- North Tier
- Teacher Leadership – Champions of Innovation
- Summer 2022
Overview
Teacher Leadership – Champions of Innovation is a course offered by North Tier. The course is described as
Are you leadership material? Come take the time to expand your understanding and self-awareness as a professional change agent in your school or division. In this engaging course you will find opportunities to examine school culture and develop an action plan for innovation. Renew yourself through getting to know the standards for teacher leaders, the use of Professional Learning Plans, and research best practices on cultivating a climate of “continuous improvement” among and between colleagues and students.
https://sites.google.com/northtier.org/northtier/member-catalog
Should You Take It?
Yes
Three Notes
Disclaimer: Your notes would be different from mine. This is not meant to summarize the class. This is a reminder to myself about what, at the moment, I felt was most impactful. If I took the course again in a year, I would have different reactions.
Three ideas are rumbling around my brain.
- Standards for Professional Development
- Creating Coherence
- Working with Allies
Standards for Professional Development
The class introduced Learning Forward, an association for Professional Learning. Their goal is
Learning Forward shows you how to plan, implement, and measure high-quality professional learning so you and your team can achieve success with your system, your school, and your students.
https://learningforward.org/
They have a book on their standards, but for some reason, I can’t get their online store to work. So, until then, I really appreciate this quick reference guide is has an overview. Learning Forward‘s website also has good resources.
I liked the standards as a way to think through the new professional development I am working on. This summer I have been planning my version of our daily news show and going through these standards helped me see some blind spots in my plan.
As an example, I totally ignored thinking about Data. The standard around data says.
Professional learning that increases educator effectiveness and results for all students uses a variety of sources and types of student, educator, and system data to plan, assess, and evaluate professional learning.
https://www.dpi.nc.gov/media/58/open
I had not thought about gathering data around the news show. I’ve never even heard of someone gathering data (other than viewership) around the news. So I have a plan for a monthly check-in with students and teachers to see if it is meeting their needs.
Creating Coherence
Coherence-making was described as
Creating coherence – One of the greatest challenges school leaders face is the presence of too many disconnected programs and priorities including individual interests as well as district, state, and federal initiatives.
Teacher Leadership and School Improvement: A Case Study of Teachers Participating in the Teacher Leadership Network with a Regional Education Service Center, Lee Rutledge (2009)
Coherence-making is not only making sure programs connect to individual, district, state, and federal initiatives, but building a depth of knowledge about the work. But, at this moment in my News Show Reboot, I am focusing on the first part. How does this initiative interact with the ecosystem of other initiatives?
Working with Allies
In doing the work of teacher leadership you need to create allies. Who is aligned with the work you are doing. Administrators are one person. Other Teachers. You also might need allies outside of your building. I feel for the news show I want to start reaching out to other elementary school people doing a pre-recorded news show. Our structure and formats might be different (I liked this, though the style I am going for is way different) but having a group of people to think through this work will be important.
Notes For Kevin 