Leading in the teaching industry requires a teacher to lead in varied roles linked to the success of the students as well as the institution itself. Some of the teachers have leadership roles assigned to them formally yet every teacher has the shared responsibility to lead the students and the institution towards success while improving its overall capacity. There are a number of roles elaborated below that young budding teachers can take on for their personal development while serving as leaders in their preferred roles.
Following are the 10 roles that young teachers can take as leadership development projects:
Instructional Leadership
An instructional leader is a specialist in teaching strategies who helps fellow teachers in implementing the right teaching techniques for desired results. The role of an instructional leader might include generating ideas in order to differentiate instruction and planning lessons in collaboration with fellow teachers. Another role of an instructional leader includes studying research on classroom strategies in order to explore new instructional methodologies that can be useful to the institution.
Instructional leaders work towards bridging the short-term and long-term gaps in teaching strategies while recommending changes in order to improve results. They also lead in sharing the research-based methodologies with fellow teachers to be tested in a classroom setting in order to gauge the results.
Curriculum Leadership
The role of curriculum leader varies across understanding the content standards, the linkages between various components of the curriculum, and using the curriculum in all phases including planning, instruction, and assessment in order to ensure consistent implementation of the curriculum throughout the school. Curriculum leaders educate fellow teachers to follow standards, adapted curriculum, pacing charts, and work on developing shared assessments.
A curriculum leader works on developing a common understanding amongst the team in order to ensure that the standards are followed while the teachers agree to facilitate the process of development as well as assessment analysis.
Resource Leadership
Another role that teachers can take is of a resource leader; a person who takes pride in helping their colleagues by sharing resources, including websites, teaching materials, and reading material that can help student development. They also help fellow teachers by sharing professional resources for teacher development that includes books, articles, lesson plans, and assessments.
Classroom Support Leadership
Leaders in classroom support are assigned to work in classrooms to assist teachers in implementing new ideas, presentations, teaching, monitoring, and feedback. Classroom support leaders promote peer consultation as it enhances the skill, confidence, ability, and capacity of teachers as it encourages improvement through collaboration. It is classroom support that can help a teacher in carrying out the lectures as well as relevant activities in a systematic manner.
Leader in Mentor-Support
Leaders in mentor-support serve as a guide for young teachers. Mentors lead the fellow teachers by serving as role models in terms of induction, instruction style, curriculum planning, policies, procedures, and school politics. Taking the role of a mentor requires a lot of personal time to be assigned to the development of a young professional teacher. Mentors feel proud when they watch the young professional develop into an accomplished teacher. Mentors love to share knowledge as they believe that by teaching, they advance their skill level in the process as well.
Leader in Learning
One of the most important roles a teacher can assume is leadership in learning. It is learning that paves the path for continuous improvement. Leaders in learning demonstrate the passion for lifelong learning and promote lifelong learning as a key to achieving success. The willingness and commitment of a passionate learner to talk about continuous learning can help other teachers to overcome their barriers in learning. Leaders in learning work as a role model for both teachers as well as students to instill and promote the love of learning.
Learning Facilitation Leadership
The role of a leader in learning facilitation is to motivate fellow teachers to opt for professional learning opportunities. Teachers who learn from one another have an advantage in focusing on direct improvement through shared analysis. Learning facilitation leaders also work towards filling the gaps that obstruct student learning. Another role of learning facilitation specialist is to eradicate isolation while promoting teamwork amongst the teachers.
Learning facilitation leaders identify the needs of students in terms of learning, assess knowledge base and skill levels of teachers, and the available learning opportunities in order to formulate a strategy to improve learning facilitation.
School Leader
The main roles of a school leader include serving on school committees, change management teams, working as a department head, driving development initiatives, and serving as the school representative for external affairs. It is important for a school leader to believe in the vision of the institution and to align personal goals with the institution’s growth targets while sharing the responsibility to lead the institution towards success. It is the responsibility of the school leader to ensure that the vision, mission, values and the agreed strategy is followed that can being positive results for the institution.
Change Leadership
Another important leadership role that a teacher can take is to work as a catalyst for change. It is the quality of visionaries that they never settle with the status quo rather they always keep looking for better ways. A change leader generally feels confident and secure about their own area of responsibility yet has a strong commitment towards continuous improvement. Since the only thing that is constant about life is change, hence a change leader ensures that his fellow teachers equip themselves with the developments and updates in the teaching industry.
Data Leadership
Another role that has really become important with the rise of technologies is data leadership. It is the ability of a school to gather and record data on each and every task through technology that has intrigued teachers to take on the data approach while proposing recommendations for performance improvement. Although there is a lot of information that teachers can access, only a few of them use that data to drive their classroom strategy. It is the role of a data leader to promote conversations that engage teachers in the analysis and use of data to improve results.
Following are the 10 roles that young teachers can take as leadership development projects:
Instructional Leadership
An instructional leader is a specialist in teaching strategies who helps fellow teachers in implementing the right teaching techniques for desired results. The role of an instructional leader might include generating ideas in order to differentiate instruction and planning lessons in collaboration with fellow teachers. Another role of an instructional leader includes studying research on classroom strategies in order to explore new instructional methodologies that can be useful to the institution.
Instructional leaders work towards bridging the short-term and long-term gaps in teaching strategies while recommending changes in order to improve results. They also lead in sharing the research-based methodologies with fellow teachers to be tested in a classroom setting in order to gauge the results.
Curriculum Leadership
The role of curriculum leader varies across understanding the content standards, the linkages between various components of the curriculum, and using the curriculum in all phases including planning, instruction, and assessment in order to ensure consistent implementation of the curriculum throughout the school. Curriculum leaders educate fellow teachers to follow standards, adapted curriculum, pacing charts, and work on developing shared assessments.
A curriculum leader works on developing a common understanding amongst the team in order to ensure that the standards are followed while the teachers agree to facilitate the process of development as well as assessment analysis.
Resource Leadership
Another role that teachers can take is of a resource leader; a person who takes pride in helping their colleagues by sharing resources, including websites, teaching materials, and reading material that can help student development. They also help fellow teachers by sharing professional resources for teacher development that includes books, articles, lesson plans, and assessments.
Classroom Support Leadership
Leaders in classroom support are assigned to work in classrooms to assist teachers in implementing new ideas, presentations, teaching, monitoring, and feedback. Classroom support leaders promote peer consultation as it enhances the skill, confidence, ability, and capacity of teachers as it encourages improvement through collaboration. It is classroom support that can help a teacher in carrying out the lectures as well as relevant activities in a systematic manner.
Leader in Mentor-Support
Leaders in mentor-support serve as a guide for young teachers. Mentors lead the fellow teachers by serving as role models in terms of induction, instruction style, curriculum planning, policies, procedures, and school politics. Taking the role of a mentor requires a lot of personal time to be assigned to the development of a young professional teacher. Mentors feel proud when they watch the young professional develop into an accomplished teacher. Mentors love to share knowledge as they believe that by teaching, they advance their skill level in the process as well.
Leader in Learning
One of the most important roles a teacher can assume is leadership in learning. It is learning that paves the path for continuous improvement. Leaders in learning demonstrate the passion for lifelong learning and promote lifelong learning as a key to achieving success. The willingness and commitment of a passionate learner to talk about continuous learning can help other teachers to overcome their barriers in learning. Leaders in learning work as a role model for both teachers as well as students to instill and promote the love of learning.
Learning Facilitation Leadership
The role of a leader in learning facilitation is to motivate fellow teachers to opt for professional learning opportunities. Teachers who learn from one another have an advantage in focusing on direct improvement through shared analysis. Learning facilitation leaders also work towards filling the gaps that obstruct student learning. Another role of learning facilitation specialist is to eradicate isolation while promoting teamwork amongst the teachers.
Learning facilitation leaders identify the needs of students in terms of learning, assess knowledge base and skill levels of teachers, and the available learning opportunities in order to formulate a strategy to improve learning facilitation.
School Leader
The main roles of a school leader include serving on school committees, change management teams, working as a department head, driving development initiatives, and serving as the school representative for external affairs. It is important for a school leader to believe in the vision of the institution and to align personal goals with the institution’s growth targets while sharing the responsibility to lead the institution towards success. It is the responsibility of the school leader to ensure that the vision, mission, values and the agreed strategy is followed that can being positive results for the institution.
Change Leadership
Another important leadership role that a teacher can take is to work as a catalyst for change. It is the quality of visionaries that they never settle with the status quo rather they always keep looking for better ways. A change leader generally feels confident and secure about their own area of responsibility yet has a strong commitment towards continuous improvement. Since the only thing that is constant about life is change, hence a change leader ensures that his fellow teachers equip themselves with the developments and updates in the teaching industry.
Data Leadership
Another role that has really become important with the rise of technologies is data leadership. It is the ability of a school to gather and record data on each and every task through technology that has intrigued teachers to take on the data approach while proposing recommendations for performance improvement. Although there is a lot of information that teachers can access, only a few of them use that data to drive their classroom strategy. It is the role of a data leader to promote conversations that engage teachers in the analysis and use of data to improve results.