The Power of Required Team Membership to Foster Teacher Instructional Support

• In Event: The Parker Hotel Roundtable 2
  In Roundtable Session: Workplace Learning: Highlighted, Researched, and Analyzed From the Lens of the Practitioners

Abstract

In this paper, we present the results of an NSF-funded study that examined the relationship between “informal” teacher support networks and “formal” teacher support networks engineered by administrators. Social network analysis methods were used to examine network cohesion (i.e. size, density, isolates, ties), and degree centrality. Chi-square and multi-nomial logistic regressions were performed to examine how team membership and factors of seniority and self-efficacy were predictive of teachers’ advice seeking behaviors. Ties between teachers based on shared team membership accounted for half or more of informal teacher instructional support networks. In addition, teachers were much less likely to seek support the longer they had served in the district. Socio-grams were visually inspected and used to communicate findings to district personnel.

Authors

• Rebecca H. Woodland, University of Massachusetts - Amherst

• Rebecca Mazur, University of Massachusetts - Amherst