Teacher leaders: developing collective responsibility through design-based professional learning

ABSTRACT

Teacher leaders play a significant role in school and system improvement. Teacher leaders who maintain teaching responsibilities while taking on leadership responsibilities outside the classroom require professional learning. A school district worked with university faculty and professional learning facilitators to develop a design-based professional learning program (DBPL) as part of a design-based research study. Two research questions guided the study: (1) In what ways does DBPL support teacher leaders’ efforts in creating the collective collaborative capacity? (2) What is needed for teacher leaders to develop collective collaborative capacity? Teacher leaders (n = 374/500) completed a pre- and post-survey, provided artefacts, contributed to online collaborative conversations, and provided written feedback. Four findings emerged from this study; teacher leaders: 1) increased in leading teacher learning, using resources, understanding school authority goals and leadership expectations, and expanding their professional network; 2) increased in their ability to lead collaboration in their professional learning community; 3) developed trusting relationships within the network of learning leaders; and 4) required a shared or distributed approach at the school level. DBPL empowered teacher leaders to exercise leadership by taking on leadership responsibilities outside of the classroom with a deliberate focus on creating coherence by developing collective responsibility for student success.

KEYWORDS:

• Professional learning
• professional development
• teacher leadership
• collective efficacy

Disclosure statement

There is no conflict of interest in this study. It was approved by the Conjoint Faculties Research Ethics Board, University of Calgary (REB15-2162).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sharon Friesen

Dr. Friesen is a professor in the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary. Her research interests include the ways in which K-12 educational structures, leadership, curriculum, and learning need to be reinvented for a knowledge/learning society. She draws upon the learning sciences to study: (i) innovative pedagogies, (ii) learning environments that promote innovative pedagogies requiring sustained work with powerful ideas, (iii) educational reform and policy, (iv) the ways in which leadership practices and orientations need to change for a learning society, and (v) the pervasiveness of networked digital technologies that open up new ways of knowing, leading, teaching, working and living in the world.

Barbara Brown

Dr. Brown is an Associate Professor and the Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning in the Werklund School of Education. Her research is focused on research-practice partnerships and community engagement with an aim to advance innovations in teaching, learning, and leadership through interdisciplinary designs and online learning in K-12 and higher education contexts. Using methodologies, such as design-based research, action research and case study, her research also includes professional learning networks, professional practice standards, technology-enhanced learning environments, pedagogies and innovations in education.