Contemporary Teacher Leadership

102098_2019_1H

Assignment 2- Personal Reflection

Group Video Link: https://youtu.be/Q4k6O-DqTYo

Personal Reflection

Teaching is the process of transferring knowledge. It is important that educators take

responsibilities to provide quality teaching as well as making continues progress

along one’s teaching career. This essay will reflect on my teaching philosophy, our

team collaboration and my personal contribution to the team. I believe that all

teachers should endeavour to continually expand their capacity and working towards

better outcomes. Meanwhile, teachers should also bring changes to the workplace in

order to maintain a professional and quality environment.

Frost (2013) describes teachers as agents of change. Teacher-led development is a

process of generating professional knowledge including skills, information and

understanding. It increases individual teacher’s personal capacity in terms of stock of

knowledge and skills, as well as collaborative working skills (Frost and Durrant,

2002). Collaboration involves not only colleagues, but also communities, parents and

interested stakeholders. Frost’s view is supported by Taylor (2015), who claims that

good teachers of all backgrounds plays a significant role as leaders in educational

change. From my own experience during the professional practices, teachers do make

a difference, and could bring changes, be it experienced or new, and even in difficult

situations. Changing the environment is actually about changing ourselves and our

actions. Changing includes a number of facets, such as attitude, practice, use of ICT

and cultural understanding. For instance, my mentor teacher is a so-called “old school

style” teacher, who is not a fan of technology. In contrast, I rely on technologies

including PowerPoints, videos and games heavily. A few lessons after, he asked me

for the ICT resources and was preparing to use them for his other classes. My point is,

through proper collaboration, teachers could all make changes and making progress

together. Even new teachers have an important role to bring in new theories and

thoughts to the school.

Teachers are members of professional communities (Frost, 2013). Professional

Learning Communities (PLC) is about teachers as professionals to continually expand

their capacity to achieve better learning outcomes. In the PLC, teachers

collaboratively learning together and improve as a community. This idea is generated

from the learning organisation, which is about generating and acting on the new

knowledge and thus the businesses and organisations can have a competitive

advantage in the changing environment. This rule also applies in school context. A

nurturing and inspiring working environment and teacher leadership should involve

creating a supportive environment where teachers’ voices are respected and valued;

and teachers could be able to participate in a variety of different change endeavours

(Tylor, 2015). For example, in our group video, the three of us did a role play of the

school meeting and faculty meeting regarding to the implementation of our school-

based project. In the implementation phase of the project, teachers and leaders are to

continuously sharing their professional experiences and results in a structured way,

and then acting on what they could improve. The goal is to enhance the effectiveness

as professionals to benefit student learning (White, 2012).

Further, in terms of personal growth and professional development, lesson study is

one of the most effective way. Lesson study is a model of professional development

that involves collaborative lesson planning and evaluation (Vrikki, Vermunt, & Van

2017). Teachers plan, observe, and revise “research lessons” to bring their ideas about

effective teaching to life (Hurd & Licciardo-Musso, 2005). By this way, teachers

monitor and record the student learning and understanding, and form their own

understandings about teaching and learning. There are 4 steps to do a research lesson

properly. First, teacher consider long-term outcomes for student learning and

development with respect to curriculum and professional standards. Then, teachers

select research lesson and plan data collection and lesson. After planning, teachers

will do the research lesson while other team members collect the data. Lastly, the

team members should share data and reflect on the lesson. (Hurd & Licciardo-

Musso, 2005). When considering such group learnings, researchers view the

environment and social structures as key to the cognitive activities associated

with collaboration (Vrikki, Vermunt, & Van 2017). Further, following from

this, researches about teacher learning agrees that professional communities act

as effective agents for improving professional learning and sustained personal

development (Stoll et al., 2006; Webster-Wright, 2009).

In conclusion, teaching leadership is about collaboration, progression, and reflection.

Towards the ends of this course, I have gained sufficient learning and leading theories

and skills, as well as team working experiences. Our group meet face to face every
week. We also use a range of other communication tools including email, Whatsapp,

Google Docs and Zoom meeting. We discussed about our common theme and made

decisions about our proposal together, then assign the jobs reasonably. All of us are

keen to do the work within certain timeline. Towards the end, we record the video

together and I edit it on my computer. Generally speaking, it is a very delightful

collaboration experience. In future, I would look forward to participate in the faculty

activities and school events, and bring changes to the staff room and meanwhile learn

from others.
References:

Frost, D. (2013). Teacher-led development work : Guidance and support.

Frost, D., & Durrant, J. (2002). Teachers as Leaders: Exploring the impact of

teacher-led development work. School Leadership & Management, 22(2),

143-161.

Hurd, J., & Licciardo-Musso, L. (2005). Lesson Study: Teacher-Led

Professional Development in Literacy Instruction. Language Arts, 82(5),

388-395. Retrieved from: https://www-jstor-

org.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/stable/41483503?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_conten

ts

Stoll, L., Bolam, R., McMahon, A., Wallace, M., & Thomas, S. (2006).

Professional Learning Communities: A Review of the Literature. Journal

of Educational Change, 7(4), 221-258. DOI: 10.1007/s10833-006-0001-8

Taylor, Monica, author, Taylor, Monica, author, Taylor, Monica. author, Klein ,

Emily J., author, Abrams, Linda, contributor, SpringerLink, &

 SpringerLink eBooks Humanities Social Sciences Law 2015 Collection.

(2015). A year in the life of a third space urban teacher residency : Using

inquiry to reinvent teacher education (Bold visions in educational

research ; v. 49).

Vrikki, W., Vermunt, M., & Van H. (2017). Teacher learning in the context of

Lesson Study: A video-based analysis of teacher discussions. Teaching and

Teacher Education, 61, 211-224. DOI: 10.1016/j.tate.2016.10.014

Webster-Wright, A. (2009). Reframing Professional Development Through

Understanding Authentic Professional Learning. Review of Educational

Research,79(2), 702-739. DOI: 10.3102/0034654308330970

White, S. (2012). Professional learning communities. Independent

Education, (3), 24-26. Retrieved from: https://search-informit-com-

au.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/fullText;dn=146196848506713;res=IELHSS