LEADERSHIP ROLE PROJECT 1

Leadership Role Project

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Presented to the Department of Educational Leadership
and Postsecondary Education
University of Northern Iowa
--
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirement for the
Master of Arts in Education
--
by
Erica K. Barclay
The American School of Bombay
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
October 11, 2014
--
Dr. Timothy Gilson

LEADERSHIP ROLE PROJECT 2
This paper will serve as a description of a leadership role I assumed at the
beginning of the 2014 2015 school year. I will provide a description of the role, the
process by which I came to be in this role, what I have learned thus far in this role, and
how my personal experiences connect to my learning from the University of Northern
Iowa cohort, especially in this course of Studies in Educational Leadership.
This 2014 2015 school year I have taken on the role of Technology Integration
Coach in addition to my classroom position. My main responsibility is to assist
classroom teachers in EC3 and EC4 to successfully integrate the use of effective
strategies and multiple technologies in order to design differentiated learning experiences
and assessments that enhance student learning. This year, our school-wide focus in
technology comes from International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)
Standards for Teachers, Standard 2: Design and develop digital age learning experiences
and assessments (ISTE, 2008).
In this role I am responsible (under the guidance and with support of the Director
of Educational Technology) for identifying the two assigned grade levels teaching and
learning tech integration needs, barriers, and areas for growth in order to provide
effective professional development for the integration of technology. In addition, I am
expected to work with the Director of Educational Technology to facilitate school-based,
high quality professional development to refine teachers tech integration knowledge and
skills. It is also expected that I participate in appropriate professional development (on-
line or face to face courses) that will enable me to better fulfill the responsibilities of my
role.
LEADERSHIP ROLE PROJECT 3
This role was not one I initially sought out. Instead, the Elementary Technology
Coordinator approached me and encouraged me to apply. While looking over the
requirements of the role, I realized that I did indeed meet them pretty closely. Even
though I was aware of the posting I had not applied initially simply because I felt that I
wanted to finish this particular masters degree first. However, with the nudge from
Maggie, I knew I could do the job well. Getting the position was much more complicated
of a process than I anticipated. In my division there were five candidates chosen to
compete for three positions. We were asked to complete a lengthy application form
answering a variety of questions related to the skills the job would require. Then we had
to engage in a role-play scenario acting out how we would use our knowledge and skills
to coach others. There were several high-up school leaders present for the role-play and
it was also video recorded. It was a bit intimidating. I truly did not have a thought one
way or the other as to how well I did. Two weeks later each candidate was called in to
meet with the divisional principals. It was a bit of another interview but they had in fact,
already made their selections. I was told that I would be filling one of the positions. It
was exciting and also a relief to know that the time, work, and process had gone in my
favor.
At this point I am only a few months into my role. I have just begun to meet and
work with teachers in my Technology Coach capacity. To date, I have formally met
twice with each teacher in my assigned sections. Prior to that, all tech coaches met three
times to practice cognitive coaching. This has become a fairly big focus in the leadership
at our school and the leaders who have attended the official training are working hard to
teach, model, and practice it with the rest of us.
LEADERSHIP ROLE PROJECT 4
At the first formal meeting with teachers, I discussed my role of a Technology
Coach. A Technology Coach is not tech support (although we can certainly help), but
rather, a peer available to other teachers as a resource, coach, and guide for technology
integration and implementation in teaching. In addition, at this first meeting, each
teacher was given a copy of the ISTE Standards for Teachers (2008), and encouraged to
read over Standard 2, including the categories under it.
The second formal meeting was to help these teachers select and write out their
personal technology goals in connection to the school-wide technology focus. Research
by Leithwood and Seashore Lewis (2012) supports that teachers are more motivated
when they believe the circumstances in which they find themselves are conducive to
accomplishing the goals they hold to be personally important (p. 60). This is why it was
important not only that the goals be personally selected and meaningful to each teacher
but also that we discussed how they hoped to achieve their goals, what it would look like
at the end, and how I would support them along the way. Beyond supporting each
teacher in accomplishing their personal goals, this year will provide many other
opportunities for me to participate in in-class coaching, peer observing and/or modeling
of technology integration strategies, guiding teachers in looking at student work, and
developing lesson plans with teachers based on student needs.
In this position where I am helping guide teachers to have a focus on designing
and developing digital age learning experiences and assessments, the connections to
Teacher Leader Model Standards (TLMS) Domains III, IV, and V are clear (Teacher
Leadership, 2011). In correlation to TLMS Domain III, I am acting as a collaborator with
the teachers assigned to me to plan out their own personalized PD and serve as a coach
LEADERSHIP ROLE PROJECT 5
and mentor as they work towards achieving set goals. We will be working together this
whole school year to make sure their goals are helping achieve the end result of
improving student learning which ties in with TLMS Domain IV. Leithwood and
Seashore Lewis (2012) state that a core leadership practice is developing people through
providing individualized support and consideration and that leaders who help keep
track of teachers PD needs is something that teachers find instructionally helpful (p.
65). Closely linked to TLMS Domain V, I am also helping these teachers collect
appropriate data of the technologies they are using and the products they are producing
with technology both with students and independent of students. All the data gathered by
the various technology coaches will then be compiled for large scale statistical analysis
by the school to look at trends and help identify areas of strength as well as possible areas
of needed growth.
As this role is still new to me and is one that will be continuous through this
school year, it is difficult to reflect too much just yet but already I am learning the
nuances of it. I know that I have already needed to use many of the skills that were
identified in my leadership interviews. Listening in particular has been really important
and a skill I know I need to keep improving. As Hess (2008) points out, Effective
leaders listen. Leading is a by-product of learning, and learning comes from listening
(p. 44). As I tend to be a person who jumps in and says, ok, lets get this done, I know
I need to keep Hess words in mind and use the skills I have practiced in Cognitive
Coaching so far to truly hear what these teachers are telling me in order to help them
think though and verbalize what they want to say and do versus me telling them or
LEADERSHIP ROLE PROJECT 6
putting words in their mouth. No one can truly grow and learn if someone is always
supplying all the answers.
Being aware that this is an area of needed growth, this November I have signed up
to participate in a three-day workshop on Cognitive Coaching with Bill and Ochan
Kusuma-Powell at The American School of Bombay. It is my goal to learn as much as I
can about this practice so I may implement the strategies in ways that better support the
teacher I work with to be successful in carrying out their self-selected technology goals. I
have also really had to be mindful of time management, as I have to coordinate the
schedules of the five teachers I collaborate with and Technology Coach meetings in
addition to taking care of my own class of 12 students and UNI coursework expectations
not to mention making sure I have time for my family. The idea of balance has been
brought up so many times through all of our studies in this degree including this course
but it is one thing to read about it and another to apply it in real life. It would serve me
well to keep going back to the entirety of chapter 5, Spending Time in Lead, Follow, or
Get Out of The Way (Ramsey, 2006, pp. 67-77). The more responsibilities and
leadership a person takes on the harder it can be to have balance.
This role is certainly challenging me to think about the many aspects of
leadership. As several of the authors we have studied and through the posts and
reflections of the members in this cohort have indicated, leadership is something that can
be learned. However, unless that step is taken to be in a leadership role of any capacity,
everything is simply theory. It is when the knowledge, skills, and traits of leadership are
applied that one understands just how they all come together to create a true leader.

LEADERSHIP ROLE PROJECT 7


References
Hess, R. T. (2008). Follow the teacher. Maryland: Rowman Education.

International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). Standards for Teachers.
Retrieved from: http://www.iste.org/docs/pdfs/20-14_ISTE_Standards-
T_PDF.pdf

Leithwood, K., & Seashore Louis, K. (2102). Linking leadership to student
learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Ramsey, R. D. (2006). Lead, follow or get out of the way: How to be a more effective
leader in todays schools. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press

Teacher Leadership Exploratory Consortium. (2011). Teacher Leader Model
Standards. Retrieved from:
http://www.teacherleaderstandards.org/downloads/TLS_Brochure_sm.pdf