The Teacher Leadership Professional Learning With Jerry T

This past school year I have been social chair of Nursing Students Without Borders. I have organized, implemented and hosted social events throughout the Fall of 2016 and the Spring of 2017. This past year the leadership of NSWB has worked to make NSWB community focused which is why the position I held was added this past year. I have been able to mentor a pre-nursing student through NSWB. I was able to answer the questions honestly from a pre-nursing student and provide support during the application process. I have been able to participate in leadership meetings and have learned how to plan well and how to improve event planning.

Throughout this course, I have learned several things about myself as a leader and about a leader in general. I feel like I now have the ability to point out many strengths and weaknesses I did not notice before. Strengths such as being able to find better ways of doing certain things, spot things that may or may not be really working, motivating team members, and working great under pressure. Some of my weaknesses include resisting change, constantly working within a group, because I always tend to feel like I'm doing either all or most of the work, and sometimes micro managing in an attempt to help/coach closely. Sometimes the micro-managing is unattended but at the same some things don't get right in time unless you keep a close eye on it.

In today’s standardized public education, pacing guides are becoming the backbone of teachers’ professional lives. According to Bauml (2015), “the notion that schools should provide teachers with curriculum materials to inform instruction has been around for centuries”. In this curriculum leadership platform I will discuss how these circumstances limit teachers’ autonomy and how do I, as a curriculum leader, “enable faculty and staff to work as a system focused on student learning”.

Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders. This quote by Tom Peters best summarizes my philosophy of teacher leadership. As a teacher leader, it is up to me to inspire, direct, and encourage others so that stronger teacher, administrative, and student leaders may be born from the process. Teacher leadership involves collaboration between teachers, administrators, and teacher leaders with the goal of positively impacting the student learning environment. With student learning as the ultimate objective, teacher leadership “becomes an indispensable avenue for school improvement” (Coggins & McGovern, 2014, p. 21). So how do I as a teacher leader begin this process? I believe that teacher leadership can be achieved through three means: modeling, mentoring, and collaborating.

Teacher leaders and administrators play a vital role in the overall organizational structure of a school. As discussed in Educational Leadership, there are ten roles that teacher leaders tend to gravitate towards. The roles of teacher leaders vary according to duties and responsibilities placed on the teacher leader, they include the following: resource provider, instructional specialist, curriculum specialist, classroom supporter, learning facilitator, mentor, school leader, data coach, catalyst for change, and learner (Harrison & Killion, 2007, pg. 74-77). As a teacher leadership at Lake Oconee Academy, I personally see my duties and responsibilities covering several of these roles. Since the beginning of my employment at Lake Oconee

The Leadership Practice Inventory that I took at the beginning of my Student Orientation Counselor or S.O.C. experience was eye opening. It teaches and surveys people about five leadership skills these skills were further explained in The Student Leadership Challenge text by the authors James Kouzes and Barry Posner (2014) the different practices of leadership were: Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart. These principles each have their own challenges and frustrations, and as a leader they have helped me realize what I can improve on. Modeling the Way was one of my top two practices that I had ranked high on during the skills inventory, and its focus is on finding your

department with students with a wide range of disabilities. Although I have never heard the term PLC until this assignment I do see some of the same procedures in place at my job that would fit the professional learning community principles. Our teachers do meet once a week to go over what’s working and what’s not working. We share experience and behaviors and try to come up with ways to be more proactive and identify triggers so that we can address issues early on and move past them so that the students can reach his or her maximum potential. Strategies do not always work and some may for better for one student verses the other. These meetings are very important to the success of the students and I do see it working for the most part. The grade levels in my class range from 5th to 8h grade and each student has curriculum for their grade level. Our classrooms are designed for the benefits of the students so that they can be in a comfortable learning environment. Staff makes sure to read all individual IEP’s so that we will know the student. We also collect data on each student every day and go over it weekly in community meetings held in the classrooms with the students and staff. Our strategies are similar to the professional learning community. I do believe that adapting the PLC system in the schools can be helpful for our students. This system is designed to help students across all levels. This system could be really helpful in

In the article How Teachers Lead Teachers by Jason Margolis he states that “ frame new approaches as easy and adaptable”. What the author is trying to say is that if you have new information about something you should make sure that it is approachable. I think we should use this in our presentation because it would be a good idea to make sure everything that the students learn that the teachers understand the teenage brain. The author also states that “use humor”. What Margolis means by this is that you should have humor in your topic because some people remember things better if they laugh about it or if they think it’s funny. I think we should use humor because we need to keep our crowd interest in what we are talking about and not get bored

Using the Strength Finders 2.0 Assessment, I was able to identify my personal strengths, which would identify my personal leadership skills. My strength assessment results where Harmony, Consistency, Empathy, Achiever, and Belief. This paper will identify each strength, how they relate to my leadership style and approach to leadership.

I believe that developing leadership skills is not a rapid process, but it is a daily process. The best place people learn how to lead is from their daily experiences. Therefore, my job experience helped me to be more familiar with this topic and I gained additional worthy information from the class materials and lessons. Writing a biography was an amazing experience that helped me to look back in my life, review it in details, know what I did in the past and discover myself better. I did many of the book’s assessments and exercises and I found them totally thought-provoking and useful materials. They assisted me to think more about my leadership potentials and skills. Doing the exercises made me more aware of my strengths and weaknesses in the area of leadership. I read in the book about 10 qualities that mark a leader and help influence the leadership process. Those qualities listed as: vision,

Student leaders come in all shapes and sizes. They choose to lead based on their skills and preferences. Whether in social groups, athletics, or within the classroom, student leaders demonstrate certain traits that benefit both themselves and those they are leading. Generally speaking, leaders are classified as role models within the student body. They are the students who challenge the status quo, who ask questions and demand answers. They inspire athletic teams and social organizations alike; they bring to light the issues that an organization or club faces and work toward a solution. The traits and skills that these leaders exhibit socially, athletically, and academically can be both inherit and learned. The

Movies identified to the topic of leadership serve as a fundamental learning tool. When conducting this leadership project the following movies were used: Patch Adams, A Few Good Men, The Lion King, and The Social Network. After watching the movies each one was thoroughly analyzed on the type of leadership style portrayed in the film. Many movies contain characters that exhibit leadership qualities or circumstances that provide insights and can help you explore some excellent examples of leadership.

As I began this Leadership in Education course, I entered with an open mind and eagerness to learn about varying leadership styles and approaches. Over the years, I have fortunately been exposed to numerous genuine, caring, exceptional leaders in higher education. They all shared one commonality: student-centeredness. This has been my compass and guides me in my work. Through this course, I wanted to learn how I can better support students, whether directly or indirectly by leading other professionals and para-professionals in their work with students.

Effective school leadership today must combine the traditional school leadership duties such as teacher evaluation, budgeting, scheduling, and facilities maintenance with a deep involvement with specific aspects of teaching and learning. Effective instructional leaders are intensely involved in curricular and instructional issues that directly affect student achievement (Cotton, 2003). The writer of this paper acknowledges that school principals should play the role of instructional leaders, not just a school manager. The reality is that are many demands on a principals time and management skills making it difficult for most of them to spend time in classrooms, when performing teacher evaluation. Principals often make sure that teachers

The concept and practice of teacher leadership have gained momentum in the past two decades. Teachers are assuming more leadership functions at both instructional and organizational levels of practice. Empirical literature reveals effects of teacher leadership practice, teacher leader characteristics, and conditions that promote and challenge teacher leadership.