The Existence of Schools as Professional Learning Community (PLC)

摘要

The main objective of this research was to depict school as professional learning community (PLC) as a way of continuous professional development (CPD). In this research, case study is used with 4 stages namely: (1) pre-field; (2) field work; (3) data analysis, and (4) evaluation and reporting. The findings of this research indicated that the elements of PLC construction covered commitment, responsibility, usefulness, collaboration collegial, as well as school culture and climate. In school, PLC is formed as a parallel group of teachers dealing with formal and informal forms of activities, having coordinators, focusing themes on improving the quality of teaching-learning services, teacher participation, and internal and external sources. The impacts of PLC on teachers included increasing self-reflection and self-renewal capacities, understanding characteristics, developing potentials, and improving the quality of teaching-learning services. Meanwhile, the role of the principal in this PLC was not only as an instructional leader but also as a motivator and a facilitator. The conclusion of this research states that PLC was able to promote CPD which led to the improvement of teaching-learning service quality. Furthermore, this research suggested a reinforcement of PLC characteristics; a need of schools to be PLCs; an improvement of teacher qualified and teaching-learning service; required integration and synergy of internal and external school resources; providing understanding to the teacher by school principal, the development of school's structural and cultural conditions, establishment of cooperation with various parties, and local governments willingness to take a big role in teacher development.