Jo McFadden

Teacher leadership is about giving teachers the opportunity to influence the school system beyond the door of their classroom.

As an administrator, letting go of the reins and allowing teachers to take ownership through collaboration and shared decision making can be difficult. Being a principal for 13 years, I have learned that having a collaborative, shared leadership with my staff is beneficial for the culture of the school and have gradually become more comfortable with giving the teacher the reins, or more often I say, letting them “drive the bus”.  Letting go allows the teachers to have more voice, which leads to more ownership and support when decisions are made.

Having a shared leadership model requires relationships, trust and most of all collective teacher efficacy.  According to John Hattie, collective teacher efficacy has the greatest impact on student achievement. Collective teacher efficacy is defined as the staff’s belief that they can positively influence student outcomes. Before collective teacher efficacy is possible, teachers need to have self-efficacy, or the belief in their own abilities. So, the next question becomes, how do we support teachers, so they become self-efficacious? This can be done again through building relationships, trust, collaboration, providing feedback and support and more.

Building teacher leaders is a multi-layered process that most certainly enhances the culture of a building and the level of collective teacher efficacy. Recently I have facilitated two big system changes in my building, one being the adoption of a new math curriculum. My role in the adoption…read more