ECI508

04/20/2016

Shuhui Yao

Final Leadership Essay & Plan of Action

Different Roles of a Teacher Leader

As a matter of fact, teacher leadership is not a popular notion in Chinese education,

which is also not widely accepted by most Chinese teachers. A majority of Chinese

teachers may be trapped in the one-sided understanding that a teacher leader simply

means a teacher is in the state or position of being a leader in a school, like an

administrator, or a teacher is skilled in leading the students to focus on the class and

achieve high grades. Admittedly, I am one of these teachers. However, after learning

the course Teachers as Leaders, not only did I redefine the concept of teacher

leadership, but also learnt a variety of profound insights of pedagogy.

According to York-Barr and Duke (2004), teacher-leadership was defined as the

process by which teachers, individually or collectively, influence their colleagues,

principals, and other members of school communities to improve teaching and

learning practices with the aim of increased student learning and achievement.

Furthermore, improving and developing the schools is also an essential aim for a

teacher leader. In other words, teacher-leadership cannot stand alone without the

development of the school and the students.

As far as I am concerned, we are keeping making efforts to answer a vital question:

How to be an effective teacher leader? throughout the classes. Although this

question can be refined in a variety of detailed questions, such as what challenges will

a teacher leader face, what strategies should a teacher learn, and so on forth, I will put

emphasis on a series of roles a teacher leader should play based on what I have learnt
thus far and my own thoughts.

A Professional Teacher

The first lesson I learnt from this course is that the first step to be a teacher leader is to

be a good teacher. From my point of view, first of all, a good teacher is also a

qualified teacher who has professional expertise and keeps expanding his/her

knowledge and skills with the aim of increasing students learning and achievements.

There is no doubt that, no matter what career we choose, enhancing the strength is the

foundation of taking other further steps. Capability is concrete evidence to make a

teachers words approved and build his/her prestige in the school. Moreover, a good

teacher always starts with his/her passions. Passion is a powerful force that keeps us

going with a positive attitude, excited anticipation and various possibilities. Finally, a

good teacher is also a diligent learner. A responsible teacher is always staying

informed about his/her field, learning from or modeling experienced teachers,

especially for a novice teacher, engaged in improving teaching practices, which

directly influence his/her teaching performance and results.

An Assessor

Instead of assessing students learning, I prepare to illustrate my perspectives on a

teacher leaders self-assessment and collaborative assessment. That a teacher plays a

role of an assessor is an inevitable step before influencing and leading other school

members. An old Chinese saying goes that knowing the enemy and yourself you can

fight a hundred battles and win them all. To be specific, I will compare the enemy to

our own weaknesses and compare yourself to our strengths in order to demonstrate

that understanding ourselves is a crucial part to thrive as an effective teacher leader.

One of the well acknowledged theories is that self-assessment is like a beacon

lightening up a teacher leaders way forward since it is a powerful technique for

improving ourselves, facilitating professional growth, and setting future goals.

Additionally, as our perspectives on our own may be one-sided, collaborative

assessment is a valuable way gain multiple perspectives on our teaching and learning.

Furthermore, collaborative assessment also can be seen as a strategy to contribute to

effective collaboration and implementation. On the other hand, collaborative

assessment also provides a wonderful opportunity to recognize different values,

educational philosophy, ideas, behaviors, and work perspectives from different

teacher colleagues.

A Listener and Communicator

A great number of people suppose that one of the roles a teacher should play daily is a

speaker, who has to keep instructing students; however, playing the role of a listener

is as important as a speaker through the process of developing teacher leadership. It is

a truth that teachers develop their leadership not only limited in the classroom, but

also beyond the classroom. Specifically, students questions, schools missions,

teacher colleagues opinions and suggestions, and parents requirements are the main

content for a listener to listen carefully. Take a further step, listening carefully is

beneficial to find problems or conflicts, learn different peoples needs, and observe

others feelings in time. And then applying medicine according to indications can

efficiently accelerate the pace of dealing with problems and conflicts.

Moreover, the reason why a teacher leader should listen different voices carefully and

actively is for becoming an effective communicator. Although teacher leaders need to

thrive as active listeners, the key part of developing teacher-leadership is

communication. A proficient communicator is skilled in building ideal teacher-student

relationship, school-family relationship, principle-teacher partnership and teacher-

teacher partnership, which is helpful to create a united and harmonious school

environment. It is believed that matching careful listening to excellent communication

skills can optimize approaches to solving various problems and conflicts.

A Researcher and Storyteller

What leaves a deep impression in my mind is a video concerned about three teachers

focused on analyzing the statistics of students learning problems that we watched

together in the class. After watching this video, Dr. Robinson said that these teachers

are not only teacher leaders, but also scientists. What an exact and distinctive

comparison! It cannot be denied that concrete statistics, facts, or information are

always the powerful and persuasive evidence to support teachers ideas and actions.

Thus, when a teacher leader is engaged in increasing students achievements and

developing and improving a school cultures, why not try to be a researcher, or even a

scientist who tends to collect, organize, analyze statistics to persuade other school

members to consider his/her mature deliberations. Meanwhile, from my perspective, a

good researcher can also be seen as a strong storyteller.

A Partner

According to Steven Zemelman and Harry Ross (2009), a crucial step in developing

teacher power and advancing a teachers career is to connect with other teachers

(p48). I am aware of the significance of this saying after reading Jills story and

Sybils story showing at the beginning of 13 Steps to Teacher Empowerment. In

addition to the different attitude, I suppose that Jills failure is resulted from her

isolation, while Sybil is positive to build connections with her teacher colleagues. As

a truth goes: two heads are better than one, collaborative working can often lead to

innovation, encourage different ideas, and maximize the efficiency. Different teachers

have different understanding, expertise, strategies and opinions about teaching and

learning, the process of planning collaboratively is also the process of thinking,

rethinking, learning, and changing. Thus, a teacher leader also need to play the role of

a qualified partner. In this class, I have viewed numerous examples indicate that

productive achievements, creative ideas and approaches, or valuable contributions can

be resulted from collaborative planning, working and implementing. In my opinion,

collaboration is an advanced way to build trust between teacher colleagues and create

an effective and harmonious working environment. Currently, in China, although the

sense of competition may make it hard to unit teachers to work as a team, based on

the same goal of increasing students learning achievements and developing the

school, I firmly believe that the competition will be transferred to collaboration as

soon as possible.

A Creator

There is no doubt that teachers and students are the main strength to create a schools

environment and cultures. Besides, another fact is that students are often instructed

and guided by teachers. Thus, teacher leaders are obligated to be creators. To be an

excellent creator, a teacher leader will be asked to create an appropriate classroom

environment, create unique and effective teaching approaches, create a flexible and

comfortable working environment, create collaborative working fellowship, and

create a communicative relationship with parents or principals.

It is a long way full of difficulties and challenges to be an effective teacher leader.

However, every French soldier carries a marshal\'s baton in his knapsack. I firmly

believe that it is worth making efforts to be a teacher leader to achieve self-realization

and make contributions to education. Although what I have learnt from this course is

more than what I mentioned above, for me, perfectly playing each role of a teacher

leader is the task of top priority.

 Plan of Action

1. Professional expertise:

Shape my professional expertise by keeping expanding my knowledge in

education field and arming my mind with the advanced theories and thoughts

Seek opportunities to learn and teach with experienced teachers to accumulate

teaching experience and improve my practice

2. Assessment:

Reflect on my learning and teaching regularly

Seek feedback from students, other teachers, and parents

3. Listening and Communication:

Be careful about various voices and consider their meanings, needs, and feelings

Shape communication skills and learn the art of speaking and communication

4. Research and Suggestions:

Stay informed about my field by connecting with related organizations or joining

the professional associations to collect useful information and statistics

Exchange ideas with principals and express my suggestions

5. Partnership:

Be positive to share my ideas, thoughts and results to other teacher colleagues

first

Make peer observation frequently, such as visiting other teachers classes

Learn more about different opinions, strategies, values, and education philosophy

Be a questioner to discuss various issues with teacher colleagues

Set meaningful group conferences to exchange perspectives and ideas and fix

conflicts

6. Creation:
 Bridge the gap between students and teachers, parents and teachers, principals

and teachers to create more effective learning, teaching, working environment

Think more, read more, and write more to inspire myself to be creative