Part of your adventure in becoming a professional learning community (PLC) is the opportunity to use a variety of protocols. You'll find them an ideal vehicle for holding the professional conversations that need to occur in PLCs—conversations that will lead to increased student achievement and motivation. You'll be delighted to discover that the protocols themselves serve as a kind of cofacilitator (along with you) for these professional conversations. They will animate your professional learning community.

A few descriptors will help you get started on your adventure. Protocols are

• Processes that help groups achieve deep understanding through dialogue.
• Structures for groups that allow them to explore ideas deeply through student work, artifacts of educator practice, texts relating to education, or problems and issues that surface during the day-to-day lives of educators.
• Guidelines for conversation based on norms that everyone agrees upon in order to make the dialogue safe and effective.
• A facilitated set of steps which everyone understands and has agreed to that permits a kind of conversation that people don't usually have when they discuss things.
• A constructivist approach to discussion that allows for deep development of ideas as certain people talk while others listen and then the talkers listen and the listeners talk, with each round characterized by reflection and exploration.
• A way for educators to build collaborative communities, sometimes called critical friends groups (CFGs) or professional learning communities (PLCs).

Protocols help educators achieve trust and create a culture that is essential for collaborative work on issues of substance. You can't wait until the culture is "perfect" to engage in protocols; it is through their use that the culture will develop and trust will emerge. The structure and norms, such as warm and cool feedback, of the protocols, combined with actions that are in accordance with the assumptions that undergird protocols, lead to a collaborative culture willing to engage in substantive dialogue.

As with PLCs, you begin to engage in protocols with people who are most ready to take the journey with you. Your fellow travelers are the early adopters, the scouts in the adventure—they'll want to answer your invitation to the journey with a hearty "yes!" Let the word spread—share at faculty, department, and grade-level meetings what you are learning through the protocols. Model at meetings. Create a blog. Send out e-mails. Issue direct invitations.

As you think about your journey toward becoming a PLC that uses protocols, you'll want to consider logistics:

• Protocols can be done by as few as 3–4 people or as many as 30–40. A group of about 6–8 is ideal to ensure a diversity of ideas and sufficient air time for all participants. Alternatively, a group of 3 can engage in the Triad Protocol, where each participant is a presenter, discussant, and observer in turn. A large number of participants can be handled through protocols such as the Vertical Slice, or by arranging for several concurrent protocols.
• Some protocols can be accomplished in as little as 20–30 minutes; others require as much as half a day. Steps may be shortened or lengthened to fit desired time periods, but all of the steps must be included in a protocol for it to be effective.
• Protocols are suitable for both mixed and job-alike groups. Administrators can engage in their own protocols or join mixed-group protocols as equals. Some protocols are enriched by the presence of students or community members.
• Protocols work best when the same group meets regularly, with everyone expecting to be a presenter at some point. However, don't overlook the opportunities for impromptu protocol groups—great insights can occur when people who don't usually work together engage in a deep discussion of problems, ideas, and issues through examining student work and educator practice.
• Protocols can be varied. PLCs can use the Tuning Protocol to examine student work for a semester, then the Success Analysis Protocol to look at educator practice for a while, and then the SWOT Protocol to review a plan for PLCs for the next year.
• Protocols endure past the time they are engaged in as PLC members ask each other questions (e.g., "How are you doing in terms of addressing the issue brought up through the Probing Protocol we used on Tuesday?").
• At first, protocols need to be facilitated, either by an outside facilitator or by one from within the group who can also, with knowledge of the group, choose to be a regular participant. As groups mature in their use of protocols, group members can divvy up the facilitating responsibilities and enjoy being participants as well.

You have in protocols the vehicle for great work in PLCs—the covered wagon that will carry you across the plains, the ship that seeks new lands, the rocket that explores galaxies far away. Enjoy!