Leadership Development in Practice

We began the 2021-22 school year understanding that beginning teachers (BT) received little or no support during the pandemic for reasons of time, social distancing and/or the limitations of technology. Several BT expressed interest in additional support and development and were identified and recruited early in the year. We dedicate three hours per week to planning, monitoring campus and district initiatives, reviewing student work and executing learning targets aligned to identified supported teacher learning goals.

My goals this year are:

• increase my active listening skills

• support beginning teachers at every level

• capture, analyze and share data

• build trust through my actions

• develop and complete timelines

• improve my practice through action research and positive student outcomes

• When I reflect on my experiences as a classroom teacher I can honestly say that I never thought of what I was doing as leadership. I thought I was simply pursuing a goal. The goal for me was to help my students’ demonstrate achievement. In other words, I thought I was doing whatever it took to ensure my students developed the knowledge and skills identified by the state of Texas for promotion to the next grade or to earn a high school diploma. I quickly learned that some of my students could demonstrate knowledge and skills and some of them could not. I attempted to uncover the reason for what I though were minor basic skill deficiencies. I soon learned that many of my students possessed what I later came to understand were gaps in their knowledge. I was initially confused as to how this could happen and soon simply accepted that it did. I started working on how to fix these deficiencies.

• I began talking to others with the expressed goal of fixing these deficiencies. I discovered that my goal was rooted in a more complex set of issues and I would have better luck collaborating with my colleagues both vertically and horizontally. Vertically, I could better understand how similar content was presented in previous grades and horizontally I could highlight the science behind other content they were studying. This was new territory and more difficult than I thought. I had to learn to talk across content areas – Science, Math, English and Social Studies. I had to learn to collaborate, to listen, to manage my time, and most importantly I had to develop people skills. After more than a decade, I’m still working on all of these skills. I point these things out because I believe that this represents the beginning of the turning point. The point when I began to think of what I was doing as leadership in education.

• During my second year of teaching middle school science, my principal named me science department chair. He actually told me, and I believed him, that he thought this new role would formalize my actions and activities in a way that would make reaching my goal more efficient and maybe even quicken its realization. It did not happen. So I began growing my leadership skillset. I researched listening, collaborating, communicating, problem solving and how to better analyze data. I began to realize that my one goal of helping each of my students demonstrate achievement had become a journey of individual development.

• I currently serve as the Science Department Chair, Instructional Excellence Coach, Campus Induction Coach and Content Lead for Environmental Science. In my role as Science Department Chair, I serve as a lesion for the campus and the curriculum and instruction division at the central office. I facilitate and foster the tenants of adult learning theory and promote a collaborative culture among all stakeholders. I facilitate job-embedded professional development opportunities aligned with the school improvement plan. I also model an attitude of continuous improvement and reflective practices. Most importantly, I work with colleagues to analyze data and interpret results to improve outcomes for students. In my role as Content Lead for Environmental Science I implement district initiatives, collaborate with team members to improve instructional practices, implement best practices and improve outreach and collaboration with families. In my role as Campus Induction Coach, I promote a collaborative culture among fellow teachers, administrators, and other school leaders. I make apparent the teacher support resources from the central office and the campus to ensure consistent communication to new teachers about professional expectations and classroom design. I aid mentors in helping new teachers set professional goals, understand continuous improvement, and recognize the importance of reflective practice. I host forums that build and deepen new teacher and mentor pedagogical knowledge and monitor new teacher and mentor weekly interactions. Most importantly, I identify and overcome barriers to new teachers receiving sustained support from qualified a mentor for the academic year. In my role as Instructional Excellence Coach, I support three (3) teachers in the use of high leverage tools that make pedagogy, student actions and the classroom environment more explicit. We use tools developed by the New Teacher Center (NTC) – Planning Conversation Guide (PCG), Analyzing Student Learning (ASL) and the Observation Cycle (OC) to guide and document our learning. We document this process as we plan lessons, monitor student actions, leverage student behaviors by changing our environments, assess student learning and reflect on our own practices to ensure appropriate student outcomes. We frequently capture our conversations and lessons to help uncover those nuances that escape us or have not yet become habits of mind. During these interactions I seek to develop and capture informative data that can be used at various points in the coaching cycle to foster teacher inquiry associated with the quality of the learning environment and student outcomes. Most importantly I seek to scaffold teacher development in such a way that it reflects student’s strengths and contextual needs and can be used to foster academic, social and emotional growth.