Q: “My school has started using professional learning communities (PLCs), but I’m still uncertain how this initiative will help us advance student learning. When will it start to feel like we are building ‘collective efficacy?'”
A: Thank you for your thoughtful question about professional learning communities (PLCs) and that elusive feeling of collective efficacy. Your uncertainty is entirely normal—many educators feel this way when their school embarks on the PLC journey. As a consultant, I’ve spent much of my career working with teacher teams to develop and enhance their impact through the PLC structure. Many teams take time to create a system that truly works for them, but ultimately, all the teams grow to speak the same language and prioritize the same outcomes. Once PLCs are fully functional, they can make a real change in the school community. Let me walk you through what to expect with concrete examples and steps you can take.
Understanding the PLC Timeline
It is always hard to start a new process, especially if you don’t see the end in sight and no example was provided. When you’re in phase one of a new PLC structure (months 1-3), you are still figuring it out. And as time passes and participants gain experience, the impact becomes more evident.
- Months 1-3: The “figuring it out” phase: An example of what this could look like is the fourth-grade team spending their first meetings determining priority standards after reviewing their curriculum together. They’re awkward at first, debating wording and arguing about what is most important. This is normal foundation building. They spend time unpacking the standards and looking at the level of expected rigor to ensure that students have clarity about learning and the team knows what they are trying to accomplish.
- Months 4-6: Early collaboration emerges: In the second phase, routines are established, but still flexible. Teams are moving through the awkward phase and into a deeper understanding of the why and how. Science department members analyze student lab reports together and realize 60% of students struggle with hypothesis formulation. They develop a shared graphic organizer and see improvement in the following assessment. They work as a team to create authentic learning opportunities and adjust together.
- Months 7-12: Collective efficacy sparks: By this third phase, teams know what needs to be done and work together to make adjustments to ensure student growth. For example, an ELA team notices writing scores dipping in persuasive essays. Three teachers develop different intervention strategies, share them, and track which works best — creating their own “playbook.” They want students to be successful, and they want to feel empowered to make the necessary decisions and take essential steps to make changes. This is when real collective efficacy is at play.
Immediate Action Steps to See Impact
Although it can be frustrating to not see immediate impact, you can take steps to ensure that it will be visible:
- Start with student work, not theory: Bring five anonymous student essays to your next meeting. Use a simple protocol: “What patterns do we see? What’s one thing we could all try next week to address the most common issue?” This creates immediate shared purpose.
- Create quick wins together: Develop the environment to create quick, noticeable wins. Say this, “Let’s all try the ‘PEEL paragraph’ structure [point, evidence, explanation, link] for two weeks and compare student writing samples.” The tangible, short-term goal builds confidence.
- Rotate leadership roles: A usually quiet teacher facilitates the data discussion this week. She brings a new perspective that uncovers something the regular facilitator missed, reinforcing that everyone’s voice matters. If these groups are going to be effective, each member needs to feel safe to share ideas, ask questions, and make observations.
The Turning Point: Recognizing Collective Efficacy
You’ll know it’s working when you see:
- The math teacher down the hall stops you to ask, “Hey, that number line strategy you mentioned – could you show me how it works?” (Spontaneous sharing)
- In a meeting, someone says, “Our seventh graders are really struggling with text evidence” instead of “My students can’t cite evidence.” (Language shift)
- Two teachers spontaneously meet during planning to tweak a rubric based on an earlier PLC discussion. (Unprompted collaboration)
Sustaining Momentum with Practices
As this new process begins to gel, it’s important to sustain momentum and continue forward movement. Setbacks will happen, but they should be viewed as a part of the process and used to grow from the new learning of what didn’t work. Here are some things that can be done to continue the growth.
- Celebrate small victories publicly: After your team’s vocabulary strategy shows 15% improvement on the quiz, ask your principal if you can share the results at the next staff meeting. “Team 3’s ‘Word Wall Wednesday’ approach increased student retention – here’s how we did it.”
- Focus on learning: It is harder to offend people when it isn’t personal. Focus on learning and building evidence, not personalities. Instead of “How should we teach photosynthesis?” try “What evidence will show us students understand the process? Look at their diagrams and explanations from last week’s lab.”
- Create artifacts of collective work: Develop a shared Google Doc where everyone adds successful strategies. When new teachers join, they can see exactly what “our team” does for reading interventions. Maintaining a library of standards and co-created formative assessments that align with them can be helpful for building out the work and supporting students with tried and true opportunities for deliberate practice and they save teachers time.
When Will You Feel It?
Based on research and experience, most teams start feeling genuine collective efficacy around months 7-9. The moment often looks like this: Eight months in, your team is analyzing recent writing data. Someone says, “Remember when we thought they’d never master topic sentences? Look at them now.” And you all realize that you created that growth together. That’s the moment the uncertainty transforms into collective confidence.
Remember that each protocol you try, each student work sample you analyze, and each strategy you develop together builds toward that moment. Trust the process.
What small wins would you like to celebrate? When did your PLC aha moment happen? I’d love to hear more.
If you have an issue that you want me to address, please email me at ssackstein@educatorsrising.org or fill out this form. You will be kept anonymous.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Starr Sackstein
Starr Sackstein is the Massachusetts state coordinator for PDK’s Educators Rising program, COO of Mastery Portfolio, an education consultant, instructional coach, and author. She was a high school English and journalism teacher and school district curriculum leader. She is the author of more than 15 educational books, including Hacking Assessment (Times 10, 2015), Making an Impact Outside of the Classroom (Routledge, 2024), and Actionable Assessment (Routledge, 2026).
Visit their website at: https://www.mssackstein.com/
