Building Leader and Educator Capacity for Transformation
What makes a great teacher great? They are continually innovating and assessing how their work can further improve student success and outcomes. This leads policy makers to ponder – how do we build the capacity of educators and leaders to continuously learn, innovate, and improve on what they do?
Building up your teachers is so important – and there are so many ways to do so! Teachers require practical experience and an ability to innovate a range of techniques to meet the needs of every student presented before them. Many teachers receive little preparation for the practical realities of classroom management. That’s why it is critical for systems to invest in initial teacher education, just as the top performing education systems do.
So, what exactly are these top performing schools doing? Developing their teachers! They use collaboration and feedback, inquiry-based teaching, discussions on subject-specific pedagogy, and relevant curricula and assessment. These systems mentor and coach their teachers intensively through observation and feedback; evolve teaching by creating teacher research groups to develop new practices and implement in the classroom; work collaboratively in lesson and grade groups; coach teachers to help recognize students’ learning needs and develop classroom management skills and pedagogy.
How Top Performing Schools are Developing Their Teachers
School Leaders play a critical role in this development of teachers. The leaders must empower the teachers to be leaders themselves! There are four critical roles of school leaders:
1) Support, evaluate, and develop teacher quality
2) Set learning objectives and implement intelligent assessment systems
3) Strategic use of resources and their alignment with teaching purposes
4) School leadership beyond the school boarders
We encourage you as leaders to read more into the critical role you play in transformation, both with your school system and your teachers!
Here are some additional resources for you to explore:
• The Ten Critical Components of School Transformation
• Teacher and Leader Capacity: What does success look like and how do you get there?
• Building Leader and Educator Capacity for Transformation
Another great way to learn is through our Canadian Executive Learning Series! Join us in a series of webinars for the opportunity to learn from and interact with experts in the field! Up next:
Executive Learning Series | Teacher and Leader Capacity Building
May 3, 2017
12:00 – 1:00PM EST
Join us in this session to explore another critical area which supports education transformation. “Building Teacher and Leader Capacity” is fundamental to the success of any transformation initiative. We’ll explore some global best practices on this subject and offer ideas on how to implement these strategies and practices into your own school system.
Want to join us? Register now >>>
