Differentiated Professional Development in a Professional Learning Community

Schools and districts that function as professional learning communities (PLCs) have a keen understanding of the connection between teacher learning and student learning. They know that when teachers acquire new knowledge and successfully transfer that knowledge to their classroom practice, student learning improves. They know that continuous, collaborative, job-embedded learning is the model of professional development that is most likely to achieve that result. But Linda Bowgren and Kathryn Sever maintain that PLCs have generally overlooked one crucial element: differentiation for teacher learners. The authors have seen firsthand that adding differentiation to the mix greatly increases the chances of improving practice, which ultimately sustains the development of the professional learning community.