Good instructional leaders don't hide in a corner office or behind a desk. Effective instructional leadership requires communication, visibility, and accessibility on the part of administrators and teachers and a commitment to collaboration.
Good instructional leaders build common vision, language, and knowledge bases, says Diana Peer, leader of the principal institute at the Arkansas Leadership Academy, which trains principals and teachers to be instructional leaders. "Strong instructional leadership focuses on learning, not just teaching, for adults and kids," says Peer. "An instructional leader creates capacity for better instruction and a structure so learning can take place."
In this article, principals share insight into collaborating with teachers, instructional coaches, and other educators to improve instructional leadership.
Taking Advantage of Teamwork
At Alma Intermediate School in Alma, Ark., the instructional leadership team includes several teachers from each grade level, a parent, the school counselor, and principal Jim Warnock, who attended the Arkansas Leadership Academy. Placing teachers in leadership roles enriches learning and teaching, says Warnock. "[Teachers] bring so much. The principal makes wiser decisions when surrounded by teachers who have good instructional skills. They inform my decisions a lot," he says.
Leadership teams also are a critical resource for principal Terry Pace at La Pluma Elementary School in La Mirada, Calif. Leadership teams on each school campus include grade-level teachers, an instructional coach, and an administrator. The teams make decisions about curricula, events, programs, and new technology. "They take the thinking back to learning teams, and they have a say in all those decisions," Pace says. "The leadership structure helps to facilitate the decisions I have to make as a leader. I have to make decisions based on what's best for kids, and it's good to have input." The teams are integral to the district's philosophy of schools as professional learning communities. Instructional coaches are available to work with teams of teachers and teachers have the chance to observe their coworkers in the classroom as well as meet with grade-level teams at other schools in the district.
At Vose Elementary School in Beaverton, Ore., each grade has a team leader who works with teachers once a month, facilitates meetings with team members, reviews data, plans instruction, and gives teachers the opportunity for embedded professional development, says principal Will Flores. "They are able to identify the needs of kids and adults," he says. "They see who has the best skills in a particular area and can work with others."
Getting in the Classroom
Flores says he tries to spend as much time in classrooms as possible, talking to teachers about how they are approaching instruction. Flores also meets with team leaders once a month.
"Establishing a climate of trust is most important," says Bill Seals, principal of La Mirada High School in La Mirada, Calif. "It's a matter of letting students and teachers get used to seeing you in class. Once you establish that climate of trust, you will have positive experiences." Seals tries to set aside a different period each day to get into classrooms and look at different areas of instruction. "In general, I do a weekly update to the staff, and share generalities about what I've seen," he says. "I also leave notes for teachers after the walk-throughs so they can come in and talk if they want."
Pace calls her walk-throughs "informal but focused" and adds that information is relayed back to the school's learning team so that everyone has a voice. "It helps to empower teachers," she says. "If they buy into the process, they are able to create and respond to some of the visions."
After each of his walk-throughs, Warnock prepares a nonevaluative report for the whole grade level, so other teachers can read about someone's classroom practices. "Informal discussion is so important," he says. District-level subject area specialists also have done a lot to develop teacher leaders, Warnock adds.
Building Capacity
According to these administrators, the best professional development to nurture teachers' instructional leadership skills relates to what they do every day.
"When it's job embedded, it's highly effective and helps spread best practices," says Warnock. "It's a lot better than wandering off to professional development somewhere and then never using what you learned."
At Warnock's school, math teachers make videos of their lessons and analyze themselves having math conversations with students. The math teachers meet to review the videos and discuss their lessons. "Teachers are always finding new and better practices," Warnock says.
When doing embedded professional development, it's important to look both at the needs of the students and the adults, Flores says. One of the major goals at his school is to improve English-language development, because the student population is largely Spanish-speaking. "We work on that every day," Flores states. "We look at the latest research and our data to see if what we implemented worked. If it didn't, we'll try something else." Sixty percent of the students are in two-way classes (classes that are conducted in both English and Spanish).
Seeing their efforts translate into improved student performance is a powerful incentive for educators, says Warnock. "The biggest motivation for teachers is student success," he says. "When they can incorporate best practices into their repertoire, they feel better and when they are part of a team, they feel support. It becomes a self-propelling phenomenon; once they start learning and see [students] being successful, they get hooked into continuous learning and improvement."
That confidence affects other aspects of teaching, like classroom management. "We're able to focus more on teaching and learning and not be besieged with all kinds of discipline issues because we have such good leadership at the classroom level," Warnock notes. "We don't have discipline issues, because we built a good culture in the classrooms and good relationships with parents."
Set a Good Example
Effective instructional leaders create conditions for teachers to be successful, find ways to monitor progress, and celebrate successes, Peer says.
Also, showing teachers that the administrator is a committed learner and willing to support them in becoming better learners is important. "Being the lead learner, one of the people who loves to learn and work with them, is what motivates teachers," Flores says.
Administrators also show their support by carving out time during the day for teachers to collaborate, says Warnock. At Flores' school, teachers have extended planning time. One day a week, all the students in one grade have back-to-back specials, so teachers have about an hour to meet with colleagues, Flores says.
To keep leaders focused and committed to the shift in thinking as an instructional leader, Peer recommends having a touchstone or saying to remind them of the importance of their efforts. "If you don't have something you can put on a bumper sticker, you can be sucked back into being a building manager." Reciting a simple phrase like "All kids can learn" at difficult times can help leaders stay on track, she says.
Once everyone is on board with instructional goals and invested in them, not only is growth likely, but it can be replicated. "It's good if you have a plan and address the needs of the school effectively," says Seals. "You can see sustained growth. Without a plan, you may have growth, but it will be by accident. Then you don't know if it had to do with instructional practices or other factors. With a plan you can see how things worked and didn't work."
