Teacher Leadership in the Context of the TEA Program

Presenter: Scott Bauer

Norms for Working Together

•Listen to each other with respect and trust

•Be open to new ideas

•Focus on the future

We learn about…

•10% of what we READ

•20% of what we HEAR

•30% of what we SEE

•50% of what we HEAR AND SEE

•70% of what we DISCUSS with others

•80% of what we EXPERIENCE personally

•95% of what we TEACH someone else

What do we mean by “Leadership?”

Transformational Leadership & Change

Two Kinds of change:

•First-order change usually involves making things more efficient; it does not change

“the way we do things around here”

•Second order change involves building a shared vision, changing people’s beliefs about what’s possible; developing trust

Transformational Leadership & Change

SECOND ORDER CHANGE GOES BEYOND FINDING WAYS TO “DO THE SAME THINGS BETTER” – IT

INVOLVES FINDING NEW AND BETTER WAYS TO DO THE THINGS

THAT REALLY MATTER

Transformational Leadership & Change

•Transformational leadership focuses on second-order change

•Helping staff members develop and maintain a collaborative, professional

culture,

•Fostering human resource development, and

•Improving team problem-solving and decision-making

Instructional Leadership:What Teacher Leaders doInstructional leadership focuses on improving teaching and learning. Instructional leaders

impact instruction by:•Establishing goals and expectations,•Providing resources needed to improve instruction,•Planning, coordinating, and evaluating teaching,•Promoting and participating in teacher learning, and•Helping to create a supportive learning environment.

Learning-Oriented Leadership

•Recent studies of effective school leadership focus on the power of transformatioal leaders to promote

learning – specifically, the leader’s role in HELPING TEACHERS LEARN.

•Informational learning = increasing the amount of knowledge a teacher has on a subject

•Transformational learning = learning that helps adults better manage the complexities of their work by

organizing information differently, understanding more deeply, and making sense of unfamiliar experiences

Learning-Oriented Leadership

Research shows that leaders who actively promote transformational learning engage in four mutually –

reinforcing strategies:•Teaming (which encourages exploration of alternative ways of

teaching, dealing with problems, and revisiting goals and objectives);

•Providing leadership roles (which distributes decision-making power and enables teachers to challenge their own capabilities and

examine their understanding and accountability);•Engaging in collegial inquiry (which fosters reflection through

shared dialogue on one’s assumptions, convictions, and values);•Mentoring (which encourages mentor and mentee to broaden their

perspective and deepen their understanding of teaching and learning).

Change Theory 101

Change theorists tend to agree that all change involves three stages:

•An ending, followed by…

•A transitional period (a period of distress and confusion), leading to…

•A new beginning

Some Assumptions about Change

.1“People don’t resist change. They resist being changed” (Lewin, 1947)

.2We are likely to modify our own behavior when we participate in problem analysis and solution and likely to

carry out decisions we helped make (Lewin, 1947).3Those who actually do the work know best, and in the

timeliest fashion, what students need and what will work to meet those needs.

.4Changes that are likely to impact school performance take time; they do not occur overnight

.5Structural change alone seldom impacts organizational performance and achievement. Lasting change affects

organizational culture and changes behavior.

Some Assumptions about Change

.6Effective leadership for change involves a balance between four

factors:•Vision•Sense of reality•Courage to act•Awareness of how change affects

others

Capacity for Change

•People do not grow by having their realities only confirmed. They grow by having them challenged… and being

supported to listen to, rather than defend against, the challenge. –

Kagan & Lahay (1984, p.226)•Four distinct types of capacity issues

affect the likelihood of successfully implementing change:

Capacity for Change

•Economic or financial resources: Do you have the resources needed for the change?

•Human resources: Do organizational members have the skills needed to effectively change?

•Social relationships / trust: Social relationships involve the active connections that exist among people: Do

people in your organization have the trust, mutual understanding, and shared values necessary to make

cooperative action possible?•Leadership: Do leaders understand the change

process, and have the capacity to set direction, develop people, and redesigning the organization to

support change?

Defining “Trust”

“It is difficult to work in a group when you’re omnipotent” (Q. from Star Trek:

The Next Generation)•Recent work on educational change

has confirmed that the foundation of organizational improvement is trust,

largely because improvement processes are so dependent on

collaborative and collegial action

Defining “Trust”

In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey suggests that trust is relational and is built over time – you don’t trust everyone the same amount, but

instead as you interact with them, you come to trust them (or distrust them!). To get a grasp on this, Covey

suggests that you imagine that you have a “trust account” with each person with whom you interact, an “emotional bank account” that represents the balance

of trust you have built over time. Deposits in the emotional bank account include the following:

Defining “Trust”

•Understanding the individual

•Attending to the little things

•Keeping commitments•Clarifying expectations.•Showing personal

integrity•Apologizing sincerely

when you make a withdrawal

Building Trust

•Trust is typically concerned with the connections among people – your network,

your community

•Emerging research on leadership for school improvement demonstrates that relational

trust operates as a key resource for improvement, and that one important

consequence of transformational leadership is building trust

Building Trust

•Trust is “relational” in that it is a result of each and every interpersonal

exchange you have with another person. Each individual you encounter

may have a different level of trust in you based on his/her past encounters

with you

Four dimensions of leadership operate interdependently to foster trust •Respect: recognizing the important role each

individual plays in promoting success in our organization, and mutual dependencies that exist

among these various stakeholders•Competence: effective and efficient execution of an

individual’s formal leadership responsibilities•Personal regard for others: caring about others;

reducing their sense of vulnerability and/or taking steps to promote their efficacy

•Integrity: consistency between what you say and what you do

Field work: Building your action plan

•My goal is to (purpose)–Help make the English department of my school more

dynamic•By… (action)

–Implementing an action plan to create a learning community•Because… (reason to reach goal)

–By sharing new methodologies, strategies and successful experiences, every teacher will have better results in their

classes•I’ll know I’m successful when… (indicators)

–The learning community in my school starts to show new implementations in the classrooms because of professional

growth produced by the exchange of teachers•I’ll need to work with…(people)

–My coordinators and the whole English department