As the first part of the LeaFaP project, we conducted an extensive international literature review focusing on the concepts of leading and facilitating Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), with a particular emphasis on inquiry and reflection as essential components for effective professional collaboration. The review provided the theoretical foundation for the project’s subsequent work.

Purpose and Approach

The primary goal of this literature review was to develop a theory- and needs-based conceptual framework for PLC leadership and facilitation, intended to guide educators in fostering effective collaboration within PLCs. To achieve this, we compiled insights from six national reports, each prepared by a partner team and covering a distinct strand of the international discourse: Spanish and Spanish-speaking literature (Spain), Greek literature (Greece), Norwegian literature (Norway), German-speaking literature from Austria, Germany and Switzerland (Austria), the US-American discourse (Cyprus), and English-language research from other European countries such as Finland, the Netherlands, England and Sweden (Germany).

Methodology

Each national report analysed at least seven mostly peer-reviewed articles, focusing primarily on conceptual discussions, with a few providing empirical data or practical implications. The review was guided by a shared set of questions developed collaboratively by the project consortium, addressing the concept and settings of PLCs, inquiry and reflection, the roles of those who support and lead PLCs, and cross-cutting aspects of democracy, heterogeneity and digitality. The findings were then synthesised into a consolidated international report identifying common themes and gaps across the six discourses.

Conclusions and Implications

The review described the PLC concept and its variants, the roles of school leaders and facilitators, and the conditions for successful PLCs. It also identified clear gaps in the existing research – in particular, little detail on what facilitators actually do and how they develop their competencies, and limited understanding of how inquiry and reflection are enacted within PLCs. These gaps directly informed the project’s next steps: the conceptual framework, the learning outcomes, and the activities and training for practice.

The national reports and the consolidated international report are available as PDF downloads in the Outcomes section of our website.

https://www.leafap.eu/outcomes/

As the second part of the LeaFaP project, we conducted focus group and individual interviews with educators and student teachers experienced in leading or facilitating professionally oriented groups. These interviews complemented the literature review with insights from practice and informed the development of the project’s training programme. In the project, a leader is an internal member of the group, while a facilitator is an external person who supports the group from outside.

Purpose and Approach

The interviews gathered qualitative data on the roles, practices, challenges and needs of PLC leaders and facilitators, in order to ground the training programme in the lived experience of educators. They were conducted across Austria, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Norway and Spain and covered three participant groups: 37 facilitators, 27 school and faculty leaders, and 35 student teachers, working across educational levels from pre-primary to university.

Methodology

A shared interview protocol was developed collaboratively by the project team, refined through several rounds of review, translated into the national languages, and adapted to the three participant groups. All focus group and individual interviews were recorded, transcribed and analysed thematically along the topics of the protocol. Participation was voluntary and based on informed consent.

Conclusions and Implications

The interviews confirmed that the competencies required to lead and facilitate PLCs are complex and multifaceted, spanning knowledge, skills and attitudes. Many roles and challenges were shared across both positions, while others depended on the specific role – facilitators drawing on a strong understanding of the PLC itself, leaders on deeper knowledge of the school context and its improvement needs; the report also noted the potential tension when a leader holds a position of authority such as headteacher. Across all groups, the findings clustered into recurring dimensions – relational, collaborative, learning and knowledge-building, reflection and inquiry, communication, and organizational – which directly shaped the project’s conceptual framework, learning outcomes and activities.

The national reports and the consolidated international report are available as PDF downloads in the Outcomes section of our website.

https://www.leafap.eu/outcomes/

Building on the international literature review and the focus group interviews, the consortium developed a conceptual framework for the facilitation of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs). It set out what facilitation actually comprises – the roles, attitudes, competencies and actions expected of a facilitator – and which aspects a facilitator has to consider when working with a group. The framework formed the conceptual basis for the project’s learning outcomes and training materials.

Purpose and Approach

Both the literature and the interviewed groups emphasised that PLCs depend on facilitation, and that the deep inquiry and reflection distinguishing a PLC from ordinary collegial exchange rarely emerge without deliberate support. The framework therefore clarified the term facilitator itself, distinguishing a peer who moderates from within the group, an external expert without personal stake in the issue, and a coordinator who trains and connects facilitators across a network. School leaders were addressed as leaders rather than facilitators, since the project focused on PLCs as single groups within a collegium.
Across all these roles, a common profile of expectations was derived: communication skills that lead to dialogue and mutual understanding, structuring methods for efficient collaboration, inquiry skills and knowledge of how to lead people into reflection, effective evaluation and documentation, and a supportive attitude that leaves autonomy to the professionals.

Methodology

The framework was a conceptual synthesis rather than a study in its own right. It drew on the international literature research, on the international report derived from the focus group interviews in the six partner countries, and on the scientific and practical expertise of the authors, all of whom have facilitated PLCs themselves.
It was organised around five pillars: reflection and learning; inquiry and reflection dimensions and roles; heterogeneity and democracy; contextual factors; and facilitating PLCs online. Two structuring elements carry its practical weight – five dimensions of inquiry that a facilitator can open up within a PLC, complemented by the facilitator’s own self-inquiry, and seven dimensions of roles, functions and responsibilities (relational, collaborative focus, communication, learning and knowledge-building, reflection and inquiry, organisational, online), which were designed explicitly as a basis for the later training.

Conclusions and Implications

The framework placed reflection and inquiry at its centre and argued that neither occurs reliably by itself. Exchange within a group can remain affirming and socialising without ever problematising content and context; facilitators therefore need a precise working understanding of reflection and its quality levels. Inquiry, in turn, has to be owned by the members rather than administered to them, since only involvement in designing and interpreting it makes them autonomous in evaluating their own practice.

Heterogeneity, democratic process, national and structural context, and the specific demands of online settings – from data protection to the technical environment – were identified as further conditions facilitators must actively handle rather than treat as background. Together, these dimensions provided the foundation on which the learning outcomes for facilitator training were specified.

The full conceptual framework is available as a PDF download in the Outcomes section of our website.

https://www.leafap.eu/outcomes/

Drawing together the literature review, the focus group interviews and the conceptual framework, the consortium specified a set of learning outcomes for PLC facilitation. They described the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to promote and support Professional Learning Communities with a focus on inquiry and reflection, and formed the basis for the project’s activities and modular training. The document was published in a second, revised edition.

Purpose and Objectives

The learning outcomes translated the conceptual framework into a concrete competence profile. Rather than describing what facilitation involves in general terms, they defined what a facilitator should know, be able to do, and be committed to – making the framework usable for training design, for self-assessment by facilitators, and for the development of the project’s practical activities.
They were informed by the international literature research covering Austria, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Norway and Spain, by the empirical work with communities of practice, facilitators and leaders in those countries, and by the conceptual framework itself.

Methodology

The outcomes were structured along seven dimensions: relational, communication, collaborative, learning- and knowledge-building, reflection and inquiry, organisational, and digital. Each dimension was divided into two to three subdimensions – with the exception of reflection and inquiry, which carries seven, reflecting its central place in the project’s understanding of a PLC.

Every subdimension was then differentiated into three categories: knowledge, skills, and attitudes. The relational dimension, for instance, covers trust-building, group dynamics and conflict mediation; the reflection and inquiry dimension ranges from understanding inquiry as a process of professional learning, through collecting and interpreting data and providing constructive feedback, to the facilitator’s own self-analysis and Personal Learning Environment. The consortium noted that the subdimensions are not strictly separate categories and that some elements belong to more than one.

Conclusion and Implications

The differentiation into knowledge, skills and attitudes made explicit that facilitation cannot be reduced to technique. Alongside methodological competence, the outcomes formulate dispositions – commitment to ensuring every voice is heard, receptiveness to different perspectives, respect for diverse professional knowledge and beliefs, openness to self-critique – as part of the professional profile.

The weighting of the dimensions is itself a finding: with seven subdimensions, reflection and inquiry accounts for roughly a third of the profile. Equally notable is the inclusion of the facilitator’s own self-reflection as a learning outcome in its own right, and the treatment of digital competence as a distinct dimension rather than an add-on. Together, the seven dimensions provided the structure on which the guideline and the practical PLC activities were subsequently built.

The full set of learning outcomes is available as a PDF download in the Outcomes section of our website.

https://www.leafap.eu/outcomes/

The guideline condensed the project’s theoretical and empirical work into a compact orientation for practice. It covered the core concepts of Professional Learning Communities, the roles and activities of facilitators, and the place of inquiry and reflection in collaborative professional learning. It addressed facilitators in the first instance, but also school leaders, teacher educators and administrators.

Purpose and Approach

The guideline pursued a threefold aim: to give an overview of the key concepts associated with PLC, to describe the activities and roles of facilitators in establishing and sustaining them, and to explain why inquiry and reflection are central to professional learning. Its starting point was the observation that collaboration among educators is widespread but often remains superficial, and that facilitation is a demanding, multifaceted task rather than a matter of goodwill.

Methodology

The document was compiled from the project’s preceding outputs — the international literature review, the international report on facilitators’ experiences and needs, the conceptual framework and the learning outcomes — supplemented by the national reports. It was structured in three parts: the meaning of PLC and the requirements for their operation, including a decalogue of tasks expected of members; the roles of those involved and seven dimensions of facilitating competencies; and the function of inquiry and reflection in building critical awareness and shared knowledge.

Conclusion and Implications

The guideline concluded that the facilitator’s role is temporary by design: facilitators initially structure the process, but scaffold the group towards autonomy in designing inquiry, analysing data and reflecting on it. Feedback organised around reflection questions emerged as their most powerful instrument, with self-analysis of their own role a corresponding expectation. Inquiry and reflection, the guideline stressed, cannot be left implicit — content, direction and support need to be specified, and the cycle from research question to action plan, evaluation and revision made explicit.

The guideline was published in English and in the partner languages. It is available together with the other project outputs at leafap.eu/outcomes.

The project developed a collection of sixteen practical activities for setting up Professional Learning Communities and facilitating inquiry and reflection within them. The activities address facilitators, school leaders, teachers, student teachers and teacher educators alike, and are suitable for PLC at any stage — from a group meeting for the first time to an established community seeking to deepen its work.

Purpose and Approach

The aim was to translate the project’s theoretical and empirical findings into usable resources for professional dialogue, collaborative learning and inquiry-based reflective practice. The collection is organised around the seven dimensions of facilitating competencies identified in the conceptual framework: relational, communication, collaboration, learning and knowledge building, inquiry and reflection, organisational, and digital. Each dimension is represented by one or more activities, with the relational and the inquiry-and-reflection dimensions covered most extensively.

Development and Structure

Each partner institution developed activities for the dimensions it had taken responsibility for. The activities follow a common structure that states the focus, the duration, the prior PLC experience assumed, the goals, a step-by-step description of the process, the dimensions addressed and the intended learning outcomes; the tools required for inquiry, reflection and design are supplied in an appendix to each activity.

The materials were piloted by the partners together with head teachers, teachers, student teachers, school advisors, teacher trainers and university lecturers. Their experiences and feedback were used to revise and finalise the collection.

Conclusions and Implications

The collection demonstrated that facilitating competencies can be addressed through concrete, transferable formats rather than remaining at the level of principle. The activities are designed to be adapted to the specific context of a group and work in face-to-face as well as online and hybrid settings; several address digital collaboration explicitly. They also form the practical basis of the project’s modular training course.

The activities were published in English and in the partner languages and are freely available at leafap.eu/outcomes.

The project’s final output is a self-instructive online training course for leaders and facilitators of Professional Learning Communities. It brings together the conceptual framework, the learning outcomes and the practical activities developed earlier in three modules of four sessions each. The course is available as an accompanying scriptbook and as an online training environment on this website.

Purpose and Approach

The training was designed to make the competencies identified by the project learnable in a structured, self-paced form. It requires no prior role in a PLC, although the tools and tasks gain in value where participants can apply them in an existing community of practice. The three modules address building relationships, collaboration and communication; facilitating learning and knowledge building through inquiry and reflection; and organising collaboration in face-to-face and online settings.

Structure and Format

The modular training closes the arc from the project’s research base to practice: the literature review and focus group findings informed the conceptual framework and learning outcomes, which in turn defined the competencies the modules were built to develop, drawing on the activity collection for their exercises. The modules were trialled in national application events in the partner countries, and the feedback gathered there fed into the final version.

Conclusions and Implications

The modular training closes the arc from the project’s research base to practice: the literature review and focus group findings informed the conceptual framework and learning outcomes, which in turn defined the competencies the modules were built to develop, drawing on the activity collection for their exercises. The modules were trialled in national application events in the partner countries, and the feedback gathered there fed into the final version.

The scriptbook and the online training are available in English and in the partner languages at leafap.eu/outcomes and via the Online Training section of this website.