leader, or in BM referred to as Ketua Panitia is the commander-in-chief for the
development of PLC in school.

Over the years, I have worked with my subject matter committee leader to promote
this culture of professional learning through the process of sharing, inquiring,
discussing, reflecting, questioning and consolidating in thinking about the best
strategies with regards to effective teaching and learning in the classroom. And the
result is, it works!
In many ways, the responsibilities of promoting professional learning lie with the
leader of the pack (the subject team group). The leader is the one who creates a safe
environment for every member to collaborate and discuss issues. The leader is the one
who plays the role as a mediator who acts as an intermediate agent to take in opinions
from different perspectives to find common ground on issues. The leader is the one
who gives equal opportunities to each member to voice their opinions. And, the leader
is the one who believes in his team members that their team is capable of bringing
about positive change in student learning and performance.

3. PLC requires passion and professionalism

When we are talking about developing professional development, passion is the key.
Wikipedia describes passion as an intense emotion, a compelling enthusiasm or desire
for something. Passion is what keeps us doing what we are doing. When we are
passionate about teaching, we want to keep on learning new things. We open our
minds to the world and to the views of other teachers of unlimited teaching strategies,
imagination and creative ideas.
Professionalism can be broken down into three components under two acronyms:
ASK and SAT.
A Attitude: have an open mind to continually accept and challenge new ideas.
S Skill: have the ability to carry out a task effectively and efficiently with predetermined results.
K Knowledge: an acquisition of facts, information and understanding through
experience, learning and discovery.
and
S Skill: have the ability to carry out a task effectively and efficiently with predetermined results.
A Attitude: have an open mind to continually accept and challenge new ideas.
T Training: have the ability to keep putting the theory into practice, applying and
practising the learned skill and knowledge.

4. Its all about our KIDS, our STUDENTS

Kids are the reason why we do PLC. It is the core principle of us trying to work
collaboratively to improve our own teaching practices to ensure that our kids learn.
However, this is often not the case. Many teachers have been trapped by dogma
which is experienced teachers cannot be questioned and beginning teachers cannot
question the experienced.
At the end of the day, a result of sharing and discussions through Lesson Study, Peer
Coaching, Teacher Sharing Session, Video Critique, Book Club and Learning Walks is
that we are looking at what truly works for our kids, what our kids have enjoyed, what
make them tick, NOT how well we can teach, not how many activities we have given,
not how many sheets of exercises we can give them.
PLC is not about looking at the teachers teaching, but students learning as a
result of teachers effective instruction.

5.
Enjoy
the

journey of personal development

I might have said this before, but Im going to say it again. PLC is about personal
growth development. Its about developing ourselves to become better educators
and informed teachers.
While the road to heaven is still far from the sight, we can use this opportunity on
earth now to continually equip ourselves with the necessary knowledge, skills and

experience to improve classroom practices. Through collaboration and deep team

thinking learning, we can in fact release ourselves free from stress and frustration,
especially those stem from our kids and our teaching instructions.

Reflecting on this process of going through introduction and implementation of PLC

around schools, I am glad to see many positive changes in the teachers attitudes.
Many are now willing to speak up on their issues concerning their classroom. I am
proud of some schools administrators who find the time to encourage and to support
their teachers to do PLC collectively.
So far, many schools commander-in-chief have crafted plans on when to the next
cycle of Lesson Study. I couldnt be more proud of them to see their kids getting
the benefit from this collaborative tool. I believe this whole thing about PLC has
transformed the way we think and the way we teach, and I will continue to sell it.
Once it has become a culture in school, the school will move forward and academic
result will change positively.