Instructional Teaching Team (l to r): Joe Walsh, Susan Villani, Susan Henry, Kathleen Buckley, David Troughton
Welcome to Moodle @ Massachusetts Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Here you will find access to high quality professional development utilizing 21st Century Skills.
The core purpose of this introduction is for you to understand the themes, norms, and the major outline of the program. The introduction will consist of three one-week lessons, starting Monday, January 4. During the three weeks, in addition to working on norm building, we will gain first-hand experience with both leading and participating in a group, and we will be introduced to the action research project and its early assignments.
The core purpose of this course is to explore ways that collaboration enhances school culture to promote adult and student growth. You will consider collegial relationships that enhance school culture, and learn and practice the Norms of Collaboration. You will assess your school’s commitment to Professional Learning Community principles and identify ways to infuse information to enhance groups’ functioning.You will learn more about cultural proficiency and the necessity of support often needed to promote collegialtiy among teachers of different races and ethnicities. You will plan for and have discussions with colleagues to advance cultural proficiency in your school/district.
The core purpose of this course is encourage you to think and reflect on yourself and others as individuals who develop and change through out a career in teaching. You will begin by learning about stages in a teacher’s career and the characteristics of those stages. You will identify your own stage and then, through interviews, you will evaluate how other teachers are influenced by their experience and stage. You will also consider how the generation into which you are born can influence thinking and behaviors and what members of different generation expect from leaders. Then you will review principles of adult learning and plan ways to use these ideas for more effective personal and professional development. You will finish this module with a discussion of the value of reflective practice in supporting teacher leaders and educators in general through out a career.
The core purpose of this course is to explore ways to build and lead effective learning communities.You will have opportunities to consider the four hats of leadership: facilitating; presenting; coaching; and consulting. You will learn more about and strengthen your facilitation and coaching skills. You will consider ways to match your knowledge and skills with the goals and needs of a group. You will identify the components of time efficient and effective meetings, and design a meeting agenda that includes some of the facilitation strategies you learned. Throughout, you will envision how you, as a teacher leader, can use the knowledge and skills you practiced during the course with adults.
The core purpose of this course is to delve into the knowledge base on teacher leadership, to extend your understanding of leadership theories, and to apply this knowledge to local leadership challenges.
We will learn about the relationship between teacher leadership and school improvement and will examine how historically persistent school norms and previous conceptions of teacher leadership may influence our efforts to lead. We will analyze locally-relevant leadership dilemmas from four key perspectives and consider how and when to match leadership approaches to the needs of a given situation.
The core purpose of this course is to examine the knowledge, skills and dispositions needed by teacher leaders who want to contribute to positive change within their schools, districts and communities. You will learn how to develop an action plan for change that leads to sustained improvement in student learning. You will examine the politics of change and assess how national, state and local organizations influence and advocate their mission and beliefs. You will learn how to deal with conflict, push-back and resistance to change.
The purpose of this intensive two-week course is to consider several new arenas where your teacher leadership skills and knowledge may be applied. This course is intended to excite your imagination and help you develop a vision for how you might use your leadership skills to strengthen not only student learning, but the profession-at-large.
You will work in a different interest group for each week of the course. Based on provided readings and online research, you will explore and discuss the opportunities and challenges of selected initiatives, articulate your individual position and questions about these initiatives, and develop an action plan for bringing others into conversation about the area of interest which you find most compelling as a teacher leader.
