Teaching As Leadership Framework

The key to success as a teacher is strong leadership. Through years of studying our corps members’ performance and student progress, we have learned that our best teachers are successful because they use the strategies used by great leaders in all circumstances.  This philosophy is the basis for the Teaching As Leadership framework, the foundation for how we train and support corps members.  Corps members are introduced to this framework at institute, and learn to master these principles throughout their two years in the classroom.

Set Big Goals for Student Achievement
Students make the most significant progress when they are given ambitious, measurable goals.  Setting big goals and having high expectations for students’ ability to achieve them provides the motivation and focus needed to overcome obstacles on the path to academic success.

Meg Stewart (Bay Area Corps ’08) rallies her students around the idea that they are going to double their learning this year, demonstrating at least two years of reading growth and 80% mastery of rigorous math standards.

Invest Students and Families
Successful teachers break the cycle of low expectations faced by many students in low-income communities. They show students that if they work hard enough, they can and will achieve. They maintain high expectations for their students, while still meeting them where they are academically, so the students can succeed.

Julia King (Chicago Corps ’08) calls and texts parents throughout the day with updates on their children. As one father says, “She makes me feel like I’m in class with my daughter!” Each week Julia sends home student work with Post-Its for parents to add comments. When they’re returned to her, she laminates the comments and puts them on the wall to keep her students proud and motivated.

Plan Purposefully to Achieve Students’ Goals
The teachers who are most successful in the challenging environments of high-need schools begin every endeavor by asking: “Where are my students now versus where I want them to be?” and “How can I be most efficient in helping them move forward?” Successful teachers consistently plan backwards with a goal in mind and think about how to efficiently reach goals in all aspects of their teaching.

Before the year began, Julia King (Chicago Corps ’08) organized learning objectives into units and ordered them logically across the year so that the skills built on each other and the school’s calendar was taken into account. For each week’s unit plan, Julia looked at the objectives for that unit, then wrote five assessment questions per objective, and only then planned her lessons.

Execute Effectively and Adjust When Needed
Strong classroom leaders make sure that all of their actions contribute to the goal of student learning. They consistently monitor student progress and adjust course in light of changing realities around them. They offer students consistent and caring leadership, and constantly look for ways to maximize the amount of time students have to work toward their goals.

According to Megan Brousseau’s (New York Corps ’08) development manager: “From the handshake greeting at the door when you first enter the room to the high five you receive on the way out, Megan is consistent and clear with her rules, procedures, and lessons. Her kids know what to expect from her and are excited on a daily basis by what she has in store for them that day. She puts 110% into every lesson she teaches and her students have grown to love science as much as she does.”

Continuously Improve to Accelerate Student Learning
Strong leaders are their own toughest critics and search constantly for ways to improve their skills. The most effective teachers use data to diagnose issues and improve their teaching so that students make the most progress.

Meg Stewart (Bay Area Corps ’08) routinely videotapes her morning classes and reviews the footage that day, critiquing her instruction and tweaking lesson plans for the afternoon.

Work Continuously to Overcome Challenges

In many low-income communities, schools with the fewest resources serve students with the greatest needs. Our most successful teachers go above and beyond the traditional role of “teacher” and do whatever it takes to help their students reach their big goals. They refuse to allow inevitable challenges to become roadblocks and work hard to overcome them so that their students can succeed.

Because he is obsessed with his students’ college trajectory, Maurice Thomas (Atlanta Corps ’08) has made it his personal mission to do everything humanly possible to help them get on this path. He offers tutoring during lunch hour and after school every day except for Tuesday, which is reserved for faculty conferences. Maurice also runs a Saturday school from 8 a.m. until noon.