About This Book

to inquire and be creative in their learning opportunities through their own agency. Around the world, and increasingly within the United States and Canada, schools and districts are adopting the IB PYP as a progressive framework that can provide additional structure and agency to support an HRS, resulting in highly effective, learning-progressive outcomes for students (Stuart et al., 2018).

Eaker and Marzano (2020) outline how the HRS model and the PLC process work hand in hand. In the same way, this book details how the PYP framework and the PLC process are also complementary and work together as tools schools can use to become highly effective, learning-progressive schools.

A highly effective school adheres to the tenets of a PLC and commits to ensuring all students learn at high levels (Stuart et al., 2018). PLCs have systems and structures in place and the mindset necessary for students to succeed in acquiring the knowledge, skills, concepts, and dispositions necessary to thrive in the everchanging world. In addition, those structures provide students with agency over their own learning, allowing them to personalize their learning and achieve higher levels of learning.

This book articulates a clear and compelling case for using the PLC process within the construct of the IB PYP. The contributors to this anthology are elementary school practitioners who have successfully merged the PLC process with the PYP framework. Here, they present the major tenets and intersections between the PLC process, personalized learning, and the PYP. This book explores some of the common themes and challenges facing globally minded, often high-performing schools and how the PLC process can help create a learning-focused culture so schools can ensure all students learn and engage at the highest levels. This book will serve as a valuable resource for any school that has adopted the IB PYP and is looking to optimize student learning through a collaborative team model, and for any PLC wishing to adopt the IB PYP.

In chapter 1, “PLC at Work in High-Performing Schools,” Timothy S. Stuart provides an overview of the PLC process to give insight into contextualizing PLCs and personalized learning within the IB PYP and how the PLC process and IB PYP combine to create highly effective and learning-progressive schools where all students learn at high levels.