From I to We: The Impact of Distributed Leadership

By Emily McLellan, Master Teacher, Iberville Parish Schools, Louisiana

Emily McLellan is a NIET 2024 Fellow and Master Teacher from Iberville Parish Schools in Louisiana. McLellan received her Bachelor of Arts in English, Secondary Education, and her Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction from Louisiana State University. She is currently pursuing a Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership from Liberty University and has held the role of Master Teacher at White Castle High School since 2020. Read more about her selection as an NIET Fellow here.

When I first stepped into my role as a Master Teacher at White Castle High School, I was filled with hope, enthusiasm, and an unwavering belief that I would successfully improve instructional practices and raise student achievement. I was confident that my knowledge of pedagogy and curriculum would be the only tools I needed to inspire teachers and grow students. Yet, as I began this work as a teacher leader, I quickly realized that the landscape of teaching and learning was far more complex than I had experienced as a classroom teacher. 

This realization became clear as I examined the varying needs of the teachers on our campus and discovered how much new learning our teachers were engaging in outside of the learning we facilitate in weekly professional development cluster meetings. Some teachers were learning a new curriculum. Others were beginning their career as teachers and learning best practices. Others were teaching a new grade level and were learning new content and state standards. The hope I had initially felt quickly turned to dread. How was I going to support teachers in navigating all of their new learning while also supporting them in implementing the new learning from weekly cluster meetings? It felt impossible to address all of these areas of need simultaneously. 

It wasn’t until I participated in my first instructional leadership team (ILT) meeting that I recognized the flaw in my thinking. I had centered my initial enthusiasm, and then dread, around the idea that I would be responsible for figuring out how to manage the seemingly impossible task. But by the end of that ILT meeting, the word I had transformed into the word we. 

I alone would not be shouldering the support for all teachers in their various learnings. Rather, we as an instructional leadership team would distribute our skills, expertise, and capacities across the entire school to more effectively support our teachers. 

With support from NIET’s senior specialists, our leadership team learned how to analyze teacher and student data to make the best decisions for how teacher support would look, and how to utilize our individual strengths to support the varying needs of our teachers. 

Distributive Leadership: Why It Works

The TAP System for Teacher and Student Advancement instructional leadership team is made up of school administrators as well as teacher leaders, including Master Teacher and Mentor Teachers. Through purposeful collaboration and intentional decision-making, we provide individualized support that meets the unique needs of the teachers on our campus. This model of distributed leadership has been invaluable for our teachers at White Castle High School. Among current teachers, 20% are in their first three years of teaching and 30% are teaching in a new content area or learning a new curriculum or new state standards. 

The impact of our work became most apparent in our support for one early career teacher who was learning a new content area, curriculum, and state standards. The instructional leadership team determined that together myself and a Mentor Teacher would be the most effective means of support. As the Master Teacher, I had experience teaching the grade-level content and state standards. The Mentor Teacher had experience with teaching the curriculum. As an ILT, we reviewed her students’ data to determine the biggest needs for instruction; then, the Mentor Teacher and I provided instructional support to address these needs that aligned with our strengths as instructional leaders, as well as her strengths in the classroom. Most of our support centered around using student work to make instructional decisions and creating and using high-quality success criteria to set clear expectations. Through the targeted and intentional support based on the individual strengths of the members of the ILT, this teacher grew her instructional proficiency 1.5 points by the end of her second year of teaching, using the 5-point performance levels of NIET’s Teaching and Learning Standards Rubric. Her students this year have likewise shown growth on their district benchmark assessments, with nearly 60% of students showing considerable growth between their beginning-of-year and middle-of-year assessments. This teacher’s remarkable shift in the confidence that she had in her ability to deliver high-quality instruction that positively impacted students was a model of how distributed leadership can support educators at every level.

Building Teacher Capacity with Authentic Coaching 

One of the great powers of teacher leadership lies in the authenticity of instructional coaching. When a coach has expertise in a particular content area or curriculum because they have had authentic experience with it, the instructional coaching is more meaningful, which leads to greater internalization of the new learning that the teacher receives. This is a unique strength of teacher leadership because we lead with that authenticity. Leading with this authenticity is a prime example of having credibility and demonstrating knowledge, two key aspects of effective teacher leadership according to Unleashing Teacher Leadership: A Toolkit for Ensuring Effective Instruction in Every Classroom by NIET CEO Dr. Joshua Barnett. When the Mentor Teacher and I supported our teacher, we discussed our real experiences as they were happening. I shared with her instructional strategies that I was using with my own students, and the Mentor Teacher facilitated peer observations, in which the teacher observed the Mentor’s classroom instruction to build capacity in specific areas that she was working on improving. One of the teacher’s biggest successes came with her decision to utilize success criteria as a reflection tool for students. I talked with her about how I had found success in bringing my success criteria to life, sharing with her some prompts for student reflection. The Mentor Teacher had likewise given her examples of how she presented and discussed her success criteria with her students. With authentic models and evidence of success, the teacher gained more confidence in lifting her success criteria out of her lesson plan and making it an active part of each lesson for students. Pretty soon, we noticed how that one instructional move led to significant improvements in how she presented instructional content, implemented activities and materials, and provided feedback to students. 

Establishing a Network of Support Across the School

Our instructional leadership team has also utilized the distributive leadership model to foster authentic coaching by recognizing and utilizing informal leaders on our campus who could serve as leaders. We started paying more attention to which teachers were natural, but unofficial leaders on our campus, who had expertise that aligned with the needed support for our teachers who were learning new content. These teachers provide support in many ways, including sharing resources, such as lesson plans or exemplar models, and allowing teachers to observe them during classroom instruction, and talking about how and why they have found success. Our collaboration with NIET has been effective because of its versatility in approaching teacher leadership with the understanding that it looks different in every system - that impactful teacher leadership recognizes that all educators have strengths, and the capacity to lead, including amongst each other. We use strategic partnerships in cluster meetings to foster authentic reflection in teachers who are developing their learning. By identifying the strengths and needs of all teachers, we have been able to establish a network of support that permeates throughout the school, so that all teachers, in whatever new learning they are engaging in, have multiple avenues of support. 

Distributive leadership is a powerful model for supporting teachers who have diverse needs. For teachers who are navigating the complexities of teaching while also learning new content, standards, or curriculum, the diversity of instructional support is crucial. My leadership team and I have found successes, great and small, in our approach to teacher support that was furthered by NIET’s partnership. By recognizing and valuing the strengths we each possess, and leveraging those strengths in strategic partnerships with teachers, we have found that distributing leadership, especially among teacher leaders, is the most effective and meaningful way to support teachers. Throughout my daily work as a teacher leader, I have noticed a remarkable change in my thinking from when I first began in this role. I always consider my team and my school as a unit, considering, “How are we going to support our teachers?” And that one word has made a world of difference.