The time of exclusive top-down leadership is over! Only teachers can transform education from inside the classroom, and this book defines best practices of collaborative teacher leadership. Specific techniques, supporting research, expert insight, and real classroom stories illustrate how to work together for student learning, create a guaranteed and viable curriculum, and use data to inform instruction.
Get the fuel you need to drive collaborative leadership in your school! What type of leadership do you practice? Many of us rely on transformational and instructional leadership. But there are advantages in applying a holistic angle including all stakeholders—an approach known as collaborative leadership. Peter DeWitt unpacks six factors framed through John Hattie’s research while painting a powerful scheme: meet stakeholders where they are, motivate stakeholders to strive for improvement, model how to do it. The blueprint will inspire you to: Transform your leadership practice Identify where you can make changes Build and empower your team Incorporate all stakeholders into the conversation
Teacher leadership is not easy but it is an essential component of today's accountability driven schools. Teacher leaders can be formal or informal leaders, but their goal remains the same--maximizing student learning and improving the school culture. And who better to teach us about the obstacles, challenges, and victories of teacher leadership than teachers themselves? Krovetz and Arriaza place teachers' voices and stories at the center of this book, using these moving narratives to illustrate the key concepts of teacher leadership. The book is organized around the habits of mind of inquiry, equity, and advocacy as a means of developing effective teacher leaders. Further, the authors include information on how teacher leaders can document and sustain their growth as teacher leaders. Based on the authors' work with hundreds of teacher leaders, this essential guide is ideal for school leaders and leadership teams.
This book takes the idea of distributing leadership in schools to a new level of understanding and practice. The authors address the complexities of leadership by putting forward two essential propositions. The first is the need to understand leadership as the outcome both of people’s intentions and the complex flow of interactions in the daily life of schools. The second is the need to integrate values of social justice and democracy into our understanding of leadership. Building on this insight, the authors show how leadership can be truly collaborative. The book also combines practice, theory and research and draws on the authors’ international experience. This book is an invaluable resource for reflection and change for everyone who contributes to and studies leadership – senior leaders, teachers, support staff, students and researchers.
"Hank Rubin has fashioned a new and needed vision for collaborative leadership that can work anywhere—especially in schools. Rubin properly argues that public school success is not a top-down enterprise; it is a collaborative one. He reminds us that well-managed relationships and intentional collaboration are essential skills for all school leaders, from those teaching in classrooms to those running state agencies. This is a must-read for teachers and other champions of school policies and practices that support the success of every student." —John Wilson, Executive Director National Education Association "Hank Rubin translates complex, contextually driven processes into digestible bites. The text is compelling, refreshing, and a joy to read." —Chris Ferguson, Program Associate Southwest Educational Development Laboratory "Rubin′s book provides an eloquent and practical articulation of collaborative leadership and its potential to improve the partnership of communities and public schools." —Wendy Caszatt-Allen, Teacher and Author Mid-Prairie Middle School, Kalona, IA Build successful collaborative relationships in your school—and watch resources for student achievement soar! Written to inspire and support educators in becoming transformative, collaborative leaders, this updated edition of a best-selling resource demonstrates how educators can use collaboration skills to help shape school culture and build and maintain strong schoolwide relationships that contribute meaningfully to students′ learning. Visionary Hank Rubin provides a broad overview of collaboration in education and lays the foundation for working with colleagues, establishing strong partnerships, and cooperating with students to achieve goals. Updated with the latest research and filled with practical examples, this resource examines 14 phases of collaboration and helps educators: Understand the knowledge, skills, and personal characteristics necessary to foster successful collaboration Nurture relationships between students and the institutions and individuals associated with learning Build collaborative community relationships that support an instructional agenda Incorporate the study of collaboration and related reflective activities into leadership practice By applying these vital principles of collaboration to their work, educators will discover what a school of collaborative excellence is capable of achieving!
While most educators believe working in teams is valuable, not all team efforts lead to instructional improvement. Through richly detailed case studies The Power of Teacher Teams demonstrates how schools can transform their teams into more effective learning communities that foster teacher leadership. The benefits of successful teacher teams include: improved performance for both teachers and students; meaningful professional development; group adoption of a new curriculum; shared insights into student work; better classroom management; support for new teachers; new roles for teacher leaders; and opportuniteis for mentor support.School leaders will find guidelines, methods, and concrete steps for building and sustaining effective teacher teams. Also included is a DVD with video case studies and one CD with reproducibles. The most important reason for building teacher teams is to enhance student learning through improved instruction, and that story is at the heart of this book.
What if you had a collaborative process of looking at student data that could pinpoint student gaps in learning and suggest effective strategies to close those gaps? What if you knew not only what you should start doing to enhance student learning, but also what you should stop doing because it hasn't given you the hoped-for results? Enter Achievement Teams. This is not another program that's here today and gone tomorrow; it's a timeless approach that any school or district can replicate that focuses on the most significant variable in student achievement: teaching. In Achievement Teams, Steve Ventura and Michelle Ventura offer a framework based on John Hattie's Visible Learning research that makes teacher collaboration more efficient, rigorous, satisfying, and effective. Think of it as a systematic treasure hunt for best practices using real data on your students. The authors walk you through the Achievement Teams four-step meeting protocol: * In Step 1, teams focus on the evidence from a pre-assessment to provide specific feedback to students and teachers about concepts and skills that students did and did not learn. * In Step 2, teams use that evidence to establish SMART goals for both teachers and students. * In Step 3, teams summarize the collected data and make inferences around students' mastery levels. * In Step 4, teachers select high-impact strategies directly targeted to student needs. A post-assessment reveals what did and didn't work. The authors provide a plethora of resources along the way, including reflection activities to extend your thinking and a variety of helpful downloadable templates designed to facilitate the work. If you're a teacher or leader who is interested in maximizing student achievement, this book is for you.
Not just another book on leadership teams For school teams to succeed, they need leadership, independence, meaningful collaboration, and a shared conviction that they have real power to enact actual change. Educators know this, but they often lack an inquiry process that creates a community of learning leaders that is capable of deep collective impact on student learning and wellbeing. In this research-based, hands-on guidebook, school leadership coach Peter DeWitt introduces eight key drivers to integrating teacher and leader efficacy (mindset, well-being, context beliefs, working conditions, professional learning, organizational commitment, skills, and confidence) and harnesses it with a process to help you focus on the nuances of instruction and teaming to develop powerful collective leader efficacy. Readers will find: Activities and strategies designed to build collective efficacy in instructional teams and foster leadership and interdependence among teachers Theories of action to focus team efforts and how to create your own Tools, reflection prompts, and guiding questions to help you define your desired outcomes and the steps necessary to get there With this book and the research within it, your instructional leadership team will develop a learner’s mindset, a collective commitment to improvement, and a shared process for inquiry and continual growth so you can nurture greater impact together.
Get the fuel you need to drive collaborative leadership in your school! What type of leadership do you practice? If your answer is transformational or instructional, you’re not alone. Many of us rely on these tenets. But there are better advantages in applying a holistic angle including all stakeholders—an approach known as collaborative leadership. Peter DeWitt unpacks six leadership factors in Collaborative Leadership, all framed through the lens of John Hattie’s research. Adding insight, practical experiences, and vignettes, DeWitt paints a powerful scheme: meet stakeholders where they are, motivate stakeholders to strive for improvement, model how to do it. The meet, motivate, model blueprint will inspire you to Transform your leadership practice Identify where you can make immediate changes Build and empower your leadership team Incorporate all stakeholders into the conversation Designed to shape collective teacher efficacy and foster teacher voice, Collaborative Leadership will leave you motivated to work together.
Foster reflective teacher leadership and make real change happen! Teachers are powerful change agents in the on-going process of school improvement. This insightful, must-read companion guide to Donohoo’s best-selling Collaborative Inquiry for Educators helps school leaders develop a sustainable professional learning culture. Practical suggestions and in-depth research shed light on your path as you explore the benefits and challenges of adopting authentic teacher collaboration across schools and districts. Learn valuable lessons from leaders in the field and discover: A rationale and framework for engaging in inquiry The vital conditions needed to ensure systemwide collaboration Common pitfalls and the four stages of school improvement
