Teacher leadership enactment in professional learning community contexts: towards a better understanding of the phenomenon

Abstract

Professional learning communities (PLCs) have gained considerable attention in education. However, PLCs are dependent on how group members collectively work and learn towards shared goals on improving teaching and learning. This would require leadership to support meaningful and productive interactions within PLC contexts, and hence, the importance of teacher leaders. In this article, we report on an ethnographic case study involving three PLCs investigating how teacher leadership supports PLC conversations using an intervention framework provided by the research team. The findings showed that teacher leadership has potential in supporting PLC conversations along three dimensions of its construct.

Keywords:

• PLCs
• teacher leadership
• teacher learning

Notes on contributors

Salleh Hairon is Assistant Professor with the Policy and Leadership Studies Academic Group (PLS) at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His teaching and research interests include teacher professional development, professional learning communities, action research and school leadership.

Jonathan Wee Pin Goh is Associate Dean (Research Support) with the Office of Education Research (OER) and Associate Professor with the Policy and Leadership Studies Academic Group (PLS) at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His teaching and research interests include educational marketing, school leadership, student learning approaches, intercultural communication competence, and cross-cultural aspects of service quality perceptions, as well as customer satisfaction and motivation.

Catherine Siew Kheng Chua is Assistant Professor with the Policy and Leadership Studies Academic Group (PLS) at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her teaching and research interests include educational policies, language studies and school leadership.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Educational Research Funding Programme, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University under Grant [OER 14/12 HS].