Professional Learning Communities (PLC)

Today I began a year long "course" on the implementation of professional learning communities at Xavier. I am super excited about the potential for the implementation of the PLC's within our school. Prior to today's half day session, I really had no idea what a PLC even was. I learned basically that it is a collaborative effort on the part of teachers at the school to shift their focus from teaching to learning- learning how to focus on what kids need to know, driven by formative assessment. Basically, they want us to determine an area we want to improve upon, determine what we feel are the basic skills in that area that we want the kids to develop (by collaborating with our colleagues), and then design instruction upon which we can then assess how well the kids learned the skill we wanted them to learn. I am intrigued by this concept (while not a new one, it is a shift in focus). We'll see where this leads us in this coming school year. Do PLC's exist at your school?