Developing instructional leadership through collaborative learning

Abstract

Collaborative learning teams have emerged as an effective tool for teachers to steadily and continuously improve their instruction. Evidence also suggests that a learning teams model can affect school leadership as well. We explored the impact of learning teams on leadership roles of principals and teachers in secondary schools and found that collaborative learning teams positively influenced school leadership in two ways: (1) by strengthening principals' instructional leadership, and (2) distributing leadership and instructional decision-making throughout the school. These changes in instructional and distributed leadership supported implementation of collaborative learning teams and promoted three key outcomes: (1) more accurate identification of student needs and instructional strategies, (2) greater communication across grade levels, and (3) improved job satisfaction and teacher retention. (Contains 1 figure.)