Creating a Professional Learning Community

Unit – 13. How to organize Teachers in "Professional Learning Communities"

Team Leader/s - PRP/ Gurumurthy Kasinathan

1. Ms. Marzia Ibrahim
2. Mr. Kotresh
3. Ms. Gunalakshmi. H
4. Mr.Suresh B Mugali

Areas requiring attention of DRT’s (for each unit based on the outcomes )	Activities based on the areas	Duration required for each of the areas
Need for professional learning communities	Reading / Understanding the need for PLC Challenges of teaching teaching is a very complex activity, an art and a science ELT is complex as often, English is not locally available richly for easy acquisition lot to learn and keep learning teacher education system does not fully meet teacher needs pre-service is only a starting step in-service requirements multi-faceted content knowledge English belongs to a language family different from language systems that are common in India pedagogy knowledge Language pedagogy complex and evolving context understanding government system is large and caters to children from marginalized backgrounds, with often limited home support technology knowledge there are significant possibilities for ELT integrating technology teachers may find themselves isolated in their own school contexts learning possibilities from others experiences and wisdom continuous enrichment possible digital technologies enable CPD (virtual forums) connecting and learning creating – publishing – curating and learning
Unit 2 - How to organize a PLC	PLCs of ELTs Identify the cohort (in our case, the English teachers in the district, can be organized in different ways indicated) subjects taught (English) areas of interest to learn (such as inclusive education or gender) in a geography (cluster/block/district) By grades / levels taught (LPS, HP, HS) – can be at a cluster level for LPS and HPS and at a block level for HS. Or a level higher if that seems more apt A second type of PLC can be organized by a ELT with the parents of students in her class (can be by class or section). This PLC can be used for sharing understanding about students and enlisting parents support and partnership in the learning processes.
Unit 3 - Organize interactions	physical meetings if possible (use the cluster level meetings for creating the PLC of ELT) virtual meetings - asynchronous (mailing list / phone community) – create a WhatsApp or Telegram community and name it “District/block ELT PLC”. Designate this as the VPLC virtual meetings - synchronous – conferencing – schedule monthly meetings over a conference platform. Can be even a WA group call or a google meet Community management activities appoint capable person as group admin (respected teacher who can create a sense of fraternity amongst the teachers) developing rules and guidelines for interactions. (DRT to evolve a sample set of such rules) following rules and guidelines backing up of resources etc on a repository conscious role modeling for a 'learner teacher’
Unit 4 - Activities - spontaneous learning	sharing resources accessed or created by you experiences (teaching, co-curricular activities) ideas, academic writings of self and by others seeking answers to your questions/challenges resources created by others learning to use digital technologies for connecting to others in PLC for accessing resources for creating / contextualizing resources for curating and publishing resources (The resources/experiences shared will also pertain to the modules being developed/learnt as a part of this program)
Unit 5 - Courses - planned learning	join courses together and learn as a cohort (ELT courses available as MOOCs on many platforms such as FutureLearn, CourseEra etc). synchronous meetings and resource sharing (as online courses) within the PLC