The 8 Principles

The Principles that turn a collaborative group of siloed teachers into an interconnected learning community

Photo by Suzanne D. Williams on Unsplash

What A Community Does

It was an ordinary Wednesday faculty meeting when I heard, almost in passing, that a teacher in another grade level had been out for nearly a month. A medical emergency. No warning, no handover. And the school's Fountas & Pinnell assessments and writing samples, due that week, hadn't been touched.

No one on her team had stepped in. No one was looking out for the students in that homeroom. Everyone in that grade level was going on about their business, working in their silos, focusing on their kids, their classroom.

I mentioned it to my learning community team. Without much discussion, I made the pitch. “Allie*, we’re newer to the school and don’t know those students. But you do. You taught many of them a few years ago. They trust you. What if we make some changes here in the community and you collect that assessment data to cover their homeroom teacher? If needed, you can send the sub over here to help us, and you step in as their teacher for a few days. The students need it. And the rest of the teachers can see what a community does for each other.”

Allie went.

Assessments got done.

The students barely skipped a beat.

And the ill teacher could heal…at her pace, as she needed to.

To me, that's not a dramatic story. No one got an award for it, and very few in the school even knew about it. But to our team, to an ailing educator, to the administration, it was a powerful one. 

To our team, it was further proof that we work better when working together with students at the core… no matter whose students they are. To the sick teacher, it gave her reprieve from the nagging, lingering stress that school deadlines conjure. Taking the strain off beginning-of-the-year data collection, which is often so important for a student’s next steps, gave her time to heal and return to a successful year. To the administration, it was further proof that the community model is worthy of exploration and experimentation. 

The way our team covered another teacher, in another grade, for almost a whole week, is not what typically happens in elementary schools, where the unspoken rule is: that's not my class, not my problem.

In a learning community, there is not a “not my problem” mentality. When you are part of a learning community, you know what it’s like to think bigger than yourself, so supporting across the school is just an evolution of the same theory. In a learning community model, there is only: what does our community need, and who can step in to support?

What You'd See On Any Ordinary Day

The learning community model is not a framework on a wall. It’s not a mission statement or slogan. And it takes a lot more than saying you are one to be one. On any normal day, the learning community model in action is a teacher stopping a student in the hallway to check in — not a student from their home base, just any student — because they noticed something worth celebrating or supporting. It’s a student asking for help — not from their home base teacher, just the first one they saw in the morning— because all teachers are “my teachers.” It’s a parent looking for their child’s home base teacher and finding you instead to share an important message that they know will get back to the whole team because every teacher is their child’s teacher.

My 8 Principles

Since having time away from the classroom to reflect on the features that truly make learning communities succeed, I’ve landed on 8 Principles. They don’t come from research, though they are backed by it—they come from lived experience, from noticing what set apart a learning community from a merely collaborative, silo-based team.

As I brainstormed, three pillars began to take shape—the same ones that took my own teams from good collaborative silos to fully integrated, interdependent learning communities. They don't work in a fixed order but in concert with one another. Where your team starts depends on where you are, how long you've been together, and how open you are to the model. But all eight need to be present…eventually.

Pillar 1: Belonging & Humanity

No Child Should Be Invisible. Everyone Deserves Belonging. Every Moment Shapes Culture.

As teachers, we believe everyone deserves belonging. If you believe this—really believe it—then no student should ever be invisible. Likewise, each teacher deserves belonging as part of the humanity of the team—not just as a workhorse, but a person with a real life, real challenges, and real stresses outside of school. With those two pieces in place, every small move (in language and action) builds community culture. This pillar is the belief system that unlocks everything else. Without it, the work is just logistics.

Pillar 2: Collaboration & Alignment

Teaching Isn't a Solo Sport. Collaboration Multiplies Impact. Schools Align with Purpose.

By now you've heard me say it: we were never meant to do this alone. Research shows that collaboration multiplies impact, so working solo is a choice that costs students. This pillar is the practice: co-planning, co-teaching, co-assessing, shared ownership, and collective efficacy of every learner. Alignment with purpose is the bonus that comes when the practice takes hold.

Pillar 3: Flexibility & Sustainability

Flexible Mindsets First. Sustainable Change.

If flexible mindsets don't walk into the room, nothing shifts. You know this from your experience in education. Resistance doesn’t lead to change, in education or in students. This is the disposition that makes the learning community model buildable and the pillar that makes it last. Without flexibility, even willing teams drift back to silos—not because they stopped believing, but because old habits are easier. (Read more in “When the Hard Thing Is a Teammate”)

What Happens When One Is Missing

Not all 8 principles will be working in harmony from the start. But if you’re working in the same direction, you’ll see that the principles begin popping up without extra effort. But when the principles aren’t working, though, the whole community absorbs friction. Not just the teaching team, but the students too. 

To understand why one missing piece can derail an otherwise strong team, it helps to borrow a framework from change management: the Lippitt-Knoster Model. It names six elements every successful change needs—vision, consensus, skills, incentives, resources, and an action plan. Take any away, and the outcome isn’t failure exactly. It’s something more specific: confusion, resistance, anxiety, sabotage, frustration, or false starts. Here’s what that looks like when applied to building a learning community—mapped against the same 8 principles you just read about.

The principles you see in each element aren’t random—they come directly from my 8 Principles of a Learning Community. When all six elements are present, all eight are working too!

(A note on Consensus: without it, teams may not always experience outright sabotage. Sometimes it looks like slow, painful frustration instead. Either way, the work stalls.)

What It Looks Like When All 8 Are Present

It is harmonious; I know this for a fact. On an ordinary Wednesday, as you walk through the hallways, you can hear and feel something different. Teachers who know every student, not just the ones on their class list. The learning community model in one grade level starts to build like a crescendo through the school in a "we're all in this together" mentality. Adults who cover for each other (in and out of the grade level), celebrate each other, see all the students as our students, end up competing with no one, and instead champion everyone. Students seen and celebrated everywhere, not just in their homeroom. And when a teacher needs long-term leave, the team absorbs it—because that's what communities do.

Everyone's bucket stays full.

A Caveat

You don't yet have a rubric for how teams use these practically. That work is coming in the toolkit. The teacher who stepped in for a sick colleague didn't consult a rubric. She just knew what the community needed. That's what these principles build toward. For now, the invitation is simple: read through them, pick one your team wants to focus on together, pick one you want to focus on individually. They could be the same. Start there. When all eight are present, you'll know — because someone walking into your community on an ordinary Wednesday will feel it before they understand it.

What Researchers Say

While the 8 Learning Community Principles come from lived experience, they’re echoed in research. Two pieces worth looking at:

Collective Efficacy: Jenni Donohoo, John Hattie, and Rachel Eells

When teams of educators believe they have the ability to make a difference, exciting things can happen in a school.

Teacher Collaboration: A Systematic Review: Katrien Vangrieken, Filip Dochy, Elisabeth Raes, and Eva Kyndt

*names changed to protect anonymity

Note: This post was edited with AI as an assistant to refine structure and readability. My ideas, voice, and words remain intact.