Teacher Leadership

School districts throughout the nation are turning to teacher leaders to help broaden, deepen, and accelerate mathematics reform. Teacher leaders provide classroom support, demonstration teaching, co-teaching, observation, and feedback—as well as school-wide and district-wide professional development. Yet, teacher leaders, themselves, require training and support to carry out these tasks. Our work in teacher leadership provides:

Teacher leader training and development, especially training that is centered on core ideas of mathematics and how to teach these ideas for understanding.
Support for teacher leader networks.
Evaluation of teacher leadership programs.
Research on the contributions of teacher leadership to large-scale mathematics and science reform.

Explore selections of MLT's work or, browse for a complete list of all MLT teacher leardership projects, Web sites, and publications.

This month's selections of MLT teacher leadership projects, Web sites, and publications
TITLE	DESCRIPTION
Teacher Leadership: An Appealing and Inescapable Force in School Reform?	In this online essay, Brian Lord and Barbara Miller (directors of EDC’s Center for Professional Communities in Education) discuss the roles teacher leaders play and now those roles can contribute to effective school reform: "At present, we do not know enough about teacher leadership to make bold claims for its effectiveness in helping reforms go to scale or improving student achievement. However, preliminary research findings point to one critical feature. Teacher leadership is often treated as a strictly instrumental strategy to increase the number of professional development providers – putting in place more people to provide more contact hours with classroom teachers. This approach offers limited promise of achieving reformers’ goals. Yet, when teachers leaders are part of a wider, systemic strategy, within a well-aligned constellation of district supports (e.g., assessment and accountability systems, programs for curriculum implementation), the potential for impact is greater. For this reason, we view teacher leadership less as a magic bullet for quickly solving the "numbers" problem and more as a critical feature in a coherent and focused set of district policies to address the substantive challenges of reform." For more, read the Teacher Leadership online essay written by Brian Lord and Barbara Miller.
Developing Mathematical Ideas	Developing Mathematical Ideas is a staff development/teacher education program designed to help educators think through the major ideas of K-6 mathematics and examine how children develop those ideas. The goal is to engage teachers in a process of inquiry--into mathematics; into learning mathematics; into students' mathematical thinking, in general, and the thinking of one's own students, in particular. Find out more about the DMI curriculum. Read an interview with Deborah Schifter, a senior scientist in the Center for the Development of Teaching and lead author of DMI. Find out about the DMI Leadership Institutes, which are designed for teacher educators, staff developers, teacher-leaders, and others who support teachers' professional development.
Teacher Leadership in Mathematics and Science Casebook and Facilitator's Guide	Committed to improving instructional programs, more and more teachers are playing an active role in mathematics and science reform. Teacher Leadership in Mathematics and Science was written to assist these efforts. This unique book will both help current teacher leaders be more effective in this role and support the development of aspiring teacher leaders.
Considering New Curricula	Considering New Curricula is a two-day seminar designed to support districts interested in considering the use of new, standards-based curriculum materials. Participating district teams learn about effective methods for selecting, piloting, and implementing the programs, and consider how programs at different grade levels fit together.