Over the last several decades, NTC has leveraged federal grants to drive innovation, critically examine our work, and stay at the forefront of teacher development.

Today, we are happy to share that one of our most recent Education Innovation and Research (EIR) studies investigating how to deliver high-impact, cost-effective coaching to more teachers through PLCs produced real results with exciting implications for our work and for the field.

Independent researchers found statistically significant positive effects from NTC PLC-based coaching on student achievement.

Some key takeaways:

• Given that PLCs already exist in most schools, PLC-based coaching investments make sense.
• Achieving real impact through PLCs requires strategic vision.
• Structure, culture, focus, and facilitation — that’s the secret to highly effective PLCs.
• PLC-based coaching could be a way to reach more teachers with shorter time commitments.

Read on to learn more and find out how to stay connected with us.

PLC-Based Coaching

Instructional coaching is consistently cited in the research as one of the most effective forms of professional learning, but it can be challenging and costly to offer to teachers at scale. Evidence also shows that teacher job satisfaction, wellbeing, and professional growth hinge on opportunities for collaboration that are often not prioritized in schools.

To provide the highest standard of research-proven teacher support, we designed one of our recent EIR grant studies to investigate our hypothesis that PLCs — when done right — can provide highly effective, collaborative professional learning to more teachers with demonstrated impact on student learning.

Independent evaluation found NTC’s PLC-based coaching for 90+ minutes per month boosts student
achievement up to…

• 2.3 additional months of learning in math
• 3.2 additional months of learning in ELA

Key takeaways: Not another initiative — Optimizing teacher time and talent in PLCs

Given that PLCs already exist in most schools, PLC-based coaching just makes sense.
Most schools have some form of PLCs in place, with time and resources already allocated. That’s a huge plus when you want to make big gains in teacher development — without the need for start-up funding, extra staff, and a huge lift to get a new initiative off the ground.

But achieving real impact through PLCs requires a new vision and potentially a reset.
Having the time and space for PLCs in place is not sufficient. PLCs should be where the real work of teaching gets done, where teachers come together as professionals to learn, grow, and get better faster for real impact on kids. This caliber of quality collaboration doesn’t rely on chemistry or chance. It’s designed and engineered for success.

Structure, culture, focus, and facilitation — that’s the secret to highly effective PLCs.
To deliver on student achievement goals, we helped our partners shift mindsets and reorganize resources to support dynamic instructional teams. This includes:

• getting the right structure, expectations, and operating procedures in place
• building a culture of collaborative coaching
• positioning PLC work for instructional focus and coherence
• training and supporting expert facilitators to get results

Our EIR study findings suggest PLC-based coaching offers more for less.
Previous studies of NTC’s externally validated 1:1 teacher support models (see also this Mathematica Insights Brief) indicated a dosage threshold of 180 minutes of instructional coaching time per month. With expert facilitation, clear focus on instruction, and the right support from leadership, our new study findings suggest that PLCs can be a way to provide quality coaching to more teachers in significantly less time (90 mins/month). This is an important strategy to consider at a time when professional learning budgets may be stretched.

Read the brief.