{"id":223039,"date":"2016-06-20T09:00:44","date_gmt":"2016-06-20T16:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/?p=223039"},"modified":"2022-07-19T05:52:50","modified_gmt":"2022-07-19T12:52:50","slug":"professional-learning-community-groups-in-office-365-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2016\/06\/20\/professional-learning-community-groups-in-office-365-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Professional learning community groups in Office 365 Education"},"content":{"rendered":"
A professional learning community, or PLC, is a group of educators who meet regularly to share expertise and work collaboratively to improve teaching skills and the academic performance of students. Teachers around the world have started using Office 365 Groups to make collaboration within a PLC a lot simpler and more streamlined. PLC groups are typically formed around interest areas (e.g., 9th<\/sup> grade math), grade levels (e.g., 10th<\/sup> grade teachers) or across subjects (e.g., science teachers).<\/p>\n Here are some barriers to engagement with PLCs today that Office 365 Groups is addressing:<\/p>\n As part of our April announcement, we mentioned how we are going to further improve our experience for PLCs. Today, we are excited to announce\u00a0the PLC Groups Preview\u2014tailored to meet the needs of teachers and overcome the above mentioned barriers to engagement today.<\/p>\n The new Office 365 PLC groups include one place to collaborate effectively in a community of practice. Each group comes with a:<\/p>\n PLC groups are also available on all your mobile devices\u2014both Outlook Groups and OneNote have mobile apps. This helps you keep track of your PLC conversations and PLC notebooks, making it easy to share relevant resources with your groups on the go.<\/p>\n Administrators at Omaha Public Schools developed some guidance for their staff on how to do PLCs in their district:<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what Omaha Public Schools staff members have to say about their experience with PLC groups:<\/p>\n \u201cLooking at what Omaha Public Schools\u2019 needs are around professional learning, it was important to build around a platform that was consistent with what our teachers and staff use on a daily basis.\u201d I love the fact that I can create sections, that I can create pages within the sections, and I can upload anything I want, or do a quick snip from a page and throw it in there. Everyone knows the format, so we\u2019re not trying to figure out somebody else\u2019s way of thinking.\u201d<\/em> \u201cUsing our PLC groups, everything is templated out, so you just add to them and it pops up in their Office 365 account and they\u2019re rolling the next day\u2026There\u2019s so much asked of teachers. They can go home at night and say, OK, here\u2019s an activity we did today and it really helped with that comprehension strand, and I want to make sure my teammates get that.\u201d Here is an example of how Office 365 Groups for PLCs integrates Outlook, OneNote and a SharePoint library:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In Outlook on the web, a faculty member chooses the PLC template to create a PLC group.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The PLC group collaborates, shares lesson plans and stores student data all in a shared group<\/em> OneNote<\/em><\/a> notebook.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The PLC group can store PLC reference material in the group’s document library.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n For more information about upcoming improvements to Office 365 Groups for Education, please visit the Office 365 Education Roadmap<\/a>. To enroll in the PLC Groups Preview, please sign up here<\/a> and request to be added to the preview.<\/p>\n \u2014Rohit Kapoor, program manager for the Office 365 Groups team<\/p>\n Q. How do I enable PLC groups for faculty only?<\/strong><\/p>\n A.<\/strong> If Office 365 PLC Groups is disabled in your district, IT admins can use any of the samples found here<\/a> to enable groups for faculty only.<\/p>\n Q. Once enabled in Office 365 Education, who has access to PLC Groups?<\/strong><\/p>\n A.<\/strong> We are still in preview, but once we begin to roll out broadly, all users who have access to the Mail web app in Office 365 (also called as Outlook Web Access or OWA) can create PLC groups in Office 365 similar to other groups.<\/p>\n Q. Is PLC Groups accessible from mobile and Outlook desktop?<\/strong><\/p>\n A.<\/strong> Like other Office 365 groups, PLC groups, once created from Outlook Web Access, automatically show up in Outlook Groups mobile app and Outlook 2016.<\/p>\n Q. Do PLC groups come in multiple languages?<\/strong><\/p>\n A.<\/strong> Language support is no different for PLC groups than for Office 365.\u00a0You can find a\u00a0complete list of languages and markets here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Professional learning community (PLC) groups allow educators to foster collaboration for staff and professional development, enable streamlined communication among technology teams and departments, organize training and classes and much more. The new Office 365 PLC Groups come with a shared inbox, group calendar, document library, OneNote notebook, Planner and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3368823,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","footnotes":""},"content-type":[4032,4034],"product":[4036,4057,4058,4059],"audience":[4087,4081],"tags":[],"coauthors":[4437],"class_list":["post-223039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","content-type-customer-stories","content-type-news","product-microsoft-365","product-onenote","product-outlook","product-planner","audience-education","audience-enterprise"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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A look at how one district implemented PLC groups<\/h3>\n
\n<\/em>\u2014Rob Dickson, executive director of Information Management Services for Omaha Public Schools<\/p>\n
\n\u2014Laura Wray, 4th<\/sup> grade teacher at Wakonda Elementary School<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>\u2014Rebecca Chambers, instructional technology coach<\/p>\nOffice 365 Groups\u2014integrated to support PLCs<\/h3>\n
Additional references<\/h3>\n
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Frequently asked questions<\/h3>\n