Who are the influential colleagues in your school? Why are they influential? We all know teachers who everyone admired as role models, supportive colleagues, and who were always ready to learn more. This study used social network theory to identify those teachers that are sought out by peers for professional advice followed by surveys and interviews to identify why these faculty members were so influential. What the study found is that teacher influencers have transformational qualities that are available to any teacher. These leadership qualities are described in the Model of Transformational Teacher Influence. For school principals, understanding your school's network is critical to the development of culture, collaboration, and successful innovation and sustainability of change. For pre-service teacher preparation programs, this research and model would support novice teachers as they embark on building relationships in their first years of teaching. For mid-career and veteran teachers who seek to contribute to their school-communities, the study describes with clarity how influence occurs among faculty opening spaces for all teachers to lead.
Deborah Shea is the director of Educational Leadership Programs at the College of St. Rose.
Chapter 1: Current challenges of capacity in today's schools Chapter 2: Teacher Leadership-An Elusive Construct Chapter 3: A Relational Network Perspective Chapter 4: A Structural Perspective- Features of Social Networks that Promote Interaction Chapter 5: The Qualities of Transformational Leaders: relational influence among teacher Chapter 6: The Role of the Principal: Identifying and leveraging Transformational Influence in School Networks Chapter 7: The Model of Transformational Teacher Influence-Applied to Systems
Dr. Shea's book details a rigorous study of individual teacher contributors (influencers) on the positive culture in schools. Translatable across systems and levels, Dr. Shea gives appropriate voice to the teachers "in the trenches" who have consistently moved curriculum, ideas, attitudes and culture forward without recognition from leadership in schools. Teachers love to share! It's our passion! And stifling that need, because of scheduling or timing or undervaluing, drains the joy out one of our greatest strengths. Sharing, collaborating and fostering relationships builds so much positivity, across grade levels and subject areas, it has always mystified me why principals would consistently steal time from those endeavors to force in one more obligation. Also providing work spaces in close proximity to colleagues and recognizing the importance of the density of teacher influencers should factor into district-wide decisions when restructuring schools. Dr. Shea's book should be required reading for principals. Principals need to be better able to recognize teacher influencers and be willing to cultivate and listen to ideas coming from teachers. Education has too long been a top-down hierarchy. There is so much talent and passion in teachers out there striving their very best to provide excellence for their students and their colleagues. It's time to recognize, support and promote those individuals. My hope is that this book becomes required reading in teacher preparatory and educational leadership institutes.--Constance W. Soron, College of St. Rose Teacher Leadership Reimagined helps us make important strides in exiting the dark age of solely assessing the impact of educational reform efforts and teacher leadership models on student achievement. Looking at teacher leadership in both informal and formal manifestations, the work explores one of the most promising new analytic tools - social network theory - to examine how information is shared in schools. Through this, we learn more about how essential information is shared and processed amongst and between teachers to make better decisions regarding teaching and learning - as well as new lenses through which to categorize the work of the most influential teacher leaders. Additionally, school leaders are cued into ways to look at the web of relationships in their schools, and maximize these for transformational learning.--Jason Margolis, Professor of Education, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA
