The Interactive Lecture also integrates the habits of mind—a set of dispositions that increase students' capacity for skillful thinking (Costa & Kallick, 2008, 2009).

Turning Knowledge into Practice

Here are three things we know about improving teaching and learning:

1. High-quality instruction leads invariably to higher levels of student achievement. Most educational researchers have concluded that the quality of classroom instruction is the single greatest determinant of student success.
2. High-quality instruction is replicable. There are specific, research-based strategies that are proven to raise student achievement—and that all teachers can master with time and support.
3. Schools that function as effective professional learning communities see "big, often immediate, dividends in student learning and professional morale in virtually any setting" (Schmoker, 2005, p. xii).

In other words, we know that we need to focus on improving instruction, we know which strategies will work, and we know that professional learning communities are key to any such efforts. But knowing these statements to be true doesn't mean that change is easy. In fact, we have worked with thousands of teachers and administrators who have built professional development around research-based strategies and professional learning communities, only to be disappointed by the results. Why? They were focused on the right things. They understood the crucial importance of collegial learning. What they needed was the how. How do we make our professional learning communities work?

The solution we developed with these schools is learning clubs. If you've been struggling to make the professional learning community concept a reality in your school, or if you're just beginning the process of establishing a professional learning community, learning clubs can help. A learning club is a collaborative support structure that makes the process of establishing and sustaining a professional learning community more manageable for teachers, administrators, and schools. A typical learning club consists of four to eight teachers who meet regularly to talk about and refine their instructional practices.

Learning Clubs and Strategic Teacher PLC Guides: Perfect Together

Over the years, we have found that the members of the most successful learning clubs follow a relatively standard set of guidelines to maximize the power of collaborative learning. In response, we designed the Strategic Teacher PLC Guides around these guidelines. The members of successful learning clubs

• Concentrate on instructional techniques proven to make a difference. That's why each Strategic Teacher PLC Guide focuses on a specific strategy backed by both research and classroom practice.
• Learn new strategies interdependently. That's why each Strategic Teacher PLC Guide has been designed for use by a team of teachers. Discussion, group reflection, and group processing activities are all built into its structure.
• Use new strategies in their classrooms. That's why each Strategic Teacher PLC Guide puts such a high premium on classroom application. Teachers plan lessons, implement them in the classroom, and evaluate the results together.
• Bring student work back to their learning clubs. That's why each Strategic Teacher PLC Guide includes one full section dedicated to the analysis of student work.
• Self-assess throughout the process. That's why each Strategic Teacher PLC Guide includes strategy implementation milestones that teachers can use to determine where they are and where they need to go next.

But Where Will We Find the Time?

As the research of Bruce Joyce and Beverly Showers (2002) makes clear, learning a new strategy is never as simple as attending a workshop or reading a chapter in a book. If you expect to implement a new strategy successfully in the classroom, then you'll need to commit at least 10–12 hours of embedded professional development time to master that strategy. Here's how some of the schools we work with address the challenge of time:

• Some schools convert their staff meetings, grade-level meetings, or department meetings into learning club sessions.
• Some schools use a portion of their committed professional development days for learning clubs.
• Some schools create intensive summer sessions for their learning clubs.
• Some schools have made a full commitment to the power of job-embedded learning and set aside regular time for learning clubs to meet on a weekly, biweekly, or monthly basis.

Because each school has unique scheduling demands and professional development resources, Strategic Teacher PLC Guides provide maximum flexibility. This guide, for example, is divided into four separate sections:

• Section 1 serves as an introductory tutorial on the Interactive Lecture. Between Sections 1 and 2, teachers look for opportunities to incorporate memory-enhancing techniques into their instruction.
• Section 2 shows teachers how to plan and implement an Interactive Lecture for their classrooms. Between Sections 2 and 3, teachers implement their lessons in the classroom and work with a critical friend to provide reciprocal feedback on their lessons.
• In Section 3, teachers reflect on how their lessons worked in the classroom. Between Sections 3 and 4, teachers design and implement a new lesson and collect samples of student work.
• Section 4 models a process for analyzing student work and shows teachers how to use this student work to improve instructional decision making.

We recommend that you preview these four sections and develop a schedule that works for all the members of your learning club. As a final note, make sure you photocopy the lesson planning forms before filling them out. You will need more blank forms as you plan future lessons.

Good luck and good learning!