Customer Reviews

Professional Learning Communities at Work: Best Practices for Enhancing Student Achievement

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Professional Learning Communities at Work (Best Practices for Enhancing Student Achievement) by Dr. Richard Dufour and Dr. Robert Eaker, is a well-written/user-friendly piece of literature. This book may be useful as a text for graduate and/or post-graduate level students who are studying and/or working within the area of education, administration, and/or curriculum and instruction. It is also an excellent resource to have if you are dealing with staff and/or curriculum development. The basic premise of the book goes about showing how (via PLC's (Professional Learning Communities)/Small Learning Communities) school staff and administration can work collaboratively to help change, redefine, and/or shape their school's mission and goals. Through this teaming process and through the steps/best practices the authors suggest; school improvement, cultural change, and positive curriculum development and implementation can more likely be achieved.

The collaborative work of Richard DuFour (Superintendent of Adlai Stevenson High School District 125, Lincolnshire, Illinois) and Robert Eaker (Dean of the College of Education, Middle Tennessee State University), Professional Learning Communities At Work: Best Practices For Enhancing Student Achievement offers the reader informed and informative information on how to transform any private or public school into a results-oriented "professional learning community" based upon practices from some of the best schools in the country. Professional Learning Communities At Work covers curriculum development, teacher preparation, school leadership, professional development programs, school-parent partnerships, and assessment practices. Of vital interest to education professionals, Professional Learning Communities At Work is completely accessible and highly recommended reading for parents and other non-specialist general readers with an interest in improving their community schools and school systems.

As a professional educator I should have fallen in love with this book, I like the concepts of PLC and incorporate the ideas into the campus that I work for. But, the book is repeative and I got bored with it quickly.

There are good ideas in this book. Many are idealistic, and unrealistic when it comes to the application and implementation to most classrooms across the USA. Some "career climbing" administrators are force feeding a population of teachers who already do many things mentioned in the book...but have adapted to unique school situations. For all those "Top-Down" heavy handed administrators who are mainly concerned with fluffing their resumes, I ask...How come the "wholistic" approaches that were also force fed to teachers in a didn't solve all the problems? I had many a administrator say it would cure all of our educational ills.

I will tell you the biggest problem in Education today, besides funding, are Admins and their brown-noser buddies who have enormus EGOS. Get over yourselves. There is no one way to teach. Teaching is an art form, pure and simple.

Dedicated to Susan Brown...Educational Dictator, Rim School District.

The book came in better condition than I expected...it looked new!(: Being in Hawaii, the book took about a month to get here. I wish I'd known that, so that I could have ordered the book earlier.

As the educational jargon increases and changes, it is important to keep abreast of the latest. This book provided information which I really needed