Dialogue 2 : Developing Your Teachers' Skills
Do you have teachers or instructional leaders that need clear expectations and skills development in order to get better at what they do?
Leading for success means providing clear expectations of what every member of a team is responsible for and supporting each person’s professional development so that they can competently meet the stated expectations.
In the teaching profession, instructional leaders are usually 1) teachers who have continued their education and earned an administrative credential; 2) teachers with considerable seniority (where is assumed that they are competent to show others how to teach); or 3) teachers who have proven to be effective at teaching. In none of these cases is the criteria related to being effective at leading other adults – especially capricious adults like public school teachers!
Leading adults, especially educators, is challenging work. Educators often feel under- appreciated, over-worked, frustrated and beat-up by students, parents and administrators. Very few have all the personal tools, resources and infrastructure they need to successfully teach the students that attend our public schools.
In order to compensate for this situation, an effective instructional leader needs a great many tools. He or she needs to know how to motivate and inspire teachers to take risks, try new methods of teaching, collaborate with each other, face their data and embrace their students as if they were their own children. To do this, they need to able to draw on an array of leadership techniques and strategies.
CEP shows instructional leaders how to provide the resources, feedback and support teachers need to be able to improve their teaching. Once teachers know how to get results, they start to take ownership of their school's performance.
To find out how we do this, see Mission and Vision.