Professional Learning Communities (PLC) are internationally highly appreciated to serve school development and thus better pupils’ achievement. In a previous ERASMUS+ project (HeadsUP) broad experiences on establishing and developing PLCs of school principals and of teachers were gained and two important perspectives were finally deduced: (1) For real understanding what successful PLC work requires and how it is done effectively it needs to be experienced personally (2) and this experience should be provided early enough to equip teachers with methods of necessary professional development. Thus already student-teachers should become familiar with this method during teacher education at university. Courses on practical issues at university as much as phases of internship/practicum offer the opportunity to anticipate the later jobas much as to practice PLC work and get familiar with its requirements and chances. The consortium consists of a group of experts that are highly experienced in setting up and accompanying PLCs. These partners are also experts on teacher education and bring out university courses and accompany internship/practicum on a regular basis. They aim at bringing the knowledge of effective PLC work into university didactics by experiencing and reflecting on students PLCs. The project is to establish students' PLCs and accompany them to provide the chance for the teacher-students to experience this special form of productive cooperation for learning and professional development. Against the background of different university programs and traditions the project builds up different models of student-teachers' PLCs (SPLC) according to local possibilities: (1) collect experience on long-term SPLCs (a semester or more) and on a short term (a couple of weeks), (2) develop combined PLCs of student- and mentoring-teachers. Furthermore, the consortium includes the perspective (3) how to work with school principals and with university staff on how to foster students’ PLCs and combined PLCs of students and mentoring teachers. The project provides 6 Intellectual Outputs on three levels: (1) Academically required information like a Transnational Report on the status quo of student-teachers’ PLCs and an Evaluation Report on urgently needed results on requirements and benefits of students’ PLCs and the chances and limitations of combined PLCs of students and mentoring teachers. (2) Materials to guide the establishment and facilitation of student-teachers’ or combined PLCs as a Manual. (3) Materials for the practical support of teacher educators who support students’ or combined PLCs like Tool Kits of methods and Modules for Communication. The 5 universities and 1school authority will establish on at least two semesters courses/seminars working with the method of students’ PLC with altogether approximately 120 students (Weingarten, Malagá, Feldkirch, Norway), 2 combined students and mentoring-teachers' PLCs of about 10-12 persons (Cyprus, Sweden) and at least 1group of school leaders (15 persons) reflecting on the chances on establishing and facilitating the two versions of PLCs above at school in the service of school development (Trondheim). The project advances the experience with this often discussed instrument of professionalization and promotes it into early teacher education and university didactics. It also shows the possibilities for full teachers to also benefit from a combinded PLC e.g. to get up-to-date by learning from current scientific knowledge that student-teachers possess. The impact will be on the students getting familiar with PLC work and to unse it early in their education at university and later on for their professionalization on the job. Also, the consortium will provide ideas attendant reflection of school leaders how combinded student and mentoring-PLCs in future can be initiaten more often and contribute to school development. For the (inter)national debate on teacher education the results of the project will be informative and be brought out in practical and scientific publication. Furthermore, the project provides 6 local and 1 international Multiplier Event. This last one will be advertised by an international call of proposal and thus spread the idea and the projects’ results far into the field of education and tertial education in Europe and beyond. Having gotten familiar with PLC work the student teachers will be able to take up this instrument again when they are part of a school’s staff. Also with a wider networking in the matter of PLC for school development the establishment of the instrument in schools and across schools can be expected as much as adjustments in the mainstream of professional development in the school system.
The overarching goal was to contribute to both, the scientific discourse on professionalization and the practical discourse in schools through scientific contributions, online offers, expert discussions, and networking events. In addition, the practical supplementation of university teaching with the potentially innovative PLC methods was another goal. The goals, realized via IOs, were: (1) the consolidated report about students’ collaboration and the knowledge about PLCs in teacher education, in order to elicit the starting point of further development. At that time, there were few activities and findings on S-PLCs in the countries. Therefore, in addition (2) to develop the conception of S-PLCs in line with the respective curricula, teacher training traditions and higher education didactic demands at the participating universities and (3) to implement these with students in the context of teaching close to school practice and school practice phases and (4) to evaluate them in order to be able to enrich the scientific discourse and to be able to gain extended expertise on PLCs. Furthermore, the partners were aware from the previous project HeadsUP that the development of PLCs requires moderating and reflection-stimulating support, which had not been systematically developed then, so that the partners (5) wanted to develop corresponding tools for development support and try them out with the students, revise them and then make them available to other lecturers when they seek to establish S-PLCs in their class oder internship group. In view of the multifaceted networking that all partners maintain in their respective national contexts to the corresponding field of education (5 universities to schools and further education, 1 school supervisory authority to schools and the university), one overarching goal was to take the theoretical-practical linkage that is structurally given via the school internship as a bridge to disseminate the PLC idea further into the school. This was also (6), to be strengthened by developing and testing (in addition to S-PLCs) the new variant of learning-oriented collaboration between student teachers and their mentors (StaM-PLCs). The consistent goal was always (7) to expand one's own scientific and practical expertise as researcher and trainer and to use it also for (8) advisory activities of PLCs at school.
Discourse: Professional learning communities (PLCs) have been practiced, researched and internationally discussed as a learning-oriented method of cooperation for teachers in the service of better teaching and learning. The advantage over other professional development methods is their close connection to (school) practice. Within PLCs, reflexive action is a main characteristic that relates to both, tasks in shared responsibility and learning that actually achieves change in the classroom. To promote PLCs, support the professionalization of educators and thus, promote school development and pupils’ learning in a heterogeneous group is meaningful. Link to a previous project: In a previous project, the international consortium made PLCs fruitful for leadership development (HeadsUP) and worked out that PLCs can also achieve professionalization among school leaders. Also, their PLC experience can ensure the implementation of PLCs of teachers. It seemed profitable to broaden the perspective of PLCs to student teachers during their school internship of several weeks. During that time, they learn from each other, reflect teaching, think of options for action and carry out new teaching experiments. Because of these circumstances, conditions are given to work towards PLCs and to elaborate collaboration according to the special quality characteristics of PLCs. The opportunity for the consortium was to explore whether and how well student teachers learn to work like a PLC and would be willing to pursue the method after having entered school as a teacher. They would be doubly prepared for their profession. Last but not least, it was important to find out to what extent the PLC method, which is characterized by a high quality of collaboration and reflection, can also be successfully implemented since student teachers are no professionals, yet. University development: For the partners of the consortium, who are mostly academics and teach in teacher education and also accompany student teachers during school practice phases, the development of student PLCs (S-PLCs) represented an important exploration to expand the expertise in the field of professionalization and teacher education. The partners also saw the opportunity of an innovation option for higher education didactics, for curriculum development in higher education and to introduce them as a new variant in the scientific discourse as well as in the practice discourse. Guidance: Additionally, the partners wished to provide materials and activities for the support and monitoring of PLCs in university teaching, but also in school practice. With the help of the tools PLCs can be established and their quality be improved. It was assumed that S-PLCs do not act equally autonomously as experienced teachers do. Thus, the advice of lecturers is generally needed. They in turn should be supported by instructions and materials to accompany S-PLCs well. Internationalization: Furthermore, it was of interest to what extent the format could fit in the context of teacher education in different European countries and thus represent a learning method for students that could be discussed internationally. Last but not least, the project funding promised that the consortium could continue its successful international collaboration as well as gain capacity through staff and funding for travel and networking events nationally and internationally.