Bridging Structure and Agency: Exploring the Role of Teacher Leadership in Teacher Collaboration

• In Event: Teacher Leadership: Shape, Form, and Impact

Abstract

This paper explores teacher leadership’s role in creating conditions that foster teacher efficacy and enable collegial exchange and professional learning during structured collaboration. Based on a qualitative study of teacher teams, our findings suggest that, through actions and interactions, teachers establish and maintain processes that foster teacher efficacy and motivation and, in turn, create a ‘good fit’ for their work. We argue that the nature of teacher leadership evolves with sustained teacher interaction: as teacher confidence and motivation becomes stronger, teacher leadership becomes decreasingly tied to individuals and increasingly distributed through social interaction.

Authors

• Stacy Agee Szczesiul, University of Massachusetts - Lowell

• Jessica Huizenga, University of Massachusetts - Lowell