Success at the Core Leadership Module

Ready to jump into this module's content? We suggest that you:

1. Watch the module's videos, keeping in mind the Reflection Questions.

2. Look at the handouts and facilitator guide and think about how you could engage in this module's learning experience with schoolwide, content, and/or grade level teams at your school.
 

Success at the Core

is a professional development toolkit for teachers and leadership teams, designed collaboratively by Education Development Center (EDC), which designs, implements, and evaluates programs to improve education, health, and economic opportunity worldwide, and Vulcan Productions, Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul G. Allen’s award-winning film company. Original materials were funded by Vulcan Productions, Inc. and are used with permission.

Leadership Development Module

Instructional Expertise

The bar for student outcomes goes up each year. Often, schools have to fight to ensure that their instruction improves at the same rate. One way to keep pace is to build staff capacity by engaging teachers and teams of teachers within a school in sharing their expertise with each other. In this module, your leadership team will develop a common understanding of instructional expertise; examine how to use instructional expertise to address teachers' needs; and identify how staff with expertise can share their knowledge with peers.

Reflection Questions:
As you prepare to explore this module's resources, consider:
• What are the potential benefits of tapping into in-house instructional expertise?
• To what degree does our school utilize the instructional expertise of staff members to improve student learning?
• What role can our leadership teams (including schoolwide, content, and grade-level teams) play in connecting teachers with expertise to teachers who need support?

Video Resources

1. Using Expertise to Group Students
Watch how the eighth grade science team at Covington Middle School assesses the instructional expertise of team members and creates differentiated labs to meet diverse student learning needs.

2. Learning Among Teachers
In this video, you’ll see how coaches at Sylvester Middle School help broker teacher-to-teacher learning opportunities. To do so, they teach classes or conduct demonstration lessons on “Free-Up Fridays,” observe teachers to identify areas of expertise, and connect teachers with expertise to teachers seeking support.

3. Effective Coaching Systems
Shaw Middle School uses coaching systems to improve instruction across content areas. Notice how these systems strategically provide instructional expertise to teachers.

Dig Deeper
  • Module Handouts
    Handouts designed for teams working through the module together. They include reflection sheets, readings, and group exercises.
  • Facilitator Guide
    This guide allows an in-house facilitator to lead a team through the module’s learning experience.