Distributive leadership allows other faculty members aside
from administration to make important choice when it comes to the school
community. In other words, it passes the
decision making torch from Principals and Vice Principals and maybe even Board
of Education members to teachers.
Distributive leadership is utilized in my school cite in a variety of ways. Firstly, we have department meetings
weekly. These department meets allow us
as teachers to make decisions about our common assessments and curriculum,
instead of the decision being made by a “higher-up”. I think this particular form of distributive
leadership is effective for a variety of reasons. Firstly, it allows teachers to feel as though
their thoughts are valued. Also, it
gives teachers an opportunity to have some say in what they are going to be
teaching and how they will approach it. Lastly, it creates a smaller community
within the school community as a whole.
This form of distributive leadership lends itself to
capacity building because it enables teachers to step up to a situation and
develop themselves and their skills.
Allowing people to make decisions for themselves and opening up the door
of leadership encourages people to work to their full capacity.
I agree with your school site allowing teachers to come up with common assessments vs. allowing someone other than the teachers to create the assessments. It sounds like our schools have similar distributive forms of leadership. The math coach has given the math teachers a pacing guide of when to teach standards but, the teachers have decided as grade levels how to teach them. The grade levels also come up with a common assessment based off of what the standards state as essential. If more administrators would share leadership with teachers, I believe that the public school systems would be more successful.
ReplyDeleteOur school system no longer allows teachers to make common assessments. They use Discovery Assessments formative assessments to make sure every teacher is teaching the appropriate material.
ReplyDelete