How Teacher Leaders Leverage Mid-Level Positioning and Expertise for English Learner–Focused Instructional Change

• In Event: 60.047 - Developing Formal Structures to Facilitate Teacher Leadership in Job-Embedded Professional Development

Abstract

Purpose
Schools and districts are increasingly developing teacher leader roles to support teacher professional learning and promote educational equity and instructional change for their EL students. This article examines the nature of the work of EL-focused teacher leaders and the ways in which they may influence instructional and educational opportunities for EL students at different levels of the educational system.

Perspectives
Teacher leaders are often positioned as “boundary crossers,” (Swinnerton, 2007) negotiating district, school, and classroom contexts. These teacher leaders focus their work on “brokering,” or “cultivating the exchange of information and expertise” (Burch & Spillane, 2004, p. 4) among different levels of the system. As agents of curricular and pedagogical reform (Leander & Osborne, 2008), however, teacher leaders may take on a more active and flexible role in facilitating instructional improvement (Portin et al., 2009).
EL-focused teacher leaders specifically may be positioned to facilitate important changes throughout the district to improve the teaching and learning of EL students. Some studies show important systemic changes in the few districts successful in teaching their EL students: district-wide professional development opportunities, integrating EL students into the general educational program (Hakuta, 2011; Horwitz et al., 2009) and providing “organization and coherence of schools and districts” (Hakuta, 2011, p. 171) around EL-related issues. This paper seeks to empirically show the driving role EL-focused teacher leaders may play in promoting these systemic changes.

Methods and Data Sources
Data come from year-long, qualitative comparative case studies of four elementary EL-focused teacher leaders in an urban school district, serving high numbers of EL students. Teacher leadership was a main component to supporting teachers’ instruction and work with their EL students. In this paper, I focus on Robin and Beth, the two district EL teacher leaders, as instructive cases of productive school – and district-wide teacher leadership. Data sources come from multiple ethnographic sources: multiple interviews with Robin, Beth, and other participants with whom they worked; observations of classroom instruction, meetings, and professional development sessions; and pertinent documents to the process, content, and context of the teacher-leader work.


Results
Robin and Beth leveraged their mid-level positioning to not only guide teacher professional learning and “system learning” (Swinnerton, 2007, p. 200), but to drive that work at different levels of the system and foster coherence among EL programmatic and instructional decisions. Results show how Robin and Beth (1) integrated a “big picture” view while negotiating an explicit focus on the teaching and learning of EL students at the classroom, school, and district levels; and (2) strategically leveraged their knowledge, expertise and professional relationships both horizontally at each level of the system, such as across departments at the district level or across schools at the school level, and (3) vertically, across different levels of the system, to move EL instruction forward.


Scholarly significance
This paper addresses a gap in the research on teacher leadership that specifically addresses the role of teacher leaders in more systemic changes regarding the teaching and learning of culturally and linguistically diverse students such as EL students.

Author

• Kerry Soo Von Esch, Seattle University