Building a Professional Learning Community at Work™: A Guide to the First Year, Sep/2009

Winner-2010 National Staff Development Council's Staff Development Book of the Year Award

Bronze Medal Award Winner-ForeWord Reviews 2009 Book of the Year Award

Get a play-by-play guide to implementing PLC concepts. Each chapter begins with a story focused on a particular challenge. A follow-up analysis of the story identifies the good decisions or common mistakes made in relation to that particular scenario. The authors examine the research behind best practice and wrap up each chapter with recommendations and tools you can use in your school.

Discover answers to real-world questions that arise during that critical first year of building a professional learning community. The tools in this book have been tested time and again by real teachers and teams.

1. Get a compelling, accessible narrative to grasp PLC problems and solutions.
2. Read the book cover to cover or select chapters for minilessons.
3. Gain reproducible tools you can use in your own schools.

About The Authors:
William M. Ferriter is a sixth-grade teacher in a professional learning community near Raleigh, North Carolina. A National Board Certified Teacher, Bill has designed professional development courses for educators nationwide. His trainings include how to use blogs, wikis, and podcasts in the classroom; the role of iTunes in teaching and learning; and the power of digital moviemaking. Bill has also developed schoolwide technology rubrics and surveys that identify student and staff digital proficiency at the building level. He is a founding member and senior fellow of the Teacher Leaders Network and has served as teacher in residence at the Center for Teaching Quality.

An advocate for PLCs, improved teacher working conditions, and teacher leadership, Bill has represented educators on Capitol Hill and presented at state and national conferences. He has received the rare honor of being twice-certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, earning his first certification among the first 100 teachers in North Carolina and the first 1,000 in the United States. Bill has been a Regional Teacher of the Year in North Carolina, and his blog, The Tempered Radical, earned Best Teacher Blog of 2008 from Edublogs.

Bill has had articles published in the Journal for Staff Development, Educational Leadership, and Threshold magazine. He earned a bachelor of science and master of science in elementary education from the State University of New York at Geneseo.

Parry Graham, EdD, is a middle school principal in Wake County, North Carolina. He is passionate about school improvement and has worked with numerous schools and districts to turn PLC principles into concrete improvement strategies. A former high school teacher, Dr. Graham has administrative experience at the elementary and middle school levels. He also holds a position as a clinical assistant professor in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he completed his doctorate.