Situating teacher inquiry: a micropolitical perspective

Professional learning communities (PLCs) have become a popular strategy in various forms (e.g., data teams, grade-level teams) and with various champions (e.g., district leaders, university researchers, teacher advocates). Although well-implemented PLCs have been shown to distribute leadership, the tension between democratic inquiry processes and the demands of accountability remain understudied. This study asks how teacher inquiry is situated within conflicting school priorities and the impact of competing power structures on PLCs through a case study of a teacher inquiry initiative at 6 urban elementary and middle schools in the US. Data were collected over 3 years of PLC implementation. District officials, principals, reform coaches, and teachers at each setting participated in more than 300 interviews, regular site visits, and annual teacher surveys. The influences of power structures – such as district mandates, accountability pressures, and principal leadership – emerged as strong themes in teacher narratives of what it means to “do” inquiry in their PLCs.     

Towards an understanding of dynamics among teachers,teacher leaders,and administrators in a teacher-led school reform

A substantial amount of professional development and implementation has moved towards teachers and teacher leaders in recent years. Previous works have examined how teachers, teacher leaders, or administrators perceive teacher leadership in school reforms, but few have advanced all three perspectives simultaneously. Drawing upon over 200 interviews, we examine how leadership is distributed and the tensions and dynamics arising among these three groups in a teacher-led school reform. Two main themes emerged from our analysis: minimizing conflicts with teachers was important to teacher leaders, and the distribution of leadership between administrators and teacher leaders changed the status and normative roles of teacher leaders.     

How principals promote and understand teacher development under curriculum reform in China

On-going curriculum reform in China demands that teachers and principals shift their norms of practice to facilitate student learning. Principals are expected to take a more hands-on approach and work more collaboratively with teachers towards curriculum change. This paper presents case studies of how principals in three different schools in Shanghai shaped teacher development activities which built teacher understanding and capacity to meet the requirements of the curriculum reform. The analysis provides insights into how principals proactively promoted teacher development and identifies some of possible gaps in their strategies. Implications are drawn about the relationships between curriculum reform, school leadership and teacher development.     

Teacher beliefs and the mediation of curriculum innovation in Scotland: A socio‐cultural perspective on professional development and change

The purpose of this study was to investigate socio‐cultural factors underpinning curriculum change by examining teacher beliefs in the context of professional development. Scottish teachers in the study were participating in policy implementation based on formative assessment. Teachers were selected who were positive about the formative assessment initiative, so as to examine the inter‐relationships amongst beliefs, policy, and practices when teachers intended to implement curriculum innovation. The aims of the study were to investigate: (a) the nature of teachers’ beliefs about teaching, learning, and the professional development programme; (b) how those beliefs influenced the teachers’ mediation of reform policy in their own classrooms; and (c) points of resonance or tension between teacher’s beliefs and the council’s philosophy towards and management of policy implementation. A qualitative interpretive cross‐case study approach was used with five participant teachers from different secondary subject areas. Results suggested that the unique stance of district administrators to give teachers the opportunity to create their own reform methods, a ‘bottom up’ mode of implementation, appeared to be a significant factor in promoting the reform policy.     

School Leader Appraisal — A Tool to Strengthen School Leaders' Pedagogical Leadership and Skills for Teacher Management?

With increasing school autonomy, often coupled with greater accountability requirements, school leaders are increasingly responsible for new human resource management tasks. Policies to improve the teaching workforce, therefore, cannot do without policies to improve the school leadership profession. Teachers' effectiveness depends, among others, on effective school leaders who shape teachers' working environment and influence their motivations. Furthermore, as recent research indicates, school leaders are the second most important school-level factor affecting, even if mainly indirectly through their influence on teachers, student learning after classroom instruction. Considering the role school leaders play for the effective school-level management of teachers and for teaching and learning through their pedagogical leadership, it is essential that school leaders are adequately prepared and supported for their role. As part of their school reform programmes, more and more countries have been introducing a range of evaluation and assessment policies to improve school, school leadership and teaching practices. The individual appraisal of schools leaders and teachers is a key component of evaluation and assessment policies. This article explores if, and how, individual school leader appraisal can develop school leaders' pedagogical leadership, a key element of which is teacher management. It analyses the policy approaches of several European countries and the extent to which formal frameworks in these countries focus on developing pedagogical leadership. The article concludes with ideas for policy to strengthen appraisal as a tool to improve school leaders' practices and behaviours and their competencies for pedagogical leadership and teacher management.     

The Structure and Substance of Teachers’ Opportunities to Learn about Teacher Evaluation Reform: Promise or Pitfall for Equity?

Despite growing momentum to overhaul teacher evaluation policies and practices, scant research examines how educators at the street level of such reform—principals and teachers—make sense of them, and almost no research examines the implications of current evaluation reforms for equity. This article provides findings based on a study of 14 districts implementing a new teacher evaluation policy in Connecticut. It focuses on how principals shaped teachers’ opportunities to learn about the new policy. We find that the majority of teachers’ opportunities to learn were formal and in whole group or one-on-one formats. We find important differences in the quantity and quality of learning opportunities at the district level, with districts serving greater shares of low-income students, students of color, and English language learners generally offering teachers fewer and lower quality opportunities to learn about the new reform than their counterparts. As such, this article builds on prior research illustrating the potential of new evaluation systems to exacerbate inequities and raises important cautions regarding the extent to which the unprecedented teacher evaluation reforms (currently underway) may exacerbate inequities among school districts.     

Different levels of leadership for learning: investigating differences between teachers individually and collectively using multilevel factor analysis of the 2011-2012 Schools and Staffing Survey

This study investigated the differences between how individual teachers perceive leadership for learning and how teachers collectively perceive leadership for learning, using a large nationally generalizable data-set of 7070 schools from the National Center for Education Statistics 2011–2012 Schools and Staffing Survey. This study used cross-validation multilevel factor analysis to find that individual teachers view leadership for learning as consisting of six factors (school influence, classroom control, collegial climate, student attendance, neighbourhood context, teacher commitment) whereas teachers collectively (e.g. as a faculty) perceive three factors that are non-isomorphic with the individual-level factors (instructional leadership, management, social environment). These results imply that teachers collectively have a functional view of leadership, while individual teachers have views more aligned to specific areas of influence. This article provides the beginning of a theoretical framework for future multilevel educational leadership research into teacher leadership and leadership for learning.     

Effective Professional Development in Science and Mathematics Education: Teachers' and Facilitators' Views

This study compares the views of teachers and professional development facilitators about effective professional development (PD). We analyzed interviews with 72 teacher participants and 23 PD facilitators involved in nine science and mathematics PD projects. The teachers' themes for characterizing effective PD included classroom application, teacher as learner, and teacher networking. Similarly, the PD facilitators discussed effective PD as having classroom application and experiences for teachers as learners. In addition, PD facilitators shared the need to develop collegial relationships with teachers and improve teacher knowledge. These views correspond to some of the standards and recommendations described in policy and research documents on effective PD. Criteria of effective PD in these documents that the participants did not mention included: (1) challenging teachers' content and pedagogical content knowledge with transformative learning experiences, (2) encouraging teacher leadership for sustained support, and (3) focusing on student learning by instructing teachers on how to use student data to inform their teaching practice. Our findings have implications for designing PD that reflects the criteria of standards-based reform.     

Making sense of teacher leadership in early childhood education in China

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to offer a theoretical discussion on teacher leadership in early childhood education (ECE) in Chinese contexts. Since 2010, the Chinese government has initiated a comprehensive education reform in ECE, with strategies for developing teacher leadership and promoting education quality. However, at the school level there is a lack of leadership preparation and development, along with a gap between policy initiative and its implementation. How to narrow this gap between policy and practice in teacher leadership has become a critical issue for ECE in China. This paper suggests that ‘formal role or informal role’ and ‘role or practice’ are important dimensions of teacher leadership in a Chinese, policy-driven context. In this regard, it is worth exploring how teacher leadership is conceptualized and enacted in the process of quality improvement and related contextual factors. In doing so, an agenda could be identified for future research, contributing to theories on the development of teacher leadership in the global discourse.     

School reforms,principal leadership,and teacher resistance: evidence from Korea

Many countries design and implement school change with a focus on the fundamental reconfiguration in the structures of schooling. In this article, we examined the relationship between principal leadership and teacher resistance to school reforms driven by external interveners. For an empirical analysis, we took advantage of extensive data derived from 967 teachers and 32 principals in Korean vocational high schools that are now experiencing school reforms launched by the government. Our results revealed the importance of human aspects of school changes and reforms, in particular, driven by the external intervener. We first showed that a principal's initiative leadership is significantly related to the reduction of teacher resistance to change, in particular on the emotional and behavioural dimensions. Not surprisingly, teachers showed a higher level of resistance when their schools participate in the government-driven reform. Finally, teacher resistance depended upon characteristics of teachers as well as principals. These findings provide some useful policy implications for facilitating successful school reform efforts. Foremost, school reformers are advised to rethink the school change model design in a way of fully capturing human aspects in the reform process.     

Relays and relations: tracking a policy initiative for improving teacher professionalism

This paper offers a new way of exploring some of the complexities inherent in attempts by policy makers and others to promote educational change. The focus of this study is on the current drive in education policy to alter the basis of teacher professionalism through the application of principles of lifelong learning to teachers’ professional development. Drawing upon data from two studies of the Chartered Teacher (CT) initiative in Scotland the paper examines the formation of successive transmission points as material relays of relations during the process of implementing this policy objective. It explores how three key discursive elements of a professional standard for accomplished teaching: collaborative action, critical reflection and enquiry, and teacher leadership, were progressively recontextualised during the introduction of CT status in schools. The findings indicate some of the conceptual and political struggles involved at the critical junctures where policy implementation requires the movement of a discourse from one social context to another. The paper suggests that a discursive analysis of how a centrally mandated initiative is transmitted can help to promote an understanding of the complexities of this process and increase critical awareness of the issues at stake for those involved.     

课程改革、教师赋权增能与教师专业学习共同体——上海市四所小学的个案研究

基于对上海地区四所小学的田野调查,考察教师在“赋权增能”政策条件下,如何处理课程改革中所面临的问题,及其所处教师共同体的影响。研究发现：课程改革给教师造成的压力客观上推进了教师发展和教师专业学习共同体的构建;课程改革在赋权增能的同时赋予教师高度问责,造成教师不愿承担赋权,而教师专业学习共同体以群体分责来支持教师的赋权增能;未来课程改革应当寻求赋权、增能和问责的平衡,并推进教师专业学习共同体的建设,从而支持教师真正成为课程改革的“代理人”。     

Teacher professional leadership in support of teacher professional development

Counteracting perceptions of teaching as a profession with a flat career trajectory may require professional leadership opportunities for experienced teachers that differ substantively from those typically available. This evaluation study investigated the results of a professional development initiative for subject specialist teachers seconded to a leadership role in their curriculum areas. Interview and survey data supported teacher growth in subject expertise and leadership capacity attributed to the opportunities provided by the new teacher-leadership role. The findings of this study indicate expanded leadership roles may further develop experienced professionals while simultaneously supporting teacher knowledge during a period of embedding educational reform.     

The Role of Teacher Leadership in Professional Learning Community (PLC) in International Baccalaureate (IB) Schools: A Social Network Approach

This study aims to illuminate how professional interactions among teachers form different types of teacher leadership in schools, which, in turn, shape different levels of teachers’ involvement in activities related to their professional learning community (PLC). To investigate certain patterns of teachers’ interactions that contribute to the formation of teacher leadership and thereby the development of PLC, two international schools that offer a full continuum of three International Baccalaureate (IB) programs were purposively chosen. The schools have similar numbers of students and are located in two different countries in East Asia. Using a mixed-methods research approach, the patterns of teacher professional interactions were first examined using social network analysis. Next, the degree to which teachers in the case study schools enact practices related to PLCs was assessed and compared through a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) test. Further, based on findings from social network analysis, in-depth semistructured interviews were conducted with selected key participants to understand the linkage between teacher leadership and teachers’ involvement in their PLC in each case school. From the findings, we propose four conceptual types of teacher leadership that explain how teacher leadership shapes different levels of teachers’ engagement in PLC in the two case schools.     

Does principal leadership make a difference in teacher professional learning? A comparative study China and Thailand

This research explored the relationship of principal leadership and teacher professional learning in China and Thailand. The authors tested a conceptual model in which teacher trust and agency were proposed as mediators of the effects of the principal’s learning-centered leadership on teacher professional learning. Common survey measures had been used to collect data from 1259 teachers in 38 schools in mainland China and 1071 teachers in 60 schools in Thailand. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis, multi-group structural equation modelling, and bootstrapping were employed to compare the proposed leadership and teacher learning processes in Chinese and Thai schools. The results confirmed a similar model of strong, statistically significant, ‘mediated effects’ of principal leadership on the professional learning of teachers in the two societies. These findings contribute to our understanding of leadership effects across societies and offer insight into how policymakers and practitioners can support school leadership, teacher development, and educational change.     

Developing Teachers' Leadership Knowledge: Pillars for the “New Reform”

This work describes how teacher education programs can inform teachers' knowledge and practice of leadership. We introduce a leadership typology to illustrate how teachers can lead organizational reform for pedagogical excellence and socially just practices. The model provides teacher educators ways to identify and resolve conflicts generated by imparting innovative pedagogies to teachers who in turn use them in antiquated and inequitable school environments. The model can also be used to develop teachers' professional knowledge of the contexts that mitigate or marginalize their leadership potential. Several examples from current teaching practices in teacher education are used to illustrate how teachers develop leadership knowledge.     

教师培训的理念更新与制度保障——首届“中国教师培训论坛”综述

教师培训的专业化是教师专业发展的基本前提,构建立体联动的学习型组织是教师培训的重要平台,增强主动服务的意识和能力、成为教师的同路人是教师培训机构的发展路向,使教师成为主动的探究者是有效能教师培训的共同信念。在首届中国教师培训论坛中形成了以上的共识。     

The teacher leadership process: Attempting change within embedded systems

This embedded case study examines the leadership practices of eleven teacher leaders in three urban schools to identify how these teacher leaders attempt to change the teaching practice of their colleagues while working as professional learning community leaders and as mentors for new teachers. Using a theoretical framework integrating complex systems theory with Kotter’s (Leading change. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1996) eight steps for leading organizational change, we analyze the work and perspectives of individual teacher leaders, and we examine how teams of teacher leaders and principals function collectively in their efforts to lead instructional change. Our findings have implications for schools seeking to utilize teacher leadership as a reform strategy for authentic instructional improvement.     

Toward an understanding of how teachers change during school reform: Considerations for educational leadership and school improvement

As the concept of distributed leadership and its concomitant organizational structures become more prevalent in schools, studying how teacher capacity can be enhanced and can be used as a catalyst for reform is important. This article documents the nature of how the implementation of a research-validated reform influenced what teachers thought about their own teaching, student achievement, and expectations. A case study approach documented the experiences of elementary school teachers in a high poverty, historically low-performing elementary school as they implemented a researched-validated instructional reform targeting the most at-risk students in the school. The teachers experienced significant professional growth that encompassed self-doubt, resistance, acceptance, and finally advocacy. Implications for the practices that define educational leadership and school improvement are discussed in light of how successful reform can improve teacher capacity.