Creating a Coaching Culture for Professional Learning Communities

Researchers agree that launching professional learning community (PLC) teams may be easy, but turning them into productive, sustainable teams that improve adult and student learning is difficult. Creating a Coaching Culture for Professional Learning Communities is designed to help readers build a collaborative coaching culture that ensures all adults learn in a way that keeps the focus on student learning. Each chapter tailors information and exercises to fit the reader s leadership style, the learning styles of team members, and the particular needs of the school to ensure that hard work produces results: improved student learning. Jane Kise and Beth Russell approach collaborative teams through the lens of personality type, which pinpoints how individuals gain energy, take in information, make decisions, and approach work and life. By understanding personality preferences, teams communicate more clearly, avoid group think, balance decision making and problem solving, work toward positive conflict resolution, balance short-term and long-term strategic planning, and achieve both adult and student learning needs. A constructive use of differences goes beyond tolerance. Instead, it focuses on the benefits that diverse perspectives provide. This understanding propels PLC teams toward effectiveness.