Empowering Teachers

An effective instructional leader listens carefully to teacher needs, protects time for teacher collaboration, and offers various job-integrated supports – like coaching – that will enhance instructional delivery over an extended period.

Instructional Leadership has become more widespread across schools as principal workload increases and emphasis on student achievement grows. Yet many questions still exist regarding its definition and implementation.

Empowering teachers is a top goal for school leaders and can yield numerous advantages. Studies have shown that teacher empowerment leads to increased student success rates – it makes sense that leaders would want their teaching staff equipped with the tools necessary for practical work.

As part of that consideration, teachers must understand their perception of Leadership and which strategies are most effective at empowering them. When exploring strategies to empower your teachers, consider these five approaches:

1.  Leadership focused

Effective instructional leadership begins with an indelible moral purpose centered around student learning and professional inquiry, demanding careful daily management tasks, strong dedication to professional growth, and strong bonds between employees.

Instructional leaders can support colleagues as they plan and teach lessons based on their strengths, needs, and goals by modeling vulnerability and rewarding risk-taking behaviors that encourage new ideas that could work with students’ classroom environments.

2. Collaborating with Teachers

Effective instructional leadership combines teachers’ strengths and teaches them to collaborate efficiently using constructive feedback and dialogue, enabling educators to learn from one another as they expand professionally while increasing student learning.

Collaboration can be a time-intensive and meticulous process, necessitating careful planning in advance. For instance, general education teachers working with literacy specialists must tailor lessons that meet both teachers’ teaching styles and accommodate for different reading abilities of the students in their class.

Teachers also collaborate to share resources, lesson plans, and classroom strategies students can utilize. This ensures they have access to the most up-to-date tools possible and deliver the optimal learning experience for their pupils.

Leaders seeking to foster effective teacher collaboration must ensure they dedicate enough time during each school day for teachers to interact with one another – this may take the form of expected planning time, professional learning communities, or critical friend groups.

3. Investing in Teachers

Worldwide, nations seeking to enhance their education systems invest in teacher learning as a critical driver of academic success. Such approaches involve ongoing professional development for educators and collaboration opportunities between them – with opportunities for teachers to explore novel curriculum methods for instruction and assessment.

Now more than ever, efforts are focused on improving student outcomes, which means rethinking teacher leadership. Whether filling district or regional roles or working across schools, middle-tier instructional leaders can offer much-needed advice to school-based practitioners in areas of expertise.

These strategies aim to transform teaching and learning from their roots. Students will ultimately benefit from these measures as educators are given the tools for effective instruction.

As educators begin saving for retirement, they should investigate defined-benefit pension plans fully funded by state and local governments. However, these payouts typically will only cover some teachers’ retirement needs.

4. Developing Teachers

Instructional leadership is an integral component of improving student achievement. This process includes leading professional learning communities, encouraging teacher collaboration and problem-solving with data, and providing a supportive environment for teacher growth.

Instructional leaders assist teachers in developing a growth mindset by reflecting on what works and doesn’t work in their teaching and devising plans to enhance students’ learning by improving teaching techniques.

Instructional leaders possess a comprehensive understanding of the curriculum and academic standards that guide teaching and learning, giving them a distinct advantage when providing content to meet students at every learning stage.

Teacher leaders provide educators with support in analyzing data and making decisions regarding improving instruction based on evidence-based best practices, helping all educators thrive and ensuring all students reach their maximum potential. In doing so, teacher leaders ensure that all children get their fullest potential and achieve optimal success in education.

John T. King Jr.

Ph.D. Student | Department of Education | University of Alabama