Whether you're an old hand at professional learning communities (PLC) or just starting out, you know that PLCs don't succeed on their own. They need a supportive environment, an effective structure and process, and a plan for study, sharing, analysis, and action. Here's a book that ensures you provide your PLC all that and more. Drawing from their 20-plus years of research and collaborations with schools of all kinds, the authors explain how to use the Process Learning Circle method to ensure your PLC advances the type of teacher learning that is essential to improving student achievement. Throughout their step-by-step guidance in how to make your PLC the very best it can be, they describe: (1) Laying the groundwork for great professional development; (2) Establishing an environment that ensures your PLC will flourish; (3) Creating and conducting Process Learning Circles; (4) Balancing individual differences and group dynamics; and (5) Adhering to the principles of effective group process. Chapters of this book include: (1) Foundations of Professional Development; (2) Effective Learning Communities; (3) The Process Learning Circle Format; (4) Logistics; (5) Ordered Sharing; (6) Reflective Study; (7) Implications for Practice, Commitment to Action, and Action Research; (8) Regrouping; (9) The Process Leader; (10) Asking the Right Question; (11) Results; (12) Individual Differences; (13) Group Dynamics; (14) Process Principles; and (15) The Path Forward. Appended are: (1) How People Learn; (2) The Field of Listening; (3) The Second Meeting of Spring Valley's PrLC; and (4) Expanding Online. Introduction, references and a study guide and assessment for this book are also included.