How to Balance Teacher Autonomy and System Coherence?

• In Event: Teachers' Tensions, Autonomy, and Social Constructions in Professional Development

Abstract

This paper describes outcomes of a series of teacher professional development grants that put teachers in the driver’s seat of their own professional learning. Teachers used grant funds to build a team, select a focus for their teams’ professional growth, and take actions that they felt would be most effective in helping them improve their practice. Grant funding also included additional supports for teams related to larger systems level change, capacity building and using local resources, as well as encouragement to include administrators and/or district leaders on their teams. The idea was that developing a shared leadership model that promoted teachers and administrators learning side by side would help sustain the professional learning process over time.

Author

• Lisa H. Sullivan, University of California - Davis