Teacher Leaders Designing and Facilitating Professional Development for Teachers

Practice-based Insights on Teacher Leaders Designing and Facilitating Professional Development for Teachers

Teacher leaders – current or former classroom teachers working with other classroom teachers and other educators in the school or district – are present in many reform efforts in mathematics and science education. Designing and/or facilitating professional development for classroom teachers is one of a variety of strategies teacher leaders can use to support the improvement of teachers’ instructional practice. As a strategy employed by teacher leaders, professional development may be used for various purposes such as supporting implementation of curriculum, introducing new pedagogical strategies, and deepening mathematics and science content knowledge.

Advice from experienced practitioners offers guidance to those involved in teacher leaders' efforts to improve teachers’ classroom practice through professional development programs. Insights provided by a group of expert practitioners with diverse backgrounds and experiences in working with teachers included the following ideas:

• Start with what you know – Encourage teacher leaders to draw on their classroom experience in designing and facilitating professional development for teachers.
• Know the discipline – Teacher leaders need a solid understanding of the mathematics or science content in order to design and facilitate professional development.
• One size does not fit all – Prepare teacher leaders to assess and target the needs of the particular teachers participating in professional development.
• Engage the teachers – It is important to help teacher leaders develop effective facilitation skills.
• Two (or more) heads are better than one – Teacher leaders need to collaborate with others when designing professional development.

Teacher Leadership Matters

Empirical evidence shows that teacher leaders' practice impacts teachers' instructional practice and, in some studies, provides evidence of positive impact on student outcomes. Findings across studies include:

• Teacher leaders' practice, particularly in providing instructional support to teachers, impacts teachers' classroom practice.
• Teacher leaders' practice occurs in a larger context of conditions that impact teachers' practice.
• Teacher leaders' practice is related to positive student outcomes.

Research on Teacher Leaders Designing and Facilitating Professional Development for Teachers

In a review of the published literature, twenty seven research studies were identified of teacher leader programs in which teacher leaders designed and/or facilitated professional development for teachers. These studies examined three aspects of this teacher leader practice. One set of studies examined teacher leaders engaged in the practice of designing and/or facilitating professional development for teachers. Findings from these studies suggest that teacher leaders with deeper knowledge of subject area content and pedagogy may be more likely to provide support to classroom teachers through designing and/or facilitating professional development than teacher leaders without such expertise. Another set of studies investigated the impact of programs that prepared teacher leaders to provide instructional support to teachers, including designing and/or facilitating professional development. Findings from these studies suggest that teacher leaders, when prepared explicitly to lead professional development of other teachers, go on to provide professional development for teachers. When teacher leaders are prepared without explicit attention to leading professional development, this practice becomes one of several strategies they employ to support classroom teachers. A third set of studies indicated the teacher leaders designing and/or facilitating professional development was one component of interventions that yielded positive impact on classroom teachers. These studies did not investigate the unique contribution of this teacher leader practice.