There are two key terms in the title of my speech today. One is teacher leadership, the other is learning outcomes. The learning here means both student learning and teachers’ professional learning.
On the same day exactly three years ago, I talked about how teacher leadership could help build the bilingual curriculum of the school at one staff training. I presented a range of examples that showed how teacher leaders in divisions were engaged in activities of creating and refining bilingual curriculum components for students. The stories I shared included the PYP Coordinator and Kindergarten Year Leaders who laid the foundation of the PYP program of inquiry and units of inquiry, a few leading teachers in the primary and middle school who created the Class of Rose program, the DP Coordinator and a team of subject group leaders who worked on the refinement for the new IBDP programme in the high school, the first group of Heads of House who bravely experimented with the initial design of the House System, and a few teachers who created a range of action research projects in relation to curriculum development.
Three years ago, I didn’t explain too much about the concept of teacher leadership and I only focused on what teacher leaders were about to do for the school. Three years later, now I want to explain more about teacher leadership and bring our attention to what these leaders have achieved for students and their colleagues. Some evidence of achievement is already visible to the community. For example, the IB authorized PYP programme in the kindergarten two years ago, the established and well recognized Class of Rose program now has six classes across two divisions, the IBDP program has just passed the first 5-year review in last September, and the House System has made remarkable impact on students’ lives in the school.
Besides these obvious proofs, the effects of teacher leadership in other parts of the school work need more research any analysis. So, the central question that I want to answer today is how the teacher leadership practices in the school positively impact the learning outcomes of our students and teachers. In learning communities like schools, no one could deny that both students and teachers are learners as teachers learn as practitioners while students learn and grow to be fully developed persons. Therefore, to answer this question, I need to collect data from all corners of the school where academic and life learning of students and professional learning of teachers occur under the influence of many teacher leaders.
I reached out to the administrators of each division and asked them to recommended best example teacher leaders and their stories. I received many inspiring stories that I did not know before. I got familiarized with quite a few excellent teachers who I only briefly knew. With these stories, I now better understand their greater contributions to students and the school. I want to say thanks to all the administrators and academic leaders who provided me with these inspiring stories.
Before I tell the stories, let us prepare our minds by looking at the research on teacher leadership so we will have better eyes when examining what we are about to see. I want to answer the following questions about teacher leadership.
What is teacher leadership?
Why does a school need teacher leadership?
What do teacher leaders do in a school?
How does teacher leadership affect the school?
What is teacher leadership?
It appears that there is no agreed definition of teacher leadership in the literature. A more common understanding of teacher leadership seems to focus on two themes, which are continuing teaching in classroom and extending responsibilities beyond classroom. For example, Danielson (n.d.) defines that “teacher leadership refers to that set of skills demonstrated by teachers who continue to teach students but also have an influence that extends beyond their own classrooms to others within their own school and elsewhere.” Similarly, Wenner and Campbell (2017) define teacher leaders as teachers “who maintain K-12 classroom-based teaching responsibilities, while also taking on leadership responsibilities outside of the classroom” (p. 140). I think this definition fits perfectly for my research and the purpose of the talk today as I have found plenty of this type of teacher leaders in this school.
Why a school needs teacher leadership?
The research over past a few decades reveals a number of possible benefits of teacher leadership practice in schools. Firstly, encouraging teacher leadership practice in a school may enhance teacher participation and engagement beyond their classrooms. Secondly, teacher leadership opportunities provide acknowledgement, opportunities, and rewards for senior teachers. Thirdly, teacher leaders can support professional learning of other teachers in the school. Fourthly, teacher leaders can be involved in policy and decision making in the school. Fifthly, teacher leader practice may help improve student learning outcomes. Sixthly, teacher leaders can play as change agents for school improvement.
What do teacher leaders do in a school?
There are many names for teacher leaders in a school. They could act as coordinator, coach, mentor, specialist, subject group leader, lesson study group leader, year group leader, research project leader, etc. In terms of the actual responsibilities, York-Barr and Duke (2004) summarize seven areas of practices of teacher leadership, including coordination and management, school or district curriculum work, professional development of colleagues, participation in school change and improvement, parent and community involvement, contributions to the profession, preservice teacher education.
How does teacher leadership affect the school?
There are three angles to examine the effects of teacher leadership, including on teacher leaders themselves, on other teachers, and on students. Wenner and Campbell (2017) found four effects on teacher leaders themselves, including feeling stresses and difficulties due to extra responsibilities, changing relationship with peers and administration, increased positive feelings and professional growth, and increased leadership capacity. As you can see, the effects of being a teacher leader may not always be positive. Yet, given right conditions, leadership experience could be very rewarding for the teacher leaders. York-Barr and Duke (2004) reviewed that teacher leaders would have best learning opportunities, grow leadership skills, improve instructional practices, and enjoy higher degree of engagement in school work.
In terms of the effects on other teachers, York-Barr and Duke (2004) found that teacher leaders changed relationships with colleagues and support changing practices in classrooms. Wenner and Campbell (2017) also summarize the effects on colleagues, including feelings of empowerment for all teachers in a school, colleagues receiving relevant instructional and professional support from the teacher leaders, and contribution to the whole school change.
Researchers in the past decades find difficulty to pull direct links between the two dots of teacher leadership and student learning. York-Barr and Duke (2004) only identified a very small number of studies that tried to provide evidence of the impact of teacher leadership on student learning outcomes. No empirical data could prove us that teacher leadership practice directly improves student learning, although there are some anecdotal evidences implying promising results in this regard.
Equipped with all the knowledge and insights from the teacher leadership literature, now let us turn to the stories of those exemplar teacher leaders in this school. Let us see how their stories show us teacher leadership practices can make positive changes to themselves, to their colleagues, and to students. Let us learn from their inspiring stories.
I received more than 20 stories from across the school. I categorize them into five themes according to their leadership practice in the light of the insights from the literature. I realized it is impossible to share all the stories in a short meeting. But I think it is important to let you know these teacher leaders’ names and roles so that you can observe them, chat with them, and learn from them when you have chances to work with them.
Categories of teacher leadership practice, names and roles of teacher leaders
Homeroom teachers who influence students and other teachers’ practice
· 肖敏 Anna Xiao （PYP KG）PreK YGL and HT
· 黄菲儿（小学部）五年级班主任
· 甘俊婷（小学部）三年级班主任和年级组长，
· 蔡婉琴(初中部) 七年级班主任
· 曹婷(初中部) 八年级班主任
Curriculum leaders who lead teachers to continuously develop and refine school curriculum
· Leticia (Tish) Smith (PYP KG) English SGL
· Lily Zhang 张晚秋, Kevin Yu俞旭东, and Helen Huang 黄菲儿 (小学部) 英语教师
· 沈波博士 (K-12) STEAM Coordinator
· Dr. Christelle Herve (HS) Arts SGL
· 各学部申报小组校本课题的教师（余雪、范幼新、许妍、黄守政、刘旭、杨旭静、盛莉、肖敏）
Instructional leaders who deliver good student outcomes and influence other teachers’ practice
· 吴迪(小学部) 三年级语文备课组长
· 山雨(小学部) 四年级语文备课组长
· 李保燃 （小学部）数学教师、探究性课程教研组长
· 曹菁 (初中部) 理综组教研组长
· 陶嵘（初中部）语文组教研组长
· 邵逸珺(艾思坦幼儿园) 带班教师
· Rebecca Herbert (HS) English SGL
Change leaders who are engaged in improving programs and leading other teachers
· High School Heads of House team (Nicholas Inglis, Emmett O’Brien, Rebecca Herbert, Avril Naidoo, Ann Liu)
· Extra-curriculum team (Ann Liu, Chase Wang, Oscar Yu)
· James Dunnill (PS Rose) HT，Program Coordinator
· 张宇（高中部）英语教师、银杏班课程协调员
Teacher mentors who directly provide advice and support to colleagues
· 甘俊婷 （小学部）语文教师、闪耀计划带教老师
· 王庆华（小学部） 数学教师、闪耀计划带教老师
I will briefly explain the five categories alongside a few selected stories in each theme.
1) Homeroom teachers who influence students and other teachers’ practice
Homeroom teachers take a lot of caring and educational responsibilities for the students in their classes. These recommended Homeroom teachers all made great influence on their students. Students in their classes are engaged in homeroom management and learning activities, and the teachers are all well respected by the students and their parents. At the same time, these teacher leaders also share their good practices with other Homeroom teachers in the same grade or division so the effectiveness of others will be all improved. For example, Anna Xiao （肖敏） in PreK demonstrates these qualities. As a homeroom teacher, she not only creates a loving learning environment in her class but also supports parents in helping their kids grow. As a Year Group Leader, she serves as an example and leader for other teachers in the grade. She also coordinates the curriculum development in the grade by involving all Chinese and Expat teachers. Her expertise and leadership practice really improved the level of the PreK teaching and learning in the KG. Another example is Tina Gan (甘俊婷) from the Primary School. She is the Year Group Leader for Grade three. Under her leadership, the teachers in this group are very united, positive, active, and harmonious. She proactively responds to the tasks assigned by the school administration; she also helps other teachers to find solutions to difficult issues in their classes. At the same time, as an excellent Chinese teacher, she mentored another Chinese teacher, coaching her to become a more qualified teacher in the context of the school.
2) Curriculum leaders who lead teachers to continuously develop and refine school curriculum
This school have very diverse curriculum and many components of the curriculum are school based that have to be continuously developed and reviewed by our teachers. For example, the national curriculum needs to be better implemented in our particular school contexts. The international curricula give more flexibility to teachers. As a result, on the one hand, our curriculum leaders and teachers enjoy more freedom in implementing the international curricula such as PYP; on the other hand, more decisions and plannings, in other words more work is left to the hands of the teachers themselves. For example, the PYP English program is completely school based and this places a lot of responsibilities on the shoulder of the new English SGL Leticia (Tish) Smith. She not only demonstrates good teaching abilities by applying varied methods but also works with the 16 expat teachers in the KG to continuously refine the English curriculum. She is openminded to different opinions, creates an open and transparent communication environment in the team, and always tries to find middle ground to move the curriculum development forward.
Dr. Christelle Herve as the high school Arts Subject Group Leader provides world class learning experiences to students. She put tremendous amount of work and personal effort to support Art students each year. She supervised many visual arts students and successful guided them into prestigious Arts universities in the past five years. Under her leadership, the Arts group is growing. More subjects were added and more teachers joined the group. Now we have IB Visual Arts, A-Level Arts and Design, IB Music, and school-based preparation Arts courses in lower grades. Dr. Bob Shen (沈波博士) is the K-12 STEAM Coordinator. He works with STEAM leaders of all divisions in the school. He locates and allocates resources for the team, create professional development opportunities, and leads the team as a role model in STEAM teaching. In the past two years or also, achievements of the STEAM programs are evident. Many students earned awards supervised by STEAM teachers, teachers themselves developed new skills of planning and teaching STEAM units. If you walked to the STEAM corner in the main campus, you would see STEAM curriculum plans of all divisions and many interesting products created by students.
3) Instructional leaders who deliver good student outcomes and influence other teachers’ practice
Good outcomes of student learning are produced through the daily teaching and learning in classrooms. Better instructions in classrooms bring better learning outcomes. When the curriculum changes, teachers need to learn and adapt too. For example, the requirements and teaching methods of the national curriculum are evolving. These new standards need to be learned by our teachers through practice. The outcomes of student learning must improve in both national and international sectors. Teachers’ approaches to teaching and students’ approaches to learning need to be constantly observed, reviewed and refined. These recommended instructional leaders are on their tasks, they often act as subject group leaders or lesson study leaders. For example Wudi (吴迪) in Grade 3 and Shanyu （山雨） in Grade 4 are both lesson study leaders. They not only help students in their classes excel but also support other Chinese teachers to improve. In some cases, a teacher leader could be just an excellent classroom teachers who influence others while being loved by students in the class, for example Kelly Shao (邵逸君) or 嫦娥姐姐 in the A-STEM kindergarten.
There are seven subjects in the middle school Science Subject Group. Its Group Leader Erin Cao（曹菁）demonstrates impressive leadership skills by making people and things in the group move around smoothly. She organizes the teachers to study the new curriculum standards and encourages teachers to explore new teaching methods that facilitate student-centered inquiry-based learning. She coordinates student learning activities and leads teachers to design differentiated homework for students. She also organizes teachers and students to participate in competitions to demonstrate their learning outcomes. Another example is the English Subject Leader Rebecca Herbert of the high school. She uses her expertise in English curriculum and teaching, she supervises and guides the teachers in the group to refine the high school English curriculum and programs. The learning outcomes of students impressively improved in the IBDP global exams last year. And the establishment of English enriched courses for weak students also raise the bar of English learning in the school. English is the foundational skill for international education students to improve their over academic performance. Therefore, the improvement of this group is significant to the high school. It is great to see the English group teachers, under Rebecca’s leadership, work within the group and with the teachers in other groups to continuously purse excellence of teaching and student learning.
Change leaders who are engaged in improving programs and leading other teachers
The world is changing, the Chinese society is changing, and the demand of education in China is also changing accordingly. Given the changing environment, the school also needs to continuously change and improve to meet demand of cultivating talents for the future. In the past three years, the curriculum in our school evolves and improves. The House System in the high school has been integrated in the curriculum, enriched students’ campus lives, and produced many excellent student leaders. This year in particular the Heads of House team made better collaborative plans and created better events for the school. The extra-curriculum team led by Ann Liu (刘益君) and collaborated by Chase Wang （王勇）brought the very first Duke of Edinburgh International Awards to the school. They also enriched extra-curriculum activities and promotes service learning among students. These teacher leaders are leading innovations for the school.
Especially, I would like to present another change leader James Dunnill who was the very first expat homeroom teacher in the primary Rose Program and now acts as the coordinator of the growing program. He has a very clear vision for what this program needs to achieve, he prioritizes tasks to move the program towards the goal. He helps students in his own class make impressive progresses year after year, and he sets standards and expectations for the teachers in the program and hold them accountable. He leads by modeling and coaching as he is also an excellent homeroom teacher who is able show others how to meet the standards. He is the champion of IPC (international primary curriculum) in the school and he shares his expertise and resources with others. In short, he is main drive of improvement behind the primary Rose program.
Teacher mentors who directly provide advice and support to colleagues
Every school has its unique contexts, so every curriculum needs to contextualized and every teaching plan needs to be adjusted according to the uniqueness of the students. Every school has its own culture and tradition, so every new teacher needs to learn how to do things here regardless of their previous experiences. Based on this understanding, every year, the school would assign mentoring tasks to accomplished teacher so that their experience and expertise can be passed to new teachers. The Teacher Professional and Leadership Development Center recommended two outstanding mentors Tina Gan (甘俊婷) and Qinghua Wang (王庆华). One is Chinese teacher, the other is maths teacher. As experienced teachers, they made commitment to coaching new teachers last year. They discussed lesson plans with mentees every week and helped them to complete and improve the plans. The new teachers made the greatest visible progresses in the shortest time owing to their selfish professional support. They use their mentoring records documented how the two mentors helped the new teachers and the footprints of their growth.
After learning all the stories of teacher leaders around you, you might wonder how you could also grow to become leaders like them. You might want to know what the areas for teacher leadership development are?
York-Barr and Duke (2004) identify three development areas for teacher leaders, including continuing to learn about and demonstrate advanced curricular, instructional, and assessment practices; understanding the school culture and how to initiate and support change in school;
developing the knowledge and skills necessary to support the development of colleagues in individual, small group, and large group interactions. That is to say, teacher leaders should not only demonstrate exemplary teaching capabilities but also cultivate growth in other teachers; they not only are able to perform well but also study, understand, and share theories behind their actions; they are not only equipped with knowledge and skills to lead student learning but also develop leadership skills to influence colleagues.
Recently, when I participated in an IB training I came across the rubric for the IBEN (IB Educator Network) capabilities (IB, n.d.). There many IBPYP and IBDP teachers in the school. You must be very familiar with the ATL (approaches to learning) and the five categories of learning skills for students, including Communication, Research, Social, Self-management, and Thinking. IBEN uses the same five categories to design the rubric for educators’ capabilities. Five rating levels are given to each skill, including Leading, Skillful, Capable, Emerging, and Not Evident. I feel the descriptions for the Leading level can be regarded as desired attributes of teacher leaders, especially the teachers in international education.
Communication:
The educator effectively communicates a passion and understanding of the IB mission with a purposeful emphasis on both international-mindedness and the learner profile.
He/she communicates with depth and insight to impact, influence, and inspire.
Research:
The educator effectively employs both information and media literacy to purposefully show depth and insight in their role.
Social:
The educator always demonstrates respect for multiple perspectives with the articulated goal of achieving specific outcomes.
Organization:
The educator is efficiently organized in a way that inspires confidence and thoroughly demonstrates preparedness, management, prioritization, and clarity.
Affective skills:
The educator always demonstrates an engaging, positive, empathetic attitude to include all of the following: wide range of interpersonal skills, integrity, presence, problem solving and agility which builds respect and understanding.
Reflection:
The educator always reflects with depth and insight in a way that demonstrates both personal and situational consideration. Then always exhibits informed decisions, refined practices, and initiative to improve and deepen understanding.
Critical thinking:
The educator effectively demonstrates synthesis of ideas and goes beyond personal experience. He/she also always inspires others to discover new and deeper understanding.
Creative thinking:
The educator effectively encourages and promotes the generation of new ideas and solutions. The educator always takes into account multiple contexts and perspectives.
Transfer:
The educator effectively demonstrates the application of skills, knowledge, and attitudes in new context. The educator always goes beyond personal experience.
In my presentation today, you see there are many teacher leaders in the school. They teach, and they lead. Teacher leadership is not a distant academic concept to us, it is practically taking place around us. The school will have to improve constantly. Existing curriculum needs to be refined, new programs need to be created, traditional teaching methods need to be reviewed, new approaches to teaching need to be explored, and student learning outcomes need to be improved. To lead more meaningful changes for the school, we need more teacher leaders in all aspects of the curriculum, teaching, and learning. Taking these responsibilities beyond their classrooms, the teacher leaders become one important drive for improving themselves, students, other teachers, and the whole school.
Finally, let me share a quote with you, which I also used three years ago.
“The key to creating and sustaining the kind of successful 21st century organization…is leadership—not only at the top of the hierarchy, with a capital L, but also in a more modest sense (l) throughout the enterprise.” (John Kotter, Leading Change)
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