PEMBENTUKAN KOMUNITI PEMBELAJARAN PROFESIONAL: KAJIAN TERHADAP SEKOLAH MENENGAH DI MALAYSIA (Creating a Professional Learning Community: A Study of Malaysian Secondary Schools)

Abstract

This study examines the preliminary results of a 3-year research on creating communities of learners. !? provide findings from principals, secondary leaders and teachers at 50 schools in Malaysia. The professional learning community (PLC) questionnaires, developed by Huffman and Hipp (2003) was used to collect data. The results showed that (i) the school can be classified as "high-readiness" in all five dimensions of a PLC's. It is apparent that there was an emergent integration of the five dimensions (shared leadership, shared values and vision, collective learning and application of learning, shared personal practices and a supportive school culture), which is a clear indicator that i) the schools were further developing as professional learning communities, ii) leaderships in the schools was seen to be participatory, accepting input into decision making as well as promoting and nurturing leadership among teachers, and iii) the principals were clearly dominant as learners encouraging and promoting the schools as learning communities.

Keywords: School community of learners; professional learning community questionnaire-shared leadership, shared values and vision, collective learning and application of learning, shared personal practices, supportive school.