Teacher Leadership (T-Lead)

Auburn University is one of eight institutions participating in this project, whose overarching goal is to contribute to the field’s currently limited understanding of teacher leadership by thoroughly examining the influences of teacher leadership development on the persistence and professional trajectories of participants in Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program Master Teaching Fellows (MTFs) projects, including Auburn University’s NSF-funded TEAM-Math Teacher Leader Academy. T-Lead will gather data related to the structure of Noyce MTF programs, the professional trajectories of participating MTFs, the school contexts in which the MTFs operate, and the leadership activities in which they engage.

Goal 1: Determine the impact of the professional development models used in the various Noyce projects on the professional identities and trajectories of participating MTFs and look for patterns in the features of those models that may be correlated with teacher persistence.

Goal 2: Explore how different contexts, networks and leadership opportunities shape the decisions of MTFs to remain in classroom roles during and after the Noyce PD program.

Goal 3: Describe the leadership opportunities in K-12 systems that engage classroom teachers as leaders, and what are sustainable, scalable models that do or could exist to provide such opportunities.