Focus professional learning communities on curriculum

摘要

Grade-level, subject-specific professional learning communities are the vehicle for achieving the promise of high-quality curriculum.Surveys have found that teachers regularly supplement and modify district curricula or use materials that they or their colleagues developed (Kane, Owens, Marinell, Thal, & Staiger, 2016; Opfer, Kaufman, & Thompson, 2016). Professional learning communities have the potential to ensure that those decisions are made carefully and in ways that increase coherence and learning across classrooms within a school. At the same time, they also have the potential to ensure that the best ideas are shared across community members' classrooms rather than confined to a single classroom. In this way, well-structured professional learning communities can help advance equity for all students in a school and, when implemented consistently across all schools, within a school district.