Page 8 - Mini-Module 7

What is teacher leadership?

A growing body of literature on teacher leadership has emerged in the
Western educational community. This literature asserts that teachers
actually play significant leadership roles in terms of school
improvement through capacity building, mutual learning, and
collaboration. It therefore embodies an expanded notion of leadership
which urges reculturation of teachers’ professional identities from
followers to leaders and from knowledge keepers to collaborative
learners (Gonzales, 2004). Accordingly, the notion of teacher
leadership suggests a process of cultural change involving teachers’
beliefs, practices, and relationships that transform teachers’
perceptions and preferences of professional roles as leaders and
cultures as learning communities.
While most writers agree that teacher leadership is a kind of shared
leadership, they disagree on the extent to which teacher leaders
influence.
1. A growing body of literature on teacher leadership has emerged in
the Western educational community. This literature asserts that
teachers actually play significant leadership roles in terms of school
improvement through capacity building, mutual learning, and
collaboration. It therefore embodies an expanded notion of
leadership which urges reculturation of teachers’ professional
identities from followers to leaders and from knowledge keepers to
collaborative learners (Gonzales, 2004). Accordingly, the notion of
teacher leadership suggests a process of cultural change involving
teachers’ beliefs, practices, and relationships that transform
teachers’ perceptions and preferences of professional roles as
leaders and cultures as learning communities.
2. While most writers agree that teacher leadership is a kind of
shared leadership, they disagree on the extent to which teacher
leaders influence

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