The making of…
…an instructional leader.
Hello all. Welcome to the 190th edition of TEPS Weekly!
In the first part of this series, we looked at an important shift – from teaching well to leading instruction. A good teacher knows what works in their own classroom. An instructional leader can help other teachers because they can tell you why something works in the classroom. That raises the next question: How can schools identify teachers who may become good instructional leaders, and how can they help them develop?
Imagine that a school needs a new Head of Department. One teacher has the best student results. Another has fifteen years of experience. A third is extremely organised and dependable. All three may be good candidates. But none of these qualities tells us what will happen when another teacher says, “My lesson is not working. Can you help me?”
Identification matters
Horses can’t fly and a honeybee cannot pilot an aeroplane. In the same way, training can be excellent, but it becomes much harder if the school has chosen someone only because they have taught the longest or get the best results. Those things do matter. But instructional leadership needs some additional knowledge, skills and attitudes.
Let’s start with knowledge. A potential instructional leader should understand teaching beyond their own routines. They need to know how students learn, how misconceptions develop, and how assessment can reveal understanding. They also need to understand how adults learn, because supporting teachers is different from teaching children.
How can a school identify this? Ask a teacher to explain one of their own lessons. Not just what they did, but why. Why did they begin with that question? Why that example? What misconception were they expecting? What evidence told them students were ready to move on? A teacher who can make this thinking visible is showing more than good classroom practice. They are showing that they can turn practice into principles that other teachers may use.
How about skills then? Instructional leaders need to observe, diagnose, ask useful questions, give feedback, co-plan, use student work and assessment evidence, and facilitate conversations among teachers. Such skills are easier to see through small tasks than through an interview.
Ask a potential leader to observe a lesson. Afterwards, listen to the conversation. Do they list everything the teacher did wrong? Do they immediately explain how they would have taught it? Or do they first ask what the teacher was trying to achieve, identify one or two important issues, and help the teacher think through what could change?
Give them a set of student responses. Can their interpretation move beyond “the students are weak” and notice a pattern? For example, “Most students can calculate the answer, but cannot explain why the method works.”
Finally, there are attitudes. These may be harder to see, but they matter just as much. A strong instructional leader needs curiosity, humility and patience, and is non-judgemental. They need to use evidence rather than personal preference. They need to be comfortable with another teacher reaching the same learning goal in a different way.
A useful signal is what happens when someone disagrees with them. Do they become defensive? Or do they become curious and ask, “What are you seeing that I am not?” How likely are teachers to discuss a failed lesson honestly with someone? This is a good question to ask while looking for the right attitude.
So schools can look for three connected things: the knowledge to understand teaching, the skills to work through an instructional problem, and the attitude to do this in a non-judgemental, inclusive way.
What this looks like in a school
Many of these qualities are difficult to judge from student examination results, years of service or an interview. A school need not make the decision in one go. Well before appointing someone as a Head of Department or an Academic Coordinator, give them smaller instructional leadership roles. They could observe a lesson, mentor a new teacher, facilitate a meeting where teachers look at student work, or lead a discussion on a common classroom problem. The school can then look for signs in the responses of the potential Head or Coordinator – are they mostly speaking about solutions, are they sharing what they do in their class, are they able to empathise with other teachers’ issues, and so on.
In fact, the process of moving from good teaching to good instructional leadership should be thought of as a progression:
Strong classroom practice as a solid foundation
Ability to explain one’s decisions
Ability to do peer observations to understand other teachers’ contexts
Strong co-planning skills
Giving and receiving feedback
Facilitating team learning
Leading instructional improvement
Each step asks for a little more.
Explaining your own practice makes teaching decisions and thinking behind each decision visible.
Observing another classroom develops the ability to understand someone else’s context.
Co-planning develops the ability to support without taking over.
Feedback turns observations into useful next steps.
Mentoring asks whether the leader can support change over time.
Facilitating team learning asks whether they can see patterns across classrooms and help a group work on them together.
Leading instructional improvement asks about the abilty to generalise the needs for the teacher cohort.
So an instructional leader should be a person who is empathetic, reflective, and pedagogically sound.
Create the conditions for good leadership to blossom
There is one more part of the equation. We can identify the right person and give them training, but the school still has to make the role possible. Imagine telling a new Academic Coordinator, “Your job is to improve teaching across the school,” while giving them a full teaching load, no time to observe classes, no common planning time, no useful assessment data, and no coaching of their own. The problem is no longer only the leader’s capability.
If we expect instructional leaders to observe classes, co-plan, mentor teachers and analyse student work, those activities need space in the timetable. Teachers should know whether an observation is for development or evaluation. Leaders need the right information, tools and feedback on their own practice. This means that once a teacher is on the pathway to leadership roles their teaching load must decrease. If we look at teaching as a profession, it is like changing the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of the potential leader from teaching to leading.
In conclusion, we will leave you with a few key questions for identifying instructional leaders for your schools:
Does this teacher understand why good teaching works?
Can they diagnose a problem before giving a solution?
Can they use evidence?
Can they give feedback that helps another teacher make a better decision?
Can they work with someone who thinks differently?
Do colleagues become more capable after working with them?
Do you want to identify these members on your team? Take up the TEPS Top Teachers Recognition Challenge!
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Edition: 5.45
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