solved The focus of teacher leadership is on how teachers take
The focus of teacher leadership is on how teachers take on additional responsibilities beyond the classroom to impact instruction and student performance. These responsibilities are defined through standards. The Teacher Leader Model Standards provide seven domains clearly defining these responsibilities. See the module readings, presentations, and Learning Objects page for more information on the standards and the domains.
Use these questions to guide an original response.
Which of the seven domains do you believe is most beneficial in focusing the responsibilities of teacher leaders? Why?
Provide a large-scale example you or another teacher leader at your school took to support any of the seven leadership domains.
Locate a peer post describing a different domain than the one you chose. Explain to the colleague why the domain is not your primary area of focus.
Locate a second peer post describing the same domain you chose (or a domain you would select as the second-most important). Expand on their ideas of why the specific domain is crucial.
POST 1
All seven domains of teacher leadership play important roles in supporting a functional and effective school. However, I believe Domain I: Fostering a collaborative culture to support educator development and student learning is the most beneficial in focusing the responsibilities of teacher leaders. The Teacher Leadership Exploratory Consortium (2011) states that the purpose of this standard is to “promote an environment of collegiality, trust, and respect that focuses on continuous improvement in instruction and student learning†(p. 14), as well as develop collective responsibility in the school. In this domain, the teacher leader utilizes the diverse perspectives from staff to see the issues from more than one angle. Through this collaboration, teachers address issues, make decisions, resolve conflicts, and promote positive changes (Teacher Leadership Exploratory Consortium, 2011). This gives all teachers a say in how the school is managed.
Collaboration between teachers and teacher leaders is vital to maintaining a positive school environment. Studies found when there is little collaboration between staff, teachers often feel hurried and therefore focus on short-term solutions to problems, rather than long-term (DeMatthews, 2014). By contrast, when there is adequate collaboration between staff, teachers are more likely to engage in reflection, share ideas, communicate problems, try new strategies, and advocate for long-term solutions and policy changes (DeMatthews, 2014). In addition, delegating responsibilities across multiple parties takes the weight off of just a select few individuals and allows them to focus on their own classes. Also, collaboration allows the delegation of tasks to those who may specialize in that particular area. This allows for an expert opinion, rather than someone’s best guess.
My district recently implemented ThinC teams as a means of collaboration. Each team is lead by a designated teacher leader. The leader is usually the head of the academic department for that team, however this does not have to be the case, as it is on a volunteer basis. The purpose of these teams is for the departments to collaborate on the best strategies for teaching that subject, discuss curriculum and district/state/national standards changes, budgeting within the department, among other important details. Unfortunately, I am not a part of any of the teams as I am not an actual teacher or a part of any department, and so I do not have much more inside information on these teams and their duties. I had the opportunity to sit in on one of the science department ThinC meetings and was impressed by the delegation of duties and the quality of collaboration that came from it.
References
DeMatthews, D. E. (2014). Principal and teacher collaboration: An exploration of distributed leadership in professional learning communities. International Journal of Educational Leadership and Management, 2(2), 176-206.
Teacher Leadership Exploratory Consortium. (2011). Teacher leader model standards. Carrboro, NC: Author. http://www.teacherleaderstandards.org/downloads/TL…
POST 2
While all of the domains in the Teacher Leader Model Standards are important, the one that I believe is most beneficial is Domain IV Facilitating Improvement in Instruction and Student Learning. Some of the functions that fall under this domain include the collection of data both within the classroom and from the school, supporting the growth of other educators by being a coach or mentor and using best practices that incorporate equity and diversity (National, 2020). Much of this domain focuses on how to improve instruction and student learning by working collaboratively and using different resources (National, 2020). One of the ways that teachers can do this is by sharing their best practices and ways that they are successful in the classroom, which falls under Domain IV. By sharing their stories of success with other teachers, others often look to those leaders for their knowledge and strategies (Cosenza, 2015). This is also a good method to get other teachers to become leaders because when they see teachers sharing their successful ideas they are more likely to reciprocate with sharing (Cosenza, 2015). If a school is looking to improve student learning, this domain would be most beneficial as it is the one that focuses on collaboration and sharing best practices and strategies that are successful.
This year I felt that myself and the other pre-calculus teachers used Domain IV to help improve our teaching. There are four other per-calculus teacher and the five of us have a professional learning community where we analyze data from our common assessments, but this year we decided to also start doing observations of each other to improve our instruction. Two of us teach Honors Pre-Calculus which is generally further along in the curriculum so the other Pre-Calculus teachers would often come into our classroom or to our zoom meetings to see how we approached certain topics. We decided to finish the year with an introduction to limits, which is also the first unit in AP Calculus. The pre-calc teachers have struggled with how to teach this, so they observed my teaching of limits since I have been doing it for many years in my AP Calculus class. I also observed them and learned a few new ideas from them as well. By doing this, I feel that the students who are moving on to AP Calculus next year are better prepared than they have been in the years past. This is a practice that we hope to continue next year so that we can see increased student achievement.
Cosenza, M.N. (2015). Defining teacher leadership: Affirming the teacher leader model standards. Issues in Teacher Education, 24(2), 79-99.
National Education Association. (2020, July). The teacher leader model standards. https://www.nea.org/resource-library/teacher-leade…