| The purpose of this study is to explore the ways that four individual teachers experienced the change in their role and daily teaching practice as they implement a teacher leadership program called Model Classrooms. Duke (1994) notes that teacher leaders have been in schools for a long time, but their roles have been more organizational or managerial in nature. In recent years, however, teacher leaders have begun to move to the forefront of school change (Duke, 1994). The Model Classrooms program focuses on teacher leadership and professional development as method to improve collaboration and collegiality among colleagues.; Originally, five self-selected teachers, under the guidance of the district assistant superintendent, designed this school reform effort in 2000 to improve teacher leadership skills and model best practices. These five teachers began their efforts in the place in which they had the most control, their own classrooms. The resulting framework contained four major components: planning and preparation, the environment, instruction, and assessment. In September 2002, an additional five teachers were added to the leadership team.; The goal of the program is to provide a network of teachers who are available to model best practices, provide an environment of greater teacher collaboration, and build local capacity to facilitate change. This study investigates what it means for four of these teachers to be teacher leaders in the professional development program. This 14-week investigation included personal interviews, classroom observations, and a review of their teaching materials. The data was analyzed using Fullan's Framework for Leadership (Fullan, 2001a) to determine each teacher's level of moral purpose, understanding change, relationship building, knowledge creation and sharing, and coherence making. The results of this research suggest that the current implementation of the Model Classrooms framework is creating teacher leaders through individualized professional development. |
