Teacher Leader Development: A Narrative Inquiry

Teacher Leader Development: A Narrative Inquiry into Senior Teacher

Development in two Secondary Schools in Singapore

CRPP Conference 20153 June 2015

Lloyd YeoSt Gabriel’s Secondary School

Teacher Development Movement in Singapore: 2001-2015

2001: Edu-Pac & Master Teacher Scheme

2009: PMTT & LT Scheme. Teacher Development Centre / AST and Professional Learning Community initiative

2014: WP Seminar 2014: Growing Our Teachers, Building Our Nation: Belief in students, self, others and something larger

Teacher Leaders’ Programme (TLP)

The Teaching Track

School A and School B

Schools

Students

Teachers

Ratio of STs/LTs: Staff (2012)

Ratio of STs/LTs: Staff: (2015)

1164 92 1:23(4)

1:30(3)

1248 98 1:98(1)

1:19.6(5)

Background of participantsName / School

Yrs Education

Career trajectory Main rationale for joining ST

Mr Yong 24 yrs Tr ST (20th yr)

Area of interest: outside subject

Ms Hari 17 Yrs Pr Tr Ed Sec Tr ST (9th yr)

Already doing the job

Ms Chen 20 yrs Tr MM ST(20th yr)

Sense of Stagnation

Ms Yip 22 yrs Tr ST (20th yr)

Sense of Stagnation

Mr Row 23 yrs Tr MM VP LT (20th yr)

Passion for Subject

Mean: 21.2 yrs Median: 22 years

Research DesignIndividual

NI

a. Selection of individuals

b. Face-to-face c. Field Notes

Origins/Start/ Self

Field text

a. Storification/ Re-storification

b. Clarification c. Approval for Analysis

a. Pattern-identification

b. Reconceptualize and reinternalize new understandings as a community of teachers

Reflexive: Researcher role / peers/ anonymity

Research Text Mediational tool for community learning

Surface vs.

deep

Potential Tr Ldrs

Tr Ldr Appt and Identity

Accreditation Standards and Write-out

FamilySch LeaderCluster/ Subj ChaptersHODST Colleagues

PortfolioInterview Panel

SystemsRoles and responsibilities

Assumptions: Tensions and internal contradictions as principles of self-organization of an activity system and enablers of continuing devt

Subject: The Potential TL

Stagnation / Learning/ Contribution

Desire to Learn More/ Self-efficacy Ms Chen: The idea started when I

wanted to step down from a management role. I had enough of running departments and evaluating them. I felt stagnant. I felt I wasn’t spending enough time in teaching. I just grab-and-go

Ms Yip: I just wanted to get out of my CCA. I got fed up and tired of it because I felt I was not contributing and learning.

Mr Yong: I was a GEO 1A3 officer for so long and already doing the job. I never saw it as additional burden and just thought I would just apply

Ms Hari: My worst enemy was myself because even despite the constant encouragement, I needed more confidence

Community: Family, School Leaders, Cluster / Subject Chapters at AST

Mr Row: Sir, you are wasting your time here

Mr Yong: It was School Leader encouragement

and their systematic and more structured way of preparing me

STUDENTS

SCHOOL LEADERS

FAMILY

Mrs Hari: was concerned it would take me

away from my motherly duties.

TEACHERS

Ms Yip: AST:You better go. It is good for you. Keep an open mind

I look to her as a teacher who can make it and she said, ‘just try’.

Rules and Tools

Beliefs Action

The Written Level:/ Mr Yong: They helped to vet and re-organize my accreditation standards and write-outs into various headings. There were so many people helping me to vet – the ST, my HOD and the VP. Even then I was not clear.

I eventually adopted a template that I had I had come: What did I do? Why did I do it? How did I go about doing it? What have I learnt? What have the boys /mentee/ teachers learn? How can I do it better?

The Reflection/ Ms Yip: We usually take reflections for granted and say it is ‘bo liao’. We are already so busy

You reflect when you type. I was unknowingly writing my beliefs down as well. This really helped me when I had to do the accreditation forms and translate my beliefs into actions and verbalize them at interviews.

The Interview

Rules and Tools

The Interview

Ms Yip: And I always tell myself “Wah! So many things to do”. “Jing Joi Mik Kia” (Hokkien for so many things). I realized that it was my life’s work of what I did as a teacher

for the past 1o to 20 years. These were the things that we had been doing and what we were about it. It actually forces you to reflect on your journey and how we have grown as teachers. To have deep meaning, you must see it as a journey. Then it will be meaningful. You have to go through it. Don’t just listen or ‘tia’ (hokkien for listen’.

Ms Hari: I had to plan everything by standards, look back and old emails and it was very time-consuming. But it also made me realized that I had done so much in my career at the school and grown so much as well.

Ms Hari: It looked kind of ridiculous in a strange way. There I was with 2 large portfolio files and the SHs/ HODs were going with just a thin writeout.

Rules and Tools

The Interview

.

Prep Sessions, Mock Interviews and Books/ Mr Yong: They also held sessions where they prepared me for the kind of questions I would be asked at the interview. These helped me think about what I wanted to say and to organize my thoughts.

Ms Hari: They directed me to some books by Stephen Covey to familiarize me with some of the Learning Organizational tools and terminologies I could use.

Emotional labour of interviews/ Bilingualism/Mr Yong: I just could not articulate my thoughts and put them into words. I was quite tongue tied. I was discouraged and disappointed because I had put so much effort and yet failed.

Language and Beliefs/ Ms Yip: At the post mortems, I was told to be myself and phrase things in the way I did . To start with my beliefs and then rationalize and explain why I did certain things. I saw the interview process in a whole new light

The Interview

OJT and Scoping/ Ms Chen: Another important milestone was my experience of taking on the role of SCM for 10 weeks. This was baptism by fire and this gave me confidence

Division of Labour The Division of Labour ifor ST Development is enacted through

different platforms, positions and histories as a complex web in relation to each other.

Mentoring, Subject Teaching, Form Teachership, Programmes

Mr Row: Sometimes it is like a ball of confusion. So many platforms and so many people involved.Mr Yong: At one time, I thought of leaving because after a while I am tired of doing just progammes year after year. I am never the School Coordinating Mentor and hardly do mentoring .

SSDP/VP

LT/STs HOD

ClusterSchools

Zone

AST/Subject Chapters

Towards a sustainable and social-based approach to ST/LT development.

Teacher Career Cycles: The disenchanted (who can be re-enchanted), the quiet ones, the introverts, the resistors and reprobates. (Day, 2012; Hargreaves & Fullan, 2012)

Role negotiations and development

Identity Formation in Learning Communities for ST devt:/ Activity

Ball of Confusion and the band played on….and Ms Yip: Focus on the journey and reflect on the journey. This will make things more meaningful

Discussion/ RecommendationsProff communities/ bureaucracy, Loci of Control, time and privacy to navigate fault lines (Lieberman & Miller, 2008)

Identity Formation in Learning Communities for ST devt to growing altriusm for adult learning in multiple and authentic teacher communities :


Dispositions Hardware/ Structures

Each colleague as valuable Honoring Tr knowledge Human learning in proff practice

and relationships Inquiry stance for evidence-

informed conversations ST Empowerment & Agency Clarity of purpose Collective focus on mentoring

and classroom practice Theory of Action & Participation Problem solving dispositions Practice in mentoring and

observation

Platforms for mentoring, sharing, dialogue, critique

Routines and forums for sharing, dialogue, co-creating

Participatory methodologies / facilitation for real commmunity Tr empowerment

Regularity of conversations/meetings to build collegial relationships and inquiry based on trust and openness

Guided reflection n teaching through reflection on learning

Multiple entry points Reflection and internalization (over

the long haul)

Discussions/Recommendations


Day C., (2012) New lives of teachers . Teacher Education Quarterly. 39(1), 7-26

Hargreaves, A. & Fullan, M. (2012). Professional capital: Transforming teaching in every school. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Leana, C.R.

Lieberman, A. & Miller, L. (2004). Teacher leadership. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Lieberman, A., Hanson, S. & Gless, J. (2012). Mentoring teachers: Navigating the real-world tensions. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

Schon, D. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books

Little, J.W. (1995). Contested Ground: The basis of teacher leadership in two restructuring high schools. Elementary School Journal 96 (1), 47-63

York-Barr, J. & Duke, K. (2004). What do we know about teacher leadership? Findings from two decades of scholarship. Review of Educational Research, Fall 2004, 94 (3), 255-316.

Education Service Professional Career Plan 2001. http://www.moe.gov.sg/media/press/2001/pr26092001.htm#ANNEX A

Selected References