Symposium Introduction: Stepping Into Their Power: The Development Of A Teacher Leadership Stance

This introduction to the symposium on Teacher Leadership describes how a group of teachers have developed a definition of teacher leadership as a stance. The article explores how prior definitions of teacher leadership tend to focus on individual skills or roles. Neoliberal educational policies that emphasize market-based policy, privatization, individual effort and benefit, and efficiency have contributed to these task-oriented definitions of teacher leadership. The teacher leaders who participate in this project resist this framing and explore teacher leadership as a stance that values professionalism and the intellectual, political, and collaborative work of teaching

Introduction To Part 2 Of A Symposium On Teachers As Leaders: Teachers Write Now: Collaborating, Writing, And Acting On Teacher Leadership

This introduction to the second part of our Symposium on Teachers as Leaders examines the role of collaboration and writing as part of teacher leadership. The first part of the symposium described teacher leadership as a stance that values professionalism and the intellectual, political, and collaborative work of teaching. This introduction explores how a group of teacher leaders who have met regularly during the past several years have used writing to reflect on practice, to share ideas with one another, and to communicate their perspectives to others

College For All: Issues In Higher Education (EDUC 166) Syllabus

In this seminar, we examine institutions of higher education as spaces within which individuals and social structures are both reproduced and recreated. Questions to be explored include: How has the (often racist and colonial) history of US postsecondary education shaped its present structures? What are the goals of the many different forms of postsecondary institutions? Who has access - and who controls that access? How do institutional structures and cultures impact student learning, student identity, and student experience? The seminar will focus explicitly on how institutions and student experiences are shaped by the intersections of race, class, gender, sexual orientation

Teacher Leader Administrators: Part 3 Of A Symposium On Teachers As Leaders

In this latest continuation of our multipart symposium on teacher leadership, we examine what happens when self-defined teacher leaders become school administrators. Do teacher leaders who become administrators maintain a teacher identity? Can they remain committed to their vision of teacher leadership when they take on the normative requirements and responsibilities of school administration? Through a conversation with three teachers leaders, we explore the rewards and trials of teaching, the choice to become teacher leaders and then administrators, and the unique challenges that face administrators who deeply value the professional, political, and collaborative work of teachers

Active Learning Outside The Classroom: Implementation And Outcomes Of Peer-Led Team-Learning Workshops In Introductory Biology

Study group meetings (SGMs) are voluntary-attendance peer-led team-learning workshops that supplement introductory biology lectures at a selective liberal arts college. While supporting all students’ engagement with lecture material, specific aims are to improve the success of underrepresented minority (URM) students and those with weaker backgrounds in biology. Peer leaders with experience in biology courses and training in science pedagogy facilitate work on faculty-generated challenge problems. During the eight semesters assessed in this study, URM students and those with less preparation attended SGMs with equal or greater frequency than their counterparts. Most agreed that SGMs enhanced their comprehension of biology and ability to articulate solutions. The historical grade gap between URM and non-URM students narrowed slightly in Biology 2, but not in other biology and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics courses. Nonetheless, URM students taking introductory biology after program implementation have graduated with biology majors or minors at the same rates as non-URM students, and have enrolled in postcollege degree programs at equal or greater rates. These results suggest that improved performance as measured by science grade point average may not be necessary to improve the persistence of students from underrepresented groups as life sciences majors