A CASE STUDY OF A SUCCESSFUL PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITY IMPLEMENTATION IN A TITLE ONE SCHOOL

This qualitative exploratory case study uses phenomenology to conduct an investigation of teacher collaboration and teacher empowerment within a Professional Learning Community (PLC) at a Title 1 elementary school. This study examined the experiences of five elementary and three administrators to learn about their perspectives on teacher collaboration and teacher empowerment at their school with a focus on discovering how administrators empower teachers and support teacher collaboration. The Professional Learning Community Organizer (PLCO) (Appendix A) developed by Hipp and Huffman (2010) is the framework utilized to assist in analyzing the responses from the respondents regarding collaboration and shared leadership in this study. From the responses from the interviews, the researcher identified in each of the five dimensions how the administrators initiated, implemented, and supported teacher collaboration and teacher empowerment at KES. 

The emergent themes identified in this study were consistent with the research related to teacher collaboration and teacher empowerment in a PLC in Chapter 2. The themes include: 1) supportive relationships, 2) collaboration, 3) collective responsibility for all students, and 4) teacher empowerment. From these themes, three assertions were gleaned: 1) Administrators must create a culture of collaboration; 2) Administrators must create an environment that is conducive to supportive, trusting, respectful, and collaborative relationships; and 3) Administrators must create an environment that promotes and encourages shared leadership and teacher empowerment.