Facilitating Teacher Teams and Authentic PLCs: The Human Side of Leading People, Protocols, and Practices, Dec/2017

As professional learning communities become more widespread, educators have learned that they can’t simply form grade-level or subject-area teams and call it a day. To profoundly affect teacher practice and student learning, PLCs need strong and knowledgeable leadership. In Facilitating Teacher Teams and Authentic PLCs, Daniel R. Venables draws on his extensive experience helping schools and districts implement effective professional learning communities (PLCs) to explore this crucial but often-overlooked need. Taking a two-pronged approach to PLC facilitation, Venables offers targeted guidance both for leading the people in teacher teams and for facilitating their work. This practical resource provides 

1. Strategies for facilitating interactions among colleagues in PLCs and building trust and buy-in.
2. Field-tested, user-friendly protocols to focus and deepen team discussions around texts, data, teacher and student work, teacher dilemmas, and collaborative planning time.
3. Tips for anticipating and addressing interpersonal conflicts and obstacles that commonly arise during use of protocols.

Current and prospective PLC facilitators at every grade level will find this book an essential guide to navigating the challenging and rewarding endeavor of leading authentic PLCs. Build your skills, and help your team rise to the next level.

About The Author:

Daniel R. Venables is an education consultant and the founding director of the Center for Authentic PLCs, an organization committed to assisting schools in building, leading, and sustaining authentic PLCs. Through the Center, he developed the Grapple™ Institutes, which have trained hundreds of teacher leaders to become highly effective PLC facilitators. He is the author of How Teachers Can Turn Data into Action (ASCD, 2014) and The Practice of Authentic PLCs: A Guide to Effective Teacher Teams (Corwin, 2011). His experience in education as an award-winning classroom teacher, a speaker and consultant, and a professional development coordinator with the United States' 18th-largest district, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, spans more than 30 years. In 2002 he was awarded South Carolina Independent School Teacher of the Year. He has assisted dozens of rural and urban schools throughout the United States in developing high-functioning teacher teams/PLCs. In 2014, Mr. Venables became a member of the ASCD National Professional Learning Faculty.