Sustainable teacher development: Professional learning communities

"Professional Learning Communities (PLC)" attempts to develop the teacher through a critical, reflective, creative, collaborative and systematic community work. International trends emphasize adult education principles, cooperation and collective success. Although there are new efforts for teacher development in the Turkish education system, there is no systematic approach other than traditional in-service education. Considering the characteristics of the Turkish national education system, teacher development problems, the status of the branch boards and their performance potentials, professional learning communities are thought to be able to ensure professional development for teachers on the basis of branch boards. From this point of view, the aim of this research is to establish two different professional learning communities based on branch boards in two public secondary schools within the boundaries of Efeler district in Aydın, to initiate and maintain the work of these communities, to evaluate the effectiveness of these communities in the process and at the end of the implementation according to the opinions of the community members and school administrators along with the the researcher's observations. One of the communities consists of four science and technology teachers, and the other consists of three science and technology teachers and a vice-principal from the same branch volunteering for research. The study was designed according to the action research model and was conducted in the spring semester of the 2017-2018 academic year between January and June. As part of the practice, seven professional development activities synthesized by the researcher and her supervisor were conducted at the willingness of the community members and ten community meetings were held. The data were obtained through focus group interviews, individual interviews, observations and documents. Content analysis method was used in the analysis of the data. The results reveal that professional learning community practice is an innovative, economical, sustainable, effective and efficient practice and motivates teachers to improve in the course of time. During the activities used in the action plan, a range of problems of the education system discussed and solutions were suggested for those problems. It is determined that the PLC practice improved teachers' individual responsibility, self-awareness, motivation to develop with PLC, leadership, critical thinking about educational issues, internalizing activities and collaborating. At a level of communities, it developed collective responsibility, collective awareness, intergroup communication, group norms, natural cooperation and sharing, and integrating the process. The whole process led to a transformation in teachers. In the light of the research findings, a model proposed to transform the branch boards into the professional learning community in schools. The main features of this model are that the application is based on needs and volunteering. In order to disseminate the practice, training should be given primarily to school principals and leading teachers on PLC, the PLC should be introduced to stakeholders strongly, teachers who will participate in the application should be encouraged with a financial reward (additional course fee), and the teacher's lesson load should be reduced and formal planning and preparation time should be arranged. School principals should take a supportive attitude, set up a common free time and meeting space for the groups, get support from the leading teacher and encourage teachers with a natural intangible reward before establishing PLC. After establishing the community, they should not intervene in but cooperate with teachers for the continuity of PLC. Teachers volunteer for PLC, should identify collaborative activities that will improve themselves and their teaching in line with the needs and expectations, implement these activities within an action plan, provide continuous feedback, reflect their experience, and evaluate the process and take new paths. PLC members can hold various activities for their professional development. "See what I will share" activity could be used in initiating the interaction between the members, "Microteaching time" activity in gaining self-awareness, "How was the film" activity in developing critical thinking, questioning and discussion skills, "what our branch meeting minutes say" avtivity in gaining the collective awareness of the group, "We are preparing a common lesson plan" activity directly in developing in calss activities. "Observing my colleague's lesson" activity for development with the power of feedback, and "How was the book" activity both for developing critical thinking, questioning and discussion skills, and for intellectual development. Key words: Professional learning community, professional development, collaboration.