What Do We Know About Teacher Leaders' Practice and How Well Do We Know It?
The MSP KMD project found that the empirical literature supports the claim that teacher leaders' practices, particularly their work organized around teachers' classroom instruction, does impact teachers' classroom practice. The eight studies that directly studied this claim reported an impact of teacher leaders' practices on teachers' practices; six studies reported a clear impact, while two reported limited impact. Additional studies reviewed offered supporting evidence about the positive relationship between teacher leaders' practices and teachers' practices.
Those teacher leader practices, with a focus on instruction, were quite varied and included teacher leaders: observing teachers and giving feedback; modeling lessons or strategies for teachers; meeting with groups of teachers around an instructional topic (e.g., looking at student work); co-teaching with a teacher; leading workshops for teachers; and "informal sharing" with teachers. Observing/giving feedback and modeling were teacher leader practices reported in half of the studies reviewed. The variety of teacher leader practices suggest that there are multiple ways by which teacher leaders can work with teachers to impact their classroom practice. The amount and duration of teacher leader practices examined in these studies ranged from quarterly contact with a teacher by a teacher leader to weekly contact by a teacher leader, over periods of time ranging from six weeks to a year or more. The findings of impact on teacher practice held in studies of teacher leaders working at different grade levels (elementary, middle school, high school, and combination of grade spans).
The majority of the studies reviewed focused on teacher leaders in mathematics and/or science, working with teachers on classroom instruction in mathematics or science. These findings of an impact on teachers' practices were confirmed in the small number of studies reviewed of teacher leaders' work with teachers in areas beyond mathematics and science.
In these studies, the relationship between teacher leader practice and teacher practice was drawn in broad terms. The majority of studies were not structured to study a particular teacher leader practice and its impact on particular teacher practices in the classroom. Furthermore, in some of these studies, teacher leaders' practices were treated as part of a larger context of conditions supportive of change in schools (of which teacher leaders were a part), making it difficult to ascertain the nature, quality and amount of impact teacher leaders had on teachers' practice.
With the addition of the expert practitioner knowledge, the MSP KMD project found support for more specific claims for particular teacher leader practices such as modeling lessons for teachers and leading workshops. The conditions under which these teacher leader practices are most effective were identified, including the needed teacher leader knowledge and skills, the expectations by and for teachers, the nature of the activities by which teacher leaders model or lead workshops, and the critical conditions in schools to support teacher leaders' practice.
