Teacher Leadership: An Assessment Framework for an Emerging Area of Professional Practice (original) (raw)

Defining Teacher Leadership: Affirming the Teacher Leader Model Standards

Issues in Teacher Education, 2015

Although there is no common definition for teacher leadership, the concept is continually advanced as a key component for both the success of schools and the professionalization of teachers (Boles & Troen, 1994; Dozier, 2007; Greenlee, 2007; Lieberman, 1987; Smith, 1999). Teachers need to be given opportunities to leave the isolation of their classrooms to collaborate with others in order to build leadership capacity (Dozier, 2007). While there are some teachers who view teacher leadership as formal administrative roles, others view it as any opportunity in which teachers contribute to the decision making process (Donaldson & Johnson, 2007). Whichever way it is defined, it is commonly accepted that teacher leadership capacity is underdeveloped in most schools (Greenlee, 2007). The Institute for Educational Leadership (2001) provided a broad and progressive definition. It suggested that teacher leadership is not necessarily about power, but about teachers extending their presence bey...

Teacher Leadership: Concept and Framework

International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development, 2020

Teacher leadership has been widely discussed in terms of its definition, concept, frameworks, and models. Generally, teacher leadership encompasses the concept of power and influence. This paper has focused on four teacher leadership frameworks and models from Katzenmeyer and Moller (2001 & 2009), York-Barr and Duke (2004), Muijs and Harris (2003), and Angelle (2017). A literature review was conducted on teacher leadership definitions and concepts, the frameworks and models were collated, and common aspects were identified. The paper also critically analysed the effectiveness in developing and implementing teacher leadership practices. This paper concludes with further understanding of recognising teachers as leaders throughout the school organisation. This paper aims to provide a reference for school leaders to adapt teacher leadership that is suitable for the schools’ context and capacity.

Issues and Challenges in Teacher Leadership

Malaysian Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities (MJSSH)

Teacher leadership significantly promotes development and efficiency at schools. However, the practice of teacher leadership is slammed with challenges that impact its progression and effective implementation in schools. Therefore, the present study focused on the key terms, problems, and obstacles of teacher leadership based on domestic and international works of literature on teacher leadership practices. The study discussed the notion of teacher leadership before it addressed the challenges in the practice. Hence, the present paper helped school leaders to establish teacher leadership tasks in schools and help researchers to carry out more studies on teacher leadership.

Teacher leadership: toward a new conceptual framework

Journal of Professional Capital and Community

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Teacher Leadership: principles and practice

2002

Effective leadership is widely accepted as being a key constituent in achieving school improvement. The evidence from the international literature demonstrates that effective leaders exercise an indirect but powerful influence on the effectiveness of the school and ...

Surveying the Field of Teacher Leadership: Looking Back

International Journal of Teacher Leadership, 2018

This special issue started as a conversation about what has occurred in teacher leadership since York-Barr and Duke’s (2004) seminal review. We aimed to explore what has been happening, and to identify promising avenues for “what’s next” for teacher leader research and practice. We knew we wanted the special issue to be both a reflection on where we have been and the work that we have done as a community of scholars, as well as a look forward to developing teacher leader roles and responsibilities, ways of being and acting, and potential models for future collaboration among researchers and practitioners. We believe that the articles in this special issue addressing the theme, "Re-visioning teacher leadership for the 21st Century: What's next?" provide engaging insights that will help move forward this question.

The Theoretical and Empirical Basis of Teacher Leadership

Review of Educational Research, 2016

In the current review, we examined teacher leadership research completed since York-Barr and Duke published the seminal review on teacher leadership in 2004. The review was undertaken to examine how teacher leadership is defined, how teacher leaders are prepared, their impact, and those factors that facilitate or inhibit teacher leaders’ work. Beyond this, the review considered theories informing teacher leadership, teacher leadership within disciplinary contexts, and the roles of teacher leaders in social justice and equity issues. The most salient findings were (a) teacher leadership, although rarely defined, focused on roles beyond the classroom, supporting the professional learning of peers, influencing policy/decision making, and ultimately targeting student learning; (b) the research is not always theoretically grounded; (c) principals, school structures, and norms are important in empowering or marginalizing teacher leaders; and (d) very little teacher leadership research exa...

Key Characteristics of Teacher Leaders in Schools

Administrative Issues Journal Education Practice and Research, 2014

Teacher leaders who share their specialized knowledge, expertise, and experience with other teachers broaden and sustain school and classroom improvement efforts. Teacher leaders can transform classrooms into learning laboratories where every student is engaged in relevant and well-designed curricular content, every teacher embraces the use of more effective instructional strategies, and authentic assessments provide evidence of rich student learning. This work describes four essentialities associated with teacher leaders: a focus on student learning, along with the importance of empowerment, relationships, and collaboration. In addition to gleaning insights from the literature, examples of the impact of teacher leaders in schools are provided to demonstrate the importance of each.

An Exploration of Teacher Leadership: Are Future Teachers Ready to Lead?

CEPS Journal, 2023

The teaching profession has become increasingly complex in the last decades. The changing role of teachers has called for a new paradigm of the teaching profession that recognises the potential of teachers to lead for supporting school development and change. The influence teachers have on the school community and their commitment to school change are at the core of teacher leadership definitions. Preparing future teachers to act as leaders in their schools can support the overall efforts for school improvement. Hence, the purpose of this study is to explore pre-service teacher leadership development. The study utilised a qualitative methodology to address: (i) pre-service teachers’ understanding of teacher leadership, (ii) the role of initial teacher education in shaping the understanding of teacher leadership, and (iii) the contribution of initial teacher education to pre-service teachers’ readiness for exercising leadership roles for school improvement. The study was conducted with pre-service teachers in the leading initial teacher education institution in Kosovo. A total of 42 pre-service teachers from all years of the Primary Teacher Education programme participated in four group interviews with the aim of discussing in depth the core elements of teacher leadership in order to better grasp the pre-service teachers’ understanding of this concept as well as their readiness to exercise leadership roles. A model devised by Snoek et al. (2019) was used as an analytical framework to determine the development of teacher leadership in initial teacher education. The study reveals that there is no consensus on the definition of teacher leadership. The findings show that the understanding of teacher leadership is based on a contextually drawn vision of what it means to be a teacher, resulting in a narrow view of leadership with regard to individual and classroom levels. The study concludes that initial teacher education has a critical role in contributing to shifting the conceptualisation of teacher leadership beyond the isolated views of individual and formal leadership. The findings have imperative implications for providing good models of initial teacher education that support the preparation and readiness of future teacher leaders to tackle the ever-increasing complexities of the teaching profession.