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50 Strategies for Activating Your PLC+

30+ videos including "strategies in action"

50 Strategies for Activating Your PLC+ equips educators with the tools and actions needed to foster highly effective professional learning communities.

Full description

Product Details
  • Grade Level: K-12
  • ISBN: 9798348810641
  • Published By: Corwin
  • Year: 2025
  • Page Count: 240
  • Publication date: July 15, 2025
Price: $39.95

Review Copies

This book is not available as a review copy.

Description

50 Strategies for Activating the Full Potential of Your PLC+ Team

Are you maximizing the impact of your professional learning communities? 50 Strategies for Activating Your PLC+ equips educators with the tools and actions needed to foster highly effective PLC+ teams.

Successful PLCs are built on a foundation of strong collaboration, unified purpose, trust, and effective communication. The 50+ strategies in this essential guide address the challenges and possibilities within teacher teams by focusing on the role of activators, group members who work to ensure that all members of the PLC+ contribute to meaningful, solution-driven progress.

Grounded in experience and practical guidance, this resource is designed to make every step of your PLC+ experience impactful. With strategies organized into eight comprehensive sections, the authors provide the frameworks necessary to create an engaged, productive learning culture with:

  • Eight categories of strategies aligned with the five guiding PLC+ questions to support targeted and actionable leadership
  • A practical cross-reference table connecting the strategies to content with additional context and insights to deepen understanding
  • Tools for developing activator skills that enhance facilitation, decision-making, and solution-oriented collaboration within your PLC+ teams
  • Concrete protocols and frameworks for addressing team dynamics, meeting structures, and continuous improvement

From establishing goals to reviewing results, you'll find purposeful actions that drive positive outcomes for educators and students alike. Take the next step in your PLC+ leadership to shape the future of learning in your school.

Author(s)

Douglas Fisher photo

Douglas Fisher

Douglas Fisher is professor and chair of educational leadership at San Diego State University and a teacher leader at Health Sciences High and Middle College. Previously, Doug was an early intervention teacher and elementary school educator. He is a credentialed English teacher and administrator in California. In 2022, he was inducted into the Reading Hall of Fame by the Literacy Research Association. He has published numerous articles on reading and literacy, differentiated instruction, and curriculum design, as well as books such as The Teacher Clarity Playbook 2/e, Your Introduction to PLC+, The Illustrated Guide to Teacher Credibility, Instructional Strategies that Move Learning Forward: 30 Tools that Support Gradual Release of Responsibility, and Welcome to Teaching!


Nancy Frey photo

Nancy Frey

Nancy Frey is a Professor in Educational Leadership at San Diego State and a teacher leader at Health Sciences High and Middle College. She is a credentialed special educator, reading specialist, and administrator in California. She is a member of the International Literacy Association’s Literacy Research Panel. Her published titles include 50 Strategies for Activating Your PLC+, The Illustrated Guide to Visible Learning, Welcome to Teaching Multilingual Learners, Teaching Foundational Skills to Adolescent Readers, and RIGOR Unveiled: A Video-Enhanced Flipbook to Promote Teacher Expertise in Relationship Building, Instruction, Goals, Organization, and Relevance.

James Marshall photo

James Marshall

James Marshall is a professor of educational leadership at San Diego State University where he also leads the Doctorate in Educational Leadership program. A credentialed teacher, he began his career as an informal science educator at the San Diego Zoo. Jim’s passion centers on the design of learning programs that yield predictable results. He has written broadly on needs assessment, learning initiative design, implementation, and program evaluation. His published books include Right From the Start: The Essential Guide to Implementing School Initiatives, Fixing Education Initiatives in Crisis: 24 Go-To Strategies, and RIGOR Unveiled: A Video-Enhanced Flipbook to Promote Teacher Expertise in Relationship Building, Instruction, Goals, Organization, and Relevance.

Table of Contents

Strategy and Usage Overview


Introduction

The Development of Professional Learning Communities

Stepping Into the Activator Role

Activators Make Things Happen

An Overview of This Guide

Your Activation Goal

Your Introduction to PLC+ Content Cross-Reference Table

50 Strategies for Activating Your PLC+


Activating Questions 1–5

1. Activating Question 1: Where are we going?

2. Activating Question 2: Where are we now?

3. Activating Question 3: How do we move learning forward?

4. Activating Question 4: What did we learn today?

5. Activating Question 5: Who benefited and who did not benefit?

Activator Skills and Abilities

6. Activator Skills and Abilities: Activating to Achieve a True Impact on Learning

7. Activator Skills and Abilities: Assessing Your Activator Fitness Level

8. Activator Skills and Abilities: Defining Your Activator Role

9. Activator Skills and Abilities: Developing Successful PLC+ Activators

10. Activator Skills and Abilities: Facilitation Self-Assessment

11. Activator Skills and Abilities: Facilitating With Grace

12. Activator Skills and Abilities: Finding the Key Activator

Continuous Improvement

13. Continuous Improvement: Discussions and Actions

14. Continuous Improvement: Making Course Corrections

15. Continuous Improvement: Taking Priority Practices to Scale

16. Continuous Improvement: Strong Team Structures to Achieve High Function

Function and Impact

17. Function and Impact: Activating Others by Sharing Your PLC+ Success

18. Function and Impact: Applying Evaluative Thinking

19. Function and Impact: Assessing PLC+ Readiness

20. Function and Impact: Assessing Your Current PLC+ Performance

21. Function and Impact: Building Momentum With Early Wins

22. Function and Impact: Evaluating Your PLC+ Progress and Impact

23. Function and Impact: Increasing Impact in PLC+ Teams

24. Function and Impact: Realizing the Optimal Combination of Function and Impact

Meeting Moves

25. Meeting Moves: Coming to Agreement About Professional Learning

26. Meeting Moves: Documentation and Note-Taking

27. Meeting Moves: Effectively Activating When Meetings Become Challenging

28. Meeting Moves: Establishing Norms

29. Meeting Moves: Establishing PLC+ Roles

30. Meeting Moves: Finding Solid Ground in Assessments and Data

31. Meeting Moves: Social Emotional Check-Ins

32. Meeting Moves: Utilizing Authentic Instructional Protocols

Norms of Collaborative Work

33. Norms of Collaborative Work 1: Pausing

34. Norms of Collaborative Work 2: Paraphrasing

35. Norms of Collaborative Work 3: Posing Questions

36. Norms of Collaborative Work 4: Providing Data

37. Norms of Collaborative Work 5: Putting Ideas on the Table

38. Norms of Collaborative Work 6: Paying Attention to Self and Others

39. Norms of Collaborative Work 7: Presuming Positive Intentions

Team Dynamics

40. Team Dynamics: Achieving Team Psychological Safety

41. Team Dynamics: Activating Dialogue When Topics Become Sensitive

42. Team Dynamics: Activating When Team Members Do Not Want to Change

43. Team Dynamics: Analyzing and Describing Team Strengths

44. Team Dynamics: Breaking Barriers, Bringing Team Members Together

45. Team Dynamics: Countering Resistance With Will, Skill, Knowledge, Capacity, and Emotional Support

46. Team Dynamics: From Independent to an Interdependent PLC+

Time Matters

47. Time Matters: Developing an Assessment Calendar

48. Time Matters: Scheduling PLC+ Meetings

49. Time Matters: Setting Aside Time for the PLC+

Reflecting on Your Activation of the PLC+ Journey

50. Metareflection and Intention Setting With the 5Ds

References

Index

Price: $39.95

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