1. Teacher Leadership & Collaboration Design
Date

2. What is Teacher Leadership & Collaboration?2
What is Teacher Leadership & Collaboration?
Lead without leaving the classroom
Magnifying a great teacher’s impact
Real-time actionable feedback and coaching
Building great teams for every school
Teacher Leadership & Collaboration is a teacher leadership model that has been successfully implemented in 113 schools across DPS over the past three years and is continuing to expand this year.
This model allows highly effective teachers to share the expertise they have developed with fellow teachers, extending a great teacher’s impact to multiple classrooms and helping more students grow.
At a Teacher Leadership & Collaboration school, teachers are organized into teams guided by a senior team lead. Senior team leads provide the teachers on their teams with one-on-one coaching, evaluation, and real-time feedback that helps improve teaching and learning every single day. Senior Team leads also facilitate collaborative team time so that teachers can share ideas and learn from each other. We have other support roles as well including Team Specialists, Regional Team Specialists and New Teacher Ambassadors.
Team leads spend about half their time teaching and half their time working with their team of teachers.
The feedback provided by Senior/Team Leads comes from a fellow teacher who works with the same student population, often in the same content area. This means that the feedback is more likely to be relevant and actionable to a teacher’s practice.
TLC is a model that helps our schools become stronger learning organizations and gives our teachers the kind of supports that professionals in other knowledge-based, learning-intensive professions receive.
Teachers who are part of a team also benefit from collaborative planning and peer-to-peer knowledge sharing, which distributes the expertise of all teachers within the school.

3. Teacher Leadership & Collaboration Video
Optional Video Slide that shows Teacher Leadership in action through the voices of teacher leaders and teachers on their teams. Unhide if you want to include in your presentation.

4. Why is DPS expanding this model?
DPS OBJECTIVE
DESCRIPTION
Supports teacher and ultimately student growth
Provides more frequent and actionable feedback and coaching for teachers; aims to strengthen classroom instruction in service of all students succeeding.
Strengthens teams in schools
Increase opportunities for peer-to-peer knowledge sharing through teacher teams led by teachers
Attracts and retains strong teachers
Innovative leadership roles can bring new life to a teacher’s practice and keep great teachers in the classroom and profession
Increases distributive leadership
Builds stronger leadership teams while growing and developing potential APs and principals
Why is your specific school adopting this model?
<<Express a school based ‘why’ here>>
Why are we designing and reorganizing our school through this model? (Slides 4-5)
Teacher Leadership & Collaboration is an equitable and sustainable model that will make our school better and positively impact school leaders, teachers and students. (Slide 4)
This new way or organizing our school (Slide 4):
Supports teacher growth by providing more frequent and actionable feedback and coaching; ultimate goal of improving instruction for students
Strengthens leadership teams in our schools
Helps us attract and retain strong teachers through innovative leadership roles that bring new life to a teacher’s practice and keep great teachers in the classroom and profession.
Contributes to stronger instruction in every classroom: as schools commit to structures that provide teachers the opportunity to lead and grow, they are able to retain and develop great teachers in every classroom and ultimately create schools where all children succeed.
<<Insert school based/ additional why here>>

5. By the numbers
84% of teachers on teams perceive TLC as a positive innovation in their school.
96% of Team Leads believe that they are growing as a leader because of the responsibilities they have in this role.
85% of teacher on teams report that their Senior/Team Lead is successful at both evaluating their teaching practice and coaching them to improve.
86% of teachers on teams report their practice has improved as a result of working with a Senior/Team Lead.
What have been other schools experiences with Teacher Leadership & Collaboration?
The Teacher Leadership & Collaboration model has been successfully implemented throughout DPS with positive reactions from almost all who have participated. (Slide 5)
Teachers are receiving feedback that’s immediate and actionable. A lesson can get better from one class to the next. (Slide 5)
Teachers are improving in their practice through the one on one relationship with their team lead and the exchange of knowledge and ideas with their teams. (Slide 5)
Teachers believe in their team leads and their ability to coach, observe and evaluate them. (Slide 5)
Team leads are embracing their leadership role and find it extremely fulfilling. (Slide 5)
Team leads are impacting every classroom and growing the voice teachers have within their school. (Slide 5)
Source: TLC End of Year survey

6. What do teachers say about student impact?
“My Team Lead has been incredibly helpful and insightful and has ultimately impacted the growth of my students. It is rare for an autism center program teacher to get quality, data-driven coaching, but [my Team Lead] managed to provide both! Great experience overall!.” –Team Teacher
“My Team Lead has impacted my professional growth by providing teaching strategies and clarification regarding LEAP indicators. Through timely and
consistent conversations with my Team Lead, my understanding of how to better implement effective teaching strategies has ultimately improved student
outcomes.” – Team Teacher
“With her guidance, I've been able to instantly receive feedback and even make immediate changes to my lessons so that my
student can have instantly more effective instruction.”
-Team Teacher
“I leave my coaching sessions feeling like my students and my development are highly prioritized.”
– Team Teacher
“Her knowledge with thinking maps helped my students and me. My students enjoyed
having her in my room!”
– Team Teacher
Source: DR End-of-Year Survey
Team Teacher open feedback on Team Lead performance. n = 334

7. In a traditional school structure, teachers must choose: work directly with kids in their classroom or content area, or step into a leadership opportunity—such as a principal role—that reduces their classroom-level impact.
The “hybrid” senior team lead role allows great teachers to advance their careers by developing leadership skills—including coaching and evaluation, collaborative planning and building a strong team culture—while continuing to work directly with students every day.
A senior team lead spends about half their team teaching and half of their time working with the teachers on their team.
Senior team leads receive the same LEAP training as principals and extensive training before they take on these leadership roles. Schools hire for these positions and there is a specific eligibility criteria that must be met before teachers can apply.

8. In a traditional school structure, teachers must choose: work directly with kids in their classroom or content area, or step into a leadership opportunity—such as a principal role—that reduces their classroom-level impact.
The “hybrid” senior team lead role allows great teachers to advance their careers by developing leadership skills—including coaching and evaluation, collaborative planning and building a strong team culture—while continuing to work directly with students every day.
A senior team lead spends about half their team teaching and half of their time working with the teachers on their team.
Senior team leads receive the same LEAP training as principals and extensive training before they take on these leadership roles. Schools hire for these positions and there is a specific eligibility criteria that must be met before teachers can apply.
Other leadership roles include: Resident Mentor, Team Specialist, Regional Team Specialist, and New Teacher Ambassador

9. Senior Team Lead- Senior Team Lead spends half their time in the classroom teaching and half their time working with a team of teachers providing 1-on-1 observation and coaching, overseeing the end-to-end LEAP growth and performance evaluation for each teacher on his or her team, and facilitating collaborative team time.
Team Specialist- Team Specialists focus on building capacity of a subset of teachers aligned by grade level, content area, or other relevant grouping based on school need to effectively plan for and implement standards, by delivering high-quality facilitation of collaborative team time.
Regional Team Specialist- Regional Team Specialists are responsible for leading a cohort of teachers in an aligned content area across multiple schools who may not otherwise have opportunities to collaborate in like content, grade, or focus areas such as Beyond the Common Core subject areas including visual art teachers, PE teachers, music teachers etc.
New Teacher Ambassador- New Teacher Ambassador (NTA) is responsible for providing school-based logistical and social emotional support to all teachers new to DPS, including both novice and experienced, in order to build a sense of community, belonging, and understanding of their role in DPS

10. Turn and Talk
Turn to your neighbor and discuss what value do think TLC and these roles will bring to our school? What outstanding questions do you still have?

11. SELECT: Schools hire senior team leads and additional leadership roles
TLC Timeline
Oct-Dec 2016
DESIGN: Schools participate in workshops and meetings to create a teacher leadership team model of their own
Jan FUND: Schools receive funding notifications to support their current models for the school year
Feb- April 2017
SELECT: Schools hire senior team leads and additional leadership roles
April-May 2017
FINALIZE: Schools prepare to implement their TLC models in by finalizing their teams, schedules, and teacher leader supports.
Summer 2017
TRAINING: New team lead and teacher leader orientation takes place to prepare for the school year.
Where is our school in the Teacher Leadership & Collaboration process? (Slide 8)
Schools participate in a yearlong design and transition process in order to create a model that will best serve the needs of our teachers and students. Our model will be implemented in the school year.
October –Dec 2016: Ongoing design process which involves defining our school’s strategic vision for teacher leadership, determining our school’s long-term distributive leadership structure by organizing teachers into strong teams to support the school’s vision, identifying which teacher leader roles will support these teams and submitting TLC designs which include fully built out TLC model for SY TLC.
Dec : Feedback from all teachers on our school’s model
January 2017: We receive funding notifications to support our model for
Feb-April: Schools hire for teacher leadership roles
April-May 2017: Schools finalize their models
<<Update on current design status and progress relevant to your specific school>>

12. Providing Feedback
You can also talk to members of our school’s design team:
<<LIST DESIGN TEAM MEMBERS>>
<<INSERT SCHOOL NAME>> Upcoming Teacher Leadership Events and feedback opportunities:
<<INSERT SCHOOL BASED EVENTS/DEADLINES HERE>>

13. Questions?
To learn more about Teacher Leadership & Collaboration visit:
TLC on The Commons:
TLC website: