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Professional Learning Communities	Event/Articles/website
Professional Learning Communities (PLC's) start with a group of 2-88 teachers who meet regularly as a team to identify essential and valued student learning, develop common formative assessments, analyze current achievement, set achievement goals, share strategies, and then create lessons to improve upon those goals (Schomoker, 2005). PLC's are characterized by the implementation of new lessons, continuous assessment of their results, and then adjustment of their lessons in light of those results. The expectation is that this collaborative effort will produce ongoing improvement with gains of achievement (DuFour, 2005).	3-Levels of Text Professional Learning Communities that Promote Instruction - article

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(2/19/03) National Staff Development Council's Five Year Goal:

All teachers in all schools will have high quality professional learning by 2007.

ISDC's 3 Strategic Goals:

• Goal 1: Advocate a common voice for professional development in the state of Iowa
• Goal 2: Build an understanding of how districts and other organizations involved with professional development can design and support high quality professional learning by applying the NSDC standards
• Goal 3: Use the framework for powerful speaking to transform our conversations about professional learning.

Framework for Powerful Speaking:

1. Be clear about your purpose and what you want.

2. Understand and acknowledge your assumptions.

3. Make observations.

4. State publicly your point of view.

5. Make requests.