Professional Learning Coordination as Career-Embedded Stewardship Development in an Urban Secondary School

• In Event: Instructional Supervision and Leadership: Strategies, Development, and Practices

Abstract

This case study examines an experimental model of collective leadership for professional learning. Teachers at a school served as professional learning community coordinators in professional learning councils. The resultant shared responsibilities created three important effects: 1) deeper understanding of the intricacies involved in managing professional learning, 2) broader organizational expertise among teachers, and 3) development of a sense of stewardship. However, along with enhanced knowledge, skills, and dispositions, there were also tendency toward groupthink and shifting responsibility for action. Findings suggest that broadly sharing responsibility for management of professional learning among many actors has promise for developing the organizational leadership capacity of schools; however, such an approach may also result in “too many cooks in the kitchen” unless carefully managed.

Author

• Michael A. Owens, Wayne State University